Book Description
Mandelbaum and Myers continue their survey of Hollywood style, this time focusing on the films of the Forties. The filmgoer's passion for the sleek lines of Art Deco faded by the Forties, and the studio art directors responded with a melange of contrasting styles that Mandelbaum and Myers have dubbed High Pastiche. The war, as well as different modes of work, play, and transport, contributed to the visual exuberance of Forties cinema design, and the authors again display their wit and knowledge in this fascinating look at an under-appreciated aspect of Hollywood history. Again, the generous selection of stills concludes with a gallery of stars dripping with that Forties style.
Product Description
This expanded edition of the acclaimed Modern Guitar Method Grade 3 contains outstanding solos, etudes, chord melody studies, scale studies and duets in the keys of A, F#m, G, D, Em, Bm, F, Dm, Bb, Gm, Eb, Cm, Ab and Fm! In addition, 2nd and 3rd positions are thoroughly explored. Every concept in the original Grade 3 has been expanded with ample playing material. Completion of this text will assure that the guitar student is well on the way to becoming an accomplished guitarist.
Product Description
This book begins with the key of A major and immediately introduces right-hand accompaniment concepts before moving on to the relative minor key of F#. Notes in the first position on the first four strings are reviewed before approaching scales, chords and etudes in keys of B-flat major/G minor, E-flat major/C minor, and A-flat major/F minor. Includes theory lessons regarding intervals, harmonized scales, triads, expression marks and syncopation plus techniques of glissando, ascending and descending slurs, and tremolo. Written in standard notation only.
Product Description
Internationally acclaimed. This book will take the student guitarist thriugh a carefully graduated method of melody-cord playing.
The solos and duets have been arranged to keep the student enthused.
Book Description
In this easy-to-read guide, openings expert John Cox goes back to basics, studying the essential principles of Alekhine's Defence and its numerous variations. Throughout the book there are an abundance of notes, tips, and warnings to guide improving players, while key strategies, ideas, and tactics for both sides are clearly illustrated.
Customer Reviews:
A good recent book on Alekhine's Defence.......2005-08-06
This book is a good introduction to 1 e4 Nf6 whether you play it with White or Black.
The author has some recommendations about how to play it. With White, he advises the main line (1 e4 Nf6 2 e5 Nd5 3 d4 d6 4 Nf3), and he gives advice on how to play it solidly or tactically and theoretically.
I figured this book wouldn't help me with White, since I play 2 Nc3. But Cox does give a game that goes 1 e4 Nf6 2 Nc3 d5 3 e5 Ne4 4 Nce2 d4 5 c3. That's a good line for White, and Black would be better off with 2...e5, letting White choose between a Vienna and a Four Knights.
Now, what about the Alekhine with Black? You may say you don't play it! But what if you get in a blindfold game, and your opponent plays 1 d4 Nf6 2 e5 (only now do you discover that White's first move was 1 e4). Or maybe you are in a 5-minute game and you want to have some fun with Black and not play your main defence. The author boasts that you can be prepared to meet 1 e4 in 30 minutes. Against the main line, you can try 4...dxe5 5 Nxe5 c6. Against 1 e4 Nf6 2 e5 Nd5 3 d4 d6 4 c4, you play 4...Nb6 5 f4 (if 5 exd6 exd6) dxe5 6 fxe5 c5 7 d5 g6. Against 1 e4 Nf6 2 e5 Nd5 3 c4 Nb6 4 c5 Nd5 5 Nc3, you play 5...c6, intending to follow this up with ...e6 and ...b6. If White plays 1 e4 Nf6 2 e5 Nd5 3 Nc3, you play 3...Nxc3 and 4...d5. And if White avoids the Alekhine with 1 e4 Nf6 2 Nc3, you play 2...e5, settling for that Vienna game.
The author also gives recommendations for positional and tactical repertoires for Black.
Years ago, I tried playing the Alekhine in four games. Two opponents played the main line. I tried 4...dxe5 5 Nxe5 g6 (which Cox devotes two games to). The first time I saw this, I continued as Cox recommends, with 6 Bc4 c6. But I soon got in trouble. In the other game, I answered 6 Bc4 with 6...Be6. It's not in this book, but I think it's a good choice.
