He sounds brilliant; I probably should have kept my mouth shut. But, since I didn't... my initial reaction was to the reviews. When you have phrases like "new, lower-risk" combined with a lot of jargon and hype about innovative observations, it's usually a warning sign. The first reviewer noted that "The entire work could be 2-3 chapters in normal prose and outline." A lot of books that bill themselves as groundbreaking or heavy duty are built on simple, straightforward ideas with a lot of padding around them. Others of this type are filled with independent chunks of data rich information that don't actually lead to a broader understanding of anything, like a meal where you only get a single bite of each course. I'm a fan of simplicity whenever possible because you'll usually get as much complexity as you can handle simply through the act of information intake and decision making, and the time for drilling down is after you know the lay of the land, not before. Far better to start with the basics and ask yourself questions, in my opinion, than to jump into complexity from the start and neglect your foundation.
Well, I understand that real estate is in the same world of finance as trading and that it all links together at the macro level. And I also understand that switching from one instrument to real estate is somewhat like going long to short for a trader. But, that said, the devil is always in the details. This guy has succeeded fantastically as a businessman, real estate developer and trader. Imho each of these would require many different skill/knowledge sets. I always admired Buffett for going cross-sector and making one great investment decision after another. The research, the attention to detail, the mastery over his personal psychology, etc., etc. that he must have gone to is mind boggling to me. (And poor Buffett - only 8,000 shares of BRKA exchanged one day last week...) If there are macro futures guys doing well in multiple commodities (which I know there are), I feel the same way. But Lewis is in the top tier as well for going into completely different financial instruments if you ask me. Let me ask this question: if this is relatively straightforward, why has noone else done it? I think the guy may be the Da Vinci of the financial world...
I know virtually nothing about real estate, but isn't all leverage highly risky? If the guy was leveraged, then undoubtedly he made one "coincidentally" brilliant decision after another or he would have blown himself out just like some in futures/forex or anything else highly leveraged, right?
Me too. PS: I'm also a firm believer of : "One learns the most from mistakes, not successes." --- Paul Tudor Jones (Market Wizards by Schwager)
I would believe they both are dealing basically and chiefly "Control of Risks". Q ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS IN THE INSTITUTIONAL PORTFOLIO Schneeweis/Karavas/Georgiev (AIMA, updated 2002) Originally created in 1998, this is the first research paper to take a range of possible portfolio compositions - from equal stock and bond to stock, bond, real estate, commodities, and other alternative investments - and provide proof that alternative investments can assist in risk diversification and return maximisation. UQ http://www.aima.org/aima.asp?id=40 Q The CAIA exams cover both traditional (real estate, private equity and commodity) and modern (hedge fund and CTA) alternative investment vehicles with current emphasis on hedge funds. UQ http://www.caia.org/certification/index.htm
U know whats really annoying is how some people look at these market wizards as if they are gods or some type of idol. PTJ said this and he said that... wow... like that junk is really gonna make me a great trader. So PTJ said cut losers fast... u learn more from mistakes... wow.. ground breaking stuff. Most of the stuff is common sense and wont mean shit. I hear PTJ uses Elliot wave.. also Fibs.. blah blah. What makes him money will not make any of us any money at all. Yea some of them made fortunes.. could of been pure luck. PTJ is no different. Yea he is a good money manager and has a good track record.. but again he also could of had a lot of luck throughout his career that gave him the edge. The best example of why most of the stuff is bullshit is Richard Dennis. Yea he made tons of $.. but the truth is much of it was based on luck. He happened to be trading commodities in the most inflationary environment of the century. Then later the guy completely blows up. After the blow up his long term track on a risk to reward basis looks like shit. The truth is he was at the right place at the right time.. did huge size and made a killing. Then his bag of tricks of donchian breakouts didnt work well and his game was over... he went into politics and crap and failed miserabely. Someone like Buffet is in a different category. He doesnt trade on useless technical systems that go through cycles of boom and total bust... he has the ability to seek value and use his brains. He doesnt have motos or some type of magical indicator.. he just knows when something is really cheap and steps up to the plate. Something like that u actually have to have brains for. --MIKE
So do you agree with this ? http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31501&perpage=6&pagenumber=8
Oooh. Aaah. Other than graduate work in astronomy, that CAIA sounds like the most intriguing course work I've ever heard about... Anyway, I think we're probably thinking similarly but emphasizing different aspects. Here's another example: let's say you have a stellar actor that does incredibly well at directing and screen writing. You're emphasizing the similarities in the three achievements and I'm emphasizing the differences. I don't want to be nauseatingly agreeable, but I think we're both right...
Maybe I'm twisted, but I've always liked biographical material - I find it fascinating to see how successful people have achieved great things. I don't think that you gain much from the details of their life necessarily since the conditions of your life and culture will be significantly different. But I still think there's a lot to be gained from analyzing how they handled (or didn't handle) adversity, time management, risk, relationships, self-discipline, etc., etc.
This is marketing. It is a long time that they justify derivatives as to cover risks. This is laughable more leverage amplifies both gain and losses. When the hedge funds lose they don't lose their money they lose OPM (Others People Money) so sure they can promote that it is less risky . As for "proof" I will be extremely suspicious when it is pure stochastics and the fundamental law is unknown the law of probability cannot just apply as simply as in natural phenomena so that the term "proof" is largely overstated but the public is eager to believe what they want to believe. The public want to believe that risk can be eliminated whereas risk can only be transferred. When it is a zero sum game talent but also chance will intervene. Since people trust portfolio manager solely on marketing reputation well ... even if they don't they have low ability and/or miss datas to judge objectively since all they are shown are performance and I regret to say that performance (of course accompanied with their subsidiary stats which are useless because they don't take into account the fact that they don't know the underlying prob distribution) alone is not guaranteed of any reproductibility in the future. At the moment all the pretended proofs are based on performance not astonishing that funds explode and that people are astonished that they explode since they were made to believe that astonishing performance cannot turn into bad ones.