荣辱二十年：我的股市人生

好期待的一本书。。。『股市人生』，还是『荣辱二十年的股市人生』呢！试问金融玩家如我怎能错过呢？

这是本很特别的自传。里头有的不只是作者“从无到有”的事迹。。。更多的是关于作者“有到无”的精彩人生。。。看完整本书，我个人感触良多。想在一个不成熟的市场进行那么多的改革本身就非常的不容易。更何况，作者面临的是一个从零（负数？）开始的市场。过程中的酸甜苦辣只有作者个人才能了解。我只能说，如果我是作者，里头的是是非非还真的让人有点不堪回首。。。不过，老实说，我还真有点怀疑作者的动机。。。或许，这不是一本普通自传那么简单。。。更多的是，作者想帮自己讨回个公道。。。

整体来说，这是本不错的自传。至少，我个人体会到一个不成熟机制所产生的种种累赘和包袱。这本书真的开拓了我的个人视野。。。缺点是，这本书有些部分还蛮沉闷的。毕竟，我不是当事人。我无法了解当事人当年所遇到的苦难。我无法融入当事人抱着种种理想想要改革的精神。我更不可能清楚体会到当事人在南方证券所受的种种委屈。因此，阅读的过程还真的需要点耐心。10分满分，我给个6分。有些视野开拓了，但不一定要持续研究。毕竟，“观其大略”和“好读书，不求甚解”才是我的重点。所以，6分应该是合理吧，哈！

Wall Street People: True Stories of today's Masters and Moguls

This is supposed to be a nice book ~~~ A collection of brief profiles featuring 85 Wall Street leaders, must be a nice read especially for traders with little experiences like me… However, I think my expectations were too high in the first place. It is rather silly to expect anything positive from a book with over 300 pages, covering 85 big names. At the end, it is too simplified for newbies; yet too general for experienced traders…

Not only that… the contents seems very familiar!!! I am not sure. But, I do think the author copy and paste from somewhere. The worst part is… nothing is concluded at the end of each briefing. The story just ended suddenly and we are moved into next character with no conclusion at all.

Secondly, the content was not updated at all. For newbies, perhaps they are not aware of this. But, for traders with little experiences like me, I know what is going on for the past 20 years. Since I am not reading historical stuff, I see no sense of reading outdated articles… LOL.

Overall, I am quite disappointed with this book. Hence, I am rating it at 2/10. Why 2 points are given? Well, at least I can still draw out few (very few indeed, LOL) interesting and meaningful quotes as below. Apart from that, like I said above; this book does not help newbies… and experienced players will not benefit much from this book too…

Bernard M. Baruch ~~~ 

1.     “Being so skeptical about the usefulness of advice, I have been reluctant to lay down any “rules” or guidelines on how to invest or speculate wisely.”

2.     “Don’t speculate unless you can make it full time.”

3.     “Beware of barbers, beauticians, waiters – or anyone- bringing gift of ‘inside’ information or ‘tips’.”

4.     “Don’t try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can’t be done – except by liars.”

5.     “Learn how to take your losses quickly and cleanly. Don’t expect to be right all the time.”

6.     “Don’t buy too many different securities. Better have only a few investments which can be watched.”

7.     “Never invest all your funds.”

8.     “Don’t try to be a jack of all investments. Stick to the field you know best.”

Roy Neuberger ~~~

1.     “One of the best ways to be a good investor is to be in good physical condition. And by good physical condition, I also mean good mental condition.”

2.     “In any case, to walk at least one hour a day, either by yourself or with someone else, is a good way to improve your investing ideas. Walking is better than running; you can’t work out an idea running.”

Charles Allen Jr. ~~~

1.     There were losses, but never on a scale remotely comparable to his winnings… By the same realistic reasoning he dislikes a fight, and will rarely engage in one from choice… “A fight takes up too much time. There are so many other ways of making money you don’t have to do it.”

Warren Buffet ~~~

1.     “I have in life all I want right here. I love every day. I mean, I tap dance in here and work with nothing but people I like. I don’t have to work with people I don’t like.”

2.     “Keynes essentially said don’t try and figure out what the market is doing. Figure out business you understand, and concentrate. Diversification is protection against ignorance, but if you don’t feel ignorance, the need for it goes down drastically.”