My other two opponents tried 1 d4 Nf6 2 e5 Nd5 3 Nc3 Nxc3 4 dxc3 d6. Now I expected 5 Bc4. I intended to reply 5...Nc6 (not 5...dxe5?? 6 Bxf7, losing the Black Queen) 6 Nf3 dxe5 7 Qxd8+, which is acceptable for Black. But instead, one opponent tried 5 Bf4 dxe5 6 Qxd8+ Kxd8 7 0-0-0+ Bd7 8 Bxe5 f6 9 Bg3 e5, after which I was okay. The other came up with 5 Nf3 dxe5 6 Qxd8+ Kxd8 7 Nxe5 Ke8, which led to a tough fight.
This book is up-to-date and easy to read. I recommend it.
A guide for intermediate to advanced chess players.......2005-02-13
Starting Out: Alekhine's Defence is an extensive guide for intermediate to advanced chess players to the controversial oppening in which Black attacks from its very first move, seeking to provoke White into a central pawn formation that will fall prey to a deadly counterattack. A favorite among many no-holds-barred professional players such as Fischer (and of course Alekhine), and more recently used by Ivanchuck and Short, the Alekhine's Defense move is excellent for the strongly aggressive player. Diagrams, sample games, tips, and warnings guide the reader into learning how to utilize or defend against Alekhine's Defence, in this smooth instructional written by FIDE Master, junior championship winner and international chess player John Cox.
Amazon.com
Investors -- be they aggressive or conservative, self-directed or professionally managed -- are always on the lookout for an edge. And in James O'Shaughnessy's
What Works on Wall Street: A Guide to the Best-Performing Investment Strategies of All Time, they'll find a solid one: authoritative analysis of popular practices from the past. The author examines three decades of stock market data to show how 15 of the most common investment tactics have fared over time.
Book Description
"A major contribution . . . on the behavior of common stocks in the United States."
--Financial Analysts' Journal
The consistently bestselling What Works on Wall Street explores the investment strategies that have provided the best returns over the past 50 years--and which are the top performers today. The third edition of this BusinessWeek and New York Times bestseller contains more than 50 percent new material and is designed to help you reshape your investment strategies for both the postbubble market and the dramatically changed political landscape.
Packed with all-new charts, data, tables, and analyses, this updated classic allows you to directly compare popular stockpicking strategies and their results--creating a more comprehensive understanding of the intricate and often confusing investment process. Providing fresh insights into time-tested strategies, it examines:
- Value versus growth strategies
- P/E ratios versus price-to-sales
- Small-cap investing, seasonality, and more
Download Description
This consistently bestselling guide explores the investment strategies that have provided the best returns over the past 50 years--and which are the top performers today.
Customer Reviews:
MBA Course Material.......2007-06-12
I am fortunate enough to be taking a class on investment strategy. This is the book we use. We also have access to the compustat database to test trading theories. Thus far, I have been able to get a 44.1% return with a corresponding Sharpe ratio of 1.22 through the database using the methods outlined in this book. Using compustat could not be easier. You enter the criteria you want to filter for (there are literally thousands of built in criteria) and it builds the model by buying the stock at the beginning of the time period and selling it at the end. It does this for the specified amount of time. Mine is every 12 months and it has been run over a 20 year period. So it buys and sells 20 times over the course of the model. I beat the S&P 17 of the 20 years and my worst 'down' period was -8.37%. I just hope I have the discipline to follow through with this model, look out Warren! there is a new oracle in town.
There are over 22,000 companies in the database and I will forever use it to guide me.
Interesting data, questionable utility for most.......2007-01-30
I am of mixed opinion on this book. I think it's probably a 4-star for me, but likely to be less useful (thus deserving a lower rating) for many others.
First, the good:
The author has access to the Compustat database, generally considered the gold standard for this kind of research, with the cleanest data. Many other databases exclude companies that are no longer active, which can cause HUGE distortions in long term analyses.
He uses this data to test a variety of "hard rules" based strategies. These strategies mainly consist of selecting the 50 best and 50 worst stocks within the database, which has 8000 companies, though in many cases he restricts the tests to the larger stocks, for reasons he outlines (that I accept as valid).
