The Aggressive Conservative Investor (Wiley Investment Classics)
by Martin J. Whitman, Martin Shubik
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Publisher: Wiley
Salesrank: 20087List Price: $19.95
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A good companion to “The Intelligent Investor” (2007-12-25)
This book was written by two (now wildly successful) fund managers. The prose and style is clearly mid-70s, but the advice is still sound.
In particular, I liked the contrarian recommendation to buy companies w/ LOW margins. That accompanied with mean reversion of sectors gives you plenty of bang for your buck.
The differentiation of economic and accounting earnings - I have yet to see this descirbed anywhere else. I also have yet to see a sell-side analyst understand this concept.
There are also many good real world examples that we find occuring again and again and again and again….this alone makes it worth the read.
That being said, getting through this was a slog. It felt too much like a dry text book. Maybe I am a victim of flashier editing that is in vouge these days….The Financial-Integrity Approach (Safe & Cheap) (2007-06-06)
After reading this book years ago, I was interested in reading it again for the new release version. Though it is not really an updated main text version, it does have a new forward by Eugene Isenberg (current Chairman of Nabors Industries) and new introduction by the original authors of Martin Whitman and Martin Shubik. Irrespective, it was still an enlightening experience to go over the material again. Since the original printed edition, I believe Mr. Whitman’s record speaks for itself, that the “safe and cheap” methods espoused in The Aggressive Conservative Investor are good foundations to a good investment education for what the authors call “the outside passive investor”.
However, as some other reviewers have pointed out, this book is not your average investor book structured for easy reading with quick formulas. The book is for the more serious investor as its authors clearly state, for example, “In presenting our position, considerable space is devoted to describing the real world faced by both outsiders and insiders”. Their point is that in understanding the viewpoints of both the insider whether corporate management, the banker and/or financier, the directors, the short-term trader, and the outside passive investor, will help you along your way in understanding what may be happening in the market and why because of the interested parties perspective.
Though the book is a little more rough sailing because of this background perspective, to assist, one (after reading the introduction) may want to start in Section 5
As for the safe and cheap method, considerable time is spent with emphasis on the importance of the financial position of the security under consideration. This Financial-Integrity approach is detailed and viewed from all the players perspectives in the transaction of a security purchase (or seller) to emphasize the concept of the “guaranty”. In addition, even though the authors do state their differences with the Graham & Dodd methods, I feel in the end they are more connected at the hip than their stated differences may imply or indicate.
All in, if you are willing to spend the time and do the work, whether reading annuals, 10-Ks, 10-Qs, then reading this book will assist you in becoming a better investor in your investing activities, but the trip is not recommend for the casual weekend reader.Value investing produces excellent results (2007-02-10)
but today with all the new tools available to the investor there is a superior method of selecting value stocks. The method is simply use an index that is specifically built to capture the value premium. Then using this index find an Exchange Traded Fund that tracks the Index.
Enough said here is a suggestion.I recommend a little book titled How to Make Money in the Stock Market-Buy 2,500 different stocks for $1000 - Pay no Commission This book is a must for those wanting to find out about indexing (passive investing) and why it is the superior method for the small investor (and big one too). This book is an outstanding guide to personal investing. It will be useful to all investors from novices to highly the highly experienced. This book prepares the reader to approach investing from the standpoint of the underlying science. It is the antithesis of a ‘get rich quick scheme’.
All aspects of Modern Portfolio Theory and passive (index) investing are explained in a through and easily understood manner. The aspect I like most is that as well as a solid theoretical foundation the book is very practical and shows the reader how to create (and more importantly) and manage over time a successful portfolio. This is a great book- for the beginning investor, it’s a great place to start and for the experienced investor there are many valuable suggestions. How to Make Money in the Stock Market-Buy 2,500 Different Stocks-Pay no Commission
A masterpiece (2006-12-28)
The most extraordinary part of The Aggressive Conservative Investor is that it tells the reader how minority investors can benefit by knowing and understanding how control investors make investment decisions.
If one is smart enough to realize how insiders and control investors made fortunes by taking advantage of the market cycles to do the arbitrage between private and public market, one will come to appreciate the beauty of the safe-and-cheap approach as detailed in this book.
I have come across a few negative comments on the book regarding the use of “out-dated” materials. This certainly does not take me by a surprise, as not everybody has 50 years of investment experience as Whitman does, so, naturally, not everybody can understand what “there is no new thing under the sun” means.waste of time!!!!! (2006-11-06)
This book is a total waste of time and effort!!!! It is poorly written and very vague. Also, its information is too old!!!
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