The Investor's Dilemma: How Mutual Funds Are Betraying Your Trust And What To Do About It

First of all... financial planner and mutual fund advisor are not going to recommend this book to any of their potential customers... Well, since I am not going to be their potential target, of course I have this book on my shelf, LOL.

Wow... what a book! It reveals tons of "betraying" stuff and the author successfully wrote a superbly researched and well organized book. The chronology and evolvement of fund management are well researched and readers will enjoy reading every single facts of it. Honestly, those "betrayal" stuff may sounds familiar to financial guys like me. But, a refresh always serves as a good reminder and I truly appreciate the hard work by the author.

In fact, something ponders my mind after finished the whole book. This book not only reveals some of the significant betrayal stuff. It also reveals how tough it is to survive in the cruel world of investment. So, the next question is: Are they betraying investors purposely or they simply could not find a way to beat the market consistently? At the end, when a player cannot win consistently, playing with marketing gimmicks (with the aim at short term financial goals) seems to be the better and easier method to survive... So, this is why we have the situations where mutual funds tend to focus more on the management fee rather than the fund performances. More evidence were pointed out by the author when most of the time, the key men of the fund never invested their own money alongside the public. Sounds weird, but true...

Another good (cruel in fact) point presented by the author is on the facts that the fund wanted to use the assets in the fund themselves. In short, they simply wanted to take a portion of investment to pay for ads in Money magazine and the like. Further evidence was found when the author describes Fidelity as a marketing firm rather than an investment company. I personally enjoy the examples given by the author by comparing the fund management against the soap maker of Unilever. Amazingly, they are actually so close to each other in terms of picking up profit, LOL.

Overall, this is a splendid book to explore... I personally rate it at 10/10. It is a book for all who are keen to invest in mutual funds... 

The Ultimate Trading Guide

This is a special book to me... In the first place, there were some spelling mistakes. As such, the first impression was not that good. Eventually, the contents getting better and better even though there are still some spelling mistakes, LOL. Surprisingly... at the end of the book; except the predictive stuff, I actually think this is a nice book...

Let me begin with all the flaws... Spelling mistakes aside, I started to lose my patience at the very beginning when all the predictive tools are present. As such, the first few parts on how to spot trends are so dull and boring to me. Well, it does not means the author presented something bad. The fact is: I do not belong to that school of thoughts.

Secondly, the second very bad impression came out when the author tried to promote their own software. It was mentioned several times in the book. However, since the promoting part is not obvious, I actually find myself accepting it at the end. Perhaps, credit must be given to the contents. At the end, if the contents are good enough, readers would not mind with all the marketing gimmicks.

Thirdly, this is a book with good main points... However, it is a book that never going deep enough to explain things in details. I thought the authors did so well in presenting their main ideas. However, newbies may find it hard to digest certain ideas (due to lack of detailing) even though those ideas are obviously the wisdom of trading.

With all the minor weaknesses as mentioned above, I actually found many good points in this book. Matured traders like me (still an amateur though) will enjoy this book. My requirements in reading trading books are very simple: I want to explore myself to new ideas. Meantime, if there are zero new stuff, valid old ideas with good presentation will help and serves as a good revision too. Obviously, this book did his part ~~~ It refreshes my mind with some of the long forgotten wisdom. It reminds me of the very important reason on why I stick to my current school of thoughts. In fact, I personally love the below mentioned myth and facts concerning trading systems:

Myth: Only good trading systems cost thousand of dollars.
Fact: A holy grail does not exist.

Myth: The market are too chaotic for a simple approach to work.
Fact: The market aren't really that complex. They are either trending or not. 

Myth: Markets are too different for a single approach to work.
Fact: We have never seen a single approach work in all markets. However, we have seen systems that work in a majority of markets. 

Myth: If a system trades multiple markets, then the parameter need to be optimized for each individual market. 
Fact: If a system is based off of sound market principles then it should be robust enough to work with similar parameters for all markets... Instead of fixed parameters you should use market defined parameters.

Myth: All the good systems are under control of multimillion & CTAs.
Fact: Most successful CTAs do use trading systems. The systems they use are the systems available to anybody.