Most of the book consists of chapter-at-a-time analyses of these strategies. In general, he finds superior risk-adjusted returns to certain value-oriented strategies, and also to the use of 1-year price momentum (stocks that had good price movement last year will overperform this year).
Now the bad:
Still, most of these strategies are rather riskier than owning a broad index. And that's WITH the use of 50 stock baskets, rebalanced annually, for each of his strategies. As other reviewers have mentioned, that implies a lot of transactions, far more than most individual investors would do. You could use smaller baskets (fewer stocks), but your risk would be even higher (less diversification).
Later in the book, he moves into multi-factor strategies (i.e. buy the 50 highest stocks where condition A is true, rank-ordered by condition B). On the one had, some of these strategies yield MUCH higher returns than both the single factor strategies and the market as a whole. On the other hand, there's far more room with these strategies for data mining - combining each of his single factor strategies (there would logically be MANY permutations), until he gets the biggest winners, then presenting only those cases.
Also, the primary database he's using (CompuStat) is prohibitively expensive for most individual investors. So if an individual investor want to test permutations of these strategies, that would be difficult. There are some links to websites with accessible data, but I haven't thoroughly investigated those, and doubt their datasets are as good as CompuStat's.
Finally, his multi-factor strategies amount mainly to screens. At their most complex, he winnows the dataset by a small handful of factors (using an absolute test - a stock is IN or OUT), then ranks the survivors and chooses the 50 best according to his final factor. To me, it would make more sense to develop weighted models. Develop a weight for each of 3..N factors, supplemented by perhaps a couple of screens to remove certain stocks with suspect data, then pick the 50 highest. He mentions towards the end of the book that he does the money he manages, but he doesn't include those results/models here for the rest of us.
Conclusion:
I know this sounds like an awful lot of criticism. Nonetheless, there was a lot to like about this book for the advanced investor. I have not seen such a detailed study on CompuStat data. His use of the best data, and inclusion of risk statistics is illuminating. And I like his emphasis on hard numeric data/analysis, rather than 'gut feel' that is common in the investment community (i.e. IBM's new product X looks like a hit. I give IBM a **BUY**).
Still, I doubt more than a handful of readers will be able to put his ideas into practice. Still, if you, like me, want to see the numbers on various investment concepts, using reliable data, I would recommend this book.
Right on the money.......2006-11-22
This book should be read in conjunction with the author's other books. After reading his much simpler, "How to Retire Rich" some 5 years ago or more and with a "wealth" of relatively poor investment experience under my belt it was clear to me that Reasonable Runaways was the way to go. However, there were a number of uncertainties. The basic question the author was answering - how do I maximize a lump sum I have now over the long term i.e. 15, 20 years or more - was not exactly the same as the question I was trying to answer. My problem was - how can I invest regular monthly surplus sums from my salary and maximize the value over the long term. It took me a few months to figure out that I could do it. Instead of rebalancing the entire portfolio once a year I rebalance a 12th part of it every month. I am therefore "rebalancing" i.e. selling what I bought 12 months (plus a day) ago and purchasing the next few stocks that pop out of my Reasonable Runaway's screener that I don't already own. Of course the math is a little convoluted and I am never really going to get the rebalancing absolutely correct but I still end up with a pretty well diversified portfolio that I am regularly turning over on a steady and most importantly unemotional objective basis. When I analyze the performance on a trade by trade basis I find the inevitable reversion to the mean. After a total of 109 trades I have calculated an average annualized performance (for simplicity and tax reasons I extended the holding period to 13 months) of 21%. What is more this average performance is quite stable over the last year or two. I still have a spectacular variance in individual performance but the net result at the end of each year averages out in the healthy positive direction. The more I have been doing this since starting in May 2002 the more I am asking myself why there isn't a massive crowd of investors buying those buys just before me and selling them just before me driving my purchase prices up my selling prices down and my profits into the cellar. The answer is clearly to be found in the author's recent third book "Predicting the Markets of Tomorrow". It appears that there is only a very small crowd of us out there who can stomach the ups and the downs and ride out the course. I've tried to figure out whether the author knows that his strategies when spread out on a rolling basis - as I describe above - give the investor a much steadier and healthier performance and therefore much less emotionally challenging ride. I also suspect that my approach of buying the next stocks down the list on the screener every month means that I am often buying the stocks that most recently arrived on the list and possibly more likely therefore to perform better. But then I am still an amateur at this and decided not to break my head any further. Back to "What Works on Wall Street". There is a really exciting part (sad isn't it but seriously when you see how well this stuff works it is a lot of fun) when he explains how tweaking or combining the value strategies reduces volatility and improves overall return. When I read that I assumed he was going to expand further but the point sort of got lost and I'll have to do a re-read to find it again. As an amateur I am also stuck with internet stock screeners and not all of them give you the parameters or the level of detail you need to get the screener working exactly as you need. The best advice on that is given at the end of "Predicting the Markets of Tomorrow" fortunately for me I worked that out for myself years ago. If you are like me you will end up reading just the main text and skimming over the tables. Do I recommend this book? Well put it like this - I am pretty certain that I will be retiring rich thanks to Mr. O'Shaughnessy (Seriously Sir if you do ever read this, my sincere gratitude.) I am just surprised to discover that there seem to be so few of us out there able to pick up on this and follow through.
