Diary Of A Hedgehog

The legendary and late Barton Biggs is the author of "Hedgehogging" and "A Hedge-Fund Tale of Reach & Grasp"~~~ two of my all time favourite books... In fact, "Diary of a Hedgehog" is the final book from the said author. He completed shortly this book before his untimely passing... R.I.P to the great man who had contributed so much in the world of investment as well as his writing stuff....

So, how good is this book? Relatively; compares to the author's other books, this is definitely not the best book to pick on. Well, this is a book that reveals the author's assessment of the economy from 2010-2012. As such, it is like reading newspaper column with tons of past events that we are very much aware of... To make things worse, it is more or less like reading some old newsletter since the assessment itself were very much outdated. The good point is... since it is outdated, we have the opportunity to review on the thought process of a smart investor. After all, those economic events already happened and the author's assessment at various point can showed us how good he is to qualify as a legendary investor.

Having said that... for a full score of 10, I am giving this book 3/10. To be honest, I admire the late Barton Biggs. However, reading newsletter does not seem to be my cup of tea. In fact, the so called "final words" by the author are not  really interesting. It failed to inspire me in triggering any further thoughts on investment as a whole. End up; it is just another dull book although I did pick up one or two excellent quotes as below:

In reality there are times to stick to your guns and there are times to cut and run. However, you can burn up a lot of performance dancing around trying to avoid wiggles.

The first word in analyst is Anal.

If investing were just all history, the historicans would be billionaires.

"We  must base our asset allocation not on the probabilities of choosing the right allocation but on the consequences of choosing the wrong allocation." ~~~ Jack Bogle

Mr. Market and clients don't give a hoot about your hip or mental state. You still have to perform and make the right decisions.

Every investor is different and everyone has his or her own releases... Figure it out, and when the stress mounts, stick to your own routines.

Overall, not a bad book... but, simply not good enough compares to the famous "Hedgehogging"...