Myth: Markets are constantly changing, therefore systems need to be re-optimized periodically.
Fact: There will be times when a market won't have any direction and during this time all systems will have draw downs. Re-optimizing a system will curve fit the most recent historical data. Who knows how long the market will continue to act in the same manner.

Myth: I should expect the same return and maximum draw down that was portrayed when I historically back tested my system.
Fact: In my experience, you should expect 1/2 the profit and twice maximum draw down. 

Myth: I can make 100% a year trading futures.
Fact: I have seen systems do this on a couple of occasions, but never consistently. 

The whole myth and facts brought me back to those naive days... Even though I am still an amateur, but it recorded my growth path and the myth and facts made me who I am today...

Rating wise; although I personally love this book, I am only rating it at 6/10. This book deserved a place on my personal library. However, I need to filter out those irrelevant stuff as mentioned above. Well, nothing is perfect in this world, LOL. 

世界"公敌":何塞•穆里尼奥

我很少买翻译书籍。。。因此，对于大陆作者拟写外国自传的书籍，我更是非常的抗拒。 但，这本书的主题的确很吸引我 ～～～ “世界公敌”这个形容词的确很贴切。。。

书里的一些内幕挺劲爆的。。。比如说，原来穆里尼奥当初的第一选择并不是蓝军，而是红军（红军球迷走宝了，呵呵！）。。。德尚原来差那么一小点就把狂人穆里尼奥给踢开了。。。老实说，疯狂球迷如我未必知道这些内幕。毕竟，“世界公敌”根本就不是枪手的一分子。哈！

第一次阅读大陆作者拟写外国自传的书籍，感觉挺好的。。。至少，名字翻译方面完全不成问题。另外，对于追惯欧洲足球新闻的我来说；从亚洲人的眼光去解读穆里尼奥还真的是不错的体验。三位作者不偏不倚的评论挺到位。而且，作者们在分析狂人性格方面也很独到。至少，不会太“欧洲”式。。。

唯一的不足是。。。这本自传出得太早。如果把最近皇家马德里众叛亲离的事迹输入书中，这本自传肯定更有看头。毕竟，能在一个赛季和首席守门员（也是队长），拉莫斯（副队长）和葡萄牙帮的佩佩，C罗结怨也不是件容易的事。世界公敌不愧是世界公敌。。。

整体来说，因个人非常钟爱足球；所以这本书，我是超喜欢的。。。10分满分，个人是给足满分。理由是，作者评论得不错。。。书本设计得非常耀眼。。。里面还不乏一大堆富有色彩的图片。。。以我个人角度来说，虽不是枪手的故事，但真的太精彩了！！！

是时候找一找来自中国内地关于其它体育自传的书籍了。。。

蒋介石与陈洁如的风流怨债

很糟糕的一本书（难怪市面上不多）。。。订购时，老友恒河网李总还花了好多时间寻找的一本书。。。结果，真是本烂书。。。评分方面，10分满分，连1分都不值得给。。。这是本名副其实的零分书籍。。。

怎么个烂法？书名是蒋介石与陈洁如。。。但，整本书80%就是蒋中正的事迹。陈洁如顶多也只是这本书的花瓶（还是个小花瓶）。。。真搞不懂作者的动机。。。烂！！！

再来，蒋介石的事迹本来就够沉闷。作者本身擅长拟写长篇小说。因此，故事情节理应不会那么沉闷。结果，除了一大堆对号入座的细节，我还真的看不出此书有什么吸引人的地方。。。最糟糕的是；原本以为终于可以一睹蒋介石浪漫生活的一面，结果作者选择性的把老蒋的军事生涯当成本书的重点。。。我的天呀！！！

或许，陈洁如在蒋介石的生活中的确只能扮演着花瓶的角色。。。但，作者蓄意安排那么一个主题还真的把众多读者给蒙骗了（当然，我也是傻傻天真的那一位！）。。。最后总结；如果要读蒋中正事迹，我个人觉得这本书肯定不称职。（个人对于蒋中正的事迹和书籍是非常熟悉的。。。）如果想读一读所谓的风流怨债，那就算了吧。。。诚如我以上所说，陈洁如最多只出现那么一丁点。如果那一丁点也能衬托出一段风流怨债，那作者的手笔可就是一流中的一流了。。。呵呵呵。

最后评语：货不对办。。。烂，就是烂！！！