The best stock tactics of all time:with proof.......2006-08-31
This is the rare 5 star ***** book. It is no nonsense and gives you exactly what its title suggests. It shows what has really worked on Wall Street from 1951 to 1996 by using the Standard and Poors compustat data base to simulate what would have happened if an investor (or mutual fund) would have bought the top 50 stocks meeting the criteria measurement. Example: Highest P/E ratios, top 50 price increases, top 50 price decreases, best dividends, high or low book to price value, etc.He goes further by breaking the top 50 into only the large cap meeting this criteria and if he bought out of all stocks available. He measures stocks and their performance from almost every imaginable angle. It is fascinating and educational to see what the final dollar amount is for each investment approach. He also shows how each style performed in each decade and how each percentile of stock did in each category.(Example: how the top 5 stocks did with low P/E's versus the bottom 5 in the top 50 stock group, this helps the individual stock investor focus his investments).
Here are the books big findings. If you took $10,000 and invested it in 1951 and invested it in the following top 50 stocks that met the following criteria, while resetting it every year to match your criteria, in 1996 you would have had:
Top 3 ways to invest
PSR
<1,high relative strength,All stocks $12,999,698
Earnings yield>5,High relative strength,All stocks $12,570,451
Price/Book
<1,High relative strength,all stocks $12,552,352
Worst 3 ways to invest
Lowest 1-year relative strength, All stocks $29,666
High PSR, All stocks $64,220
High Pcfl,All Stocks $224,741
I really like this book because It is scientific, not opionated and shows that Warren Buffet was right all a long, buy stocks that are a great value based on their sales, and price to book with low P/E's and strong relative price strength and you will always win in the long term.
Disappointed - a small investor review.......2006-08-21
I was disappointed with the book. It was not as helpful for the small, individual investor as I wanted it to be. $10,000 spread over 50 stocks means investing $200 per stock without even talking about any fees for buying and selling 50 different stocks. So from this book I can narrow down my indivual selection of stocks to 25 or 50, but if I only want to purchase 3-5 stocks how do I decide which 3-5 of the 50 to buy?
The book did give me a broader understanding of the different strategies used behind mutual funds. When I review a mutual fund's strategy, now I know the lingo and what the fund manager is looking for in a stock and how that strategy compares to other strategies. So I think the book has made me a better mutual fund shopper, but has not helped me as much in purchasing individual stocks.
Book Description
Beating the market is every investor's dream. Essential Stock Picking Strategies allows investors on Main Street to gain the consistent success (and profits) of the pros on Wall Street. Offering in-depth coverage of the most successful and popular strategies, including growth, value, and sector investing, this complete investment resource identifies successful stock-picking strategies and shares insights that help professional money managers make investment decisions. With profiles of several key money managers, including Gerald Frey, Warren Isabelle, Scott Black, Christopher Davis, and Samuel Isaly, Essential Stock Picking Strategies truly provides an "inside" look at how the professionals successfully pick stocks and win on Wall Street. By gaining a better understanding of how the professionals work, individual investors can start to invest as if they too were on Wall Street.
Daniel A. Strachman is Managing Director of Answers & Company a New York-based money management firm that offers investment management services to individuals and institutions. Mr. Strachman is also the editor of The Sconset Report, a quarterly newsletter focused on applying fundamental analysis to investing in mutual funds. For the last eight year, he has worked in many capacities on Wall Street, including product development, marketing and sales focused in and around the money management industry. Mr. Strachman is the author of many articles on investment management and strategies in the popular and professional press as well as the book Getting Started in Hedge Funds (Wiley).
Customer Reviews:
Very useful insight .......2005-04-03
This is a book for the serious investors, the ones that have gone past the basics and want to dig into something more substantial. It describes the styles and strategies of some of the most consistent money managers in Wall Street - not the smartest or the outright kamikase, but the ones who are consistent in adding value to their clients' portifolios.
They were divided into two groups: Growth & Value and Sector Funds administrators, and the author portrays each manager's strategies in bull or bear markets.
I found the book very pleasant to read, because it not only doesn't overly rely on technical terms, but uses them only where needed, so you actually have the feeling you're chatting with the author.
In addition to that, I found that the strategies depicted in the book sharpen our own trading strategies, showing better (and sometimes different) ways to implement them, 'seasoning' the tools we use to manage our investment portfolios.
Extremely Informative.......2003-01-13
I found this book extremely informative. I have implemented many of the strategies suggested in the book. I have done an ample amount of research on a variety of individuals, as suggested, and my portfolio reflects the changes I have implemented. I strongly recommend this for the novice and the advanced.
Mr. Strachman Does It Again!!!.......2002-11-21
Kudos to Daniel Strachman on his second book, Essential Stock Picking Strategies! This book is both informative as well as entertaining. Mr. Strachman not only provides information on how the markets work, he also gives an introduction on how they began - giving the reader a sound understanding of AMEX, NYSE and NASDAQ. This book brings some of the most fascinating hedge fund and mutual fund managers to life including Bernie Horne, Scott Black and Marion Schultheis, one of Wall Street's leading women. Everyone who reads this book can greatly benefit by learning the methods, tactics and strategies that professional investment managers use to make money!
Clear - Concise - A Matter of Fact.......2002-11-19
Finally a book explains how to invest assets without simply just listening to tips or surfing the net. This books spells out why long term investing is the only way to go and while people need to realize they can't do it all themselves.
Stay away!.......2002-11-09
This book, written by a self-ordained "expert", reads like a dart-throwers guide to naivte. How he suckered notable financial columnists into favorable reviews bespeaks his apparent connections rather than reliable book advice. Each section of the book wreaks of pre-bubble advice best left to chat rooms and message board postings. For the sake of your children, do not buy this book.
Books:
- Framing the South: Hollywood, Television, and Race during the Civil Rights Struggle
- German National Cinema (National Cinemas)
- Hammer, House of Horror: Behind the Screams
- Handbook of Mind-Body Medicine for Primary Care
- Handbook of Old-Time Radio
- Highlander: The Complete Watcher's Guide
- Hollywood Horror: From Gothic To Cosmic
- Hugo Munsterberg on Film: The Photoplay: A Psychological Study and Other Writings
- Introducing Character Animation with Blender
- Introducing Halle Berry
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Recommended Books
- The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
- Nothing Down for Women: The Smart Woman's Quick-Start Guide to Real Estate Investing
- Drama Trauma: Specters of Race and Sexuality in Performance, Video and Art
- Ernest Hemingway A to Z: The Essential Reference to the Life and Work
- Getting Started in Chart Patterns
- Learning Autodesk Maya 8|Foundation +DVD
- Lonely Planet Cuba
- CRC Handbook of Tables for Order Statistics from Inverse Gaussian Distributions with Applications
- Fair Use and Free Inquiry: Copyright Law and the New Media, Second Edition
- Gossip from the Forest
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Designing Dreams: Modern Architecture in the Movies (Architecture and Film, 2)
Architecture and Film
Costume Design in the Movies: An Illustrated Guide to the Work of 157 Great Designers (Dover Books on Fashion)
Elegance: The Seeberger Brothers and the Birth of Fashion Photography
