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True to Our Roots
Fermenting a Business Revolution
by Paul Dolan
Part 7 of the Bloomberg series
“True to Our Roots” sets forth the simple but powerful management principles that enabled Fetzer Vineyards under Paul Dolan to become one of America's biggest and best-known wineries even as it was turning into a model for sustainable businesses everywhere. Today, Dolan and Fetzer are leading the California wine industry toward profound change in how wineries and grape growers preserve their environment, strengthen their communities, and enrich the lives of their employees, without sacrificing the bottom line. This is truly a management revolution in one of the most globalized, competitive industries on Earth.
The principles Dolan discovered and developed at Fetzer can be applied to any business and by leaders at every level:
• A business is part of a much larger system
• A company's culture is determined by the context created for it
• The soul of a company is found in the hearts of its people
• The future can't be predicted, but it can be created
• There is a way to make an idea's time come
Filled with personal anecdotes and practical wisdom, this book offers inspiration and guidance to business managers who see the compelling need to build and grow healthy, sustainable organizations. For all readers, “True to Our Roots” provides both a fascinating glimpse into the California wine industry and heartening proof that business can do well by doing good.
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Getting Started as a Financial Planner
by Jeffrey H. Rattiner
Part 8 of the Bloomberg series
There has never been more opportunity for financial planners-or more reasons for financial professionals to consider switching the direction of their careers into this lucrative field. Today's planners will cash in on the huge surge of baby boomers preparing for retirement in the decades ahead. And as the number and complexity of investments rises, more individuals will look to financial advisers to help manage their money.
In the new edition of this guide, Jeffrey H. Rattiner, a practicing financial planner and educator, provides a complete, systematic, turnkey framework for the aspiring planner to follow. Starting from the key question, "Why do you want to be a financial planner?" The author guides you through the development of an effective infrastructure and client management system for your practice. The many essential concepts are clearly illustrated with examples from practicing professionals. Throughout this handbook, Rattiner provides personal insights on how and why a planner must develop a solid understanding of client needs before building a comprehensive financial plan.
“Getting Started as a Financial Planner” has everything one needs to know-from how to set up a practice and communicate with clients to how to manage investments and market services-in order to launch a career in financial planning and to attain success in this high-growth profession.
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Just What I Said
Bloomberg Economics Columnist Takes on Bonds, Banks, Budgets, and Bubbles
by Caroline Baum
Part 12 of the Bloomberg series
Not for nothing do her initials also stand for "Central Bank." For nearly two decades, Caroline Baum has produced incisive commentary on central bank policy, the ebbs and flows of the economy, and how they influence the bond market. Her much sought-after, real-time analysis is read by a devoted audience on the Bloomberg Professional service within seconds after it appears. The word on the Street is that reading Caroline Baum is an economic education in itself.
This selection from her more than 1,300 Bloomberg News columns, arranged by major themes and with new introductions by the author, condenses and organizes that wisdom for the first time in print form.
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Making Sense of the Dollar
Exposing Dangerous Myths about Trade and Foreign Exchange
by Marc Chandler
Part 18 of the Bloomberg series
Has the greenback really lost its preeminent place in the world? Not according to currency expert Marc Chandler, who explains why so many are, wrongly, pessimistic about both the dollar and the U.S. economy.
“Making Sense of the Dollar” explores the many factors-trade deficits, the dollar's role in the world, globalization, capitalism, and more, that affect the dollar and the U.S. economy and lead to the inescapable conclusion that both are much stronger than many people suppose.
Marc Chandler has been covering the global capital markets for twenty years as a foreign exchange strategist for several Wall Street firms. He is one of the most widely respected and quoted currency experts today.
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Complicit
How Greed and Collusion Made the Credit Crisis Unstoppable
by Mark Gilbert
Part 19 of the Bloomberg series
The credit crunch is affecting every investor and every consumer, every industry and every government program, yet few people truly understand how it happened. Subprime mortgages have been center stage, but behind the scenes a conspiracy of greed among bankers, investors, rating agencies and regulators has imperiled everyone's financial future. We need to know what went wrong and how to change the practices that led to this calamity.
Bloomberg columnist Mark Gilbert shows how Wall Street's tolerance for extremes made the global credit crunch both foreseeable and inevitable. He offers a blow-by-blow account of what went wrong and what lessons need to be learned from the crisis.
• Gilbert's argument-that everyone with skin in the money game had a vested interest in pretending that nothing could go awry-is a well-defended, compelling indictment of the financial community.
• Gilbert is able to make complex financial events easy to understand.
• His outlook is truly global: this financial crisis respects no geographical boundaries, and Gilbert draws on anecdotes and examples from around the world to make his case.
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The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome
Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream
by John F. Wasik
Part 20 of the Bloomberg series
An incisive look at the consequences of today's costly and damaging suburban lifestyle
In The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome, Bloomberg News' John Wasik exposes the economic, cultural, environmental, and health problems underlying life in suburbia. Wasik provides powerful insights into how the U.S. suburban lifestyle has become unsustainable and what can be done to salvage it. His observations are firmly grounded in exclusive on-the-ground research, interviews with thought leaders, and the latest studies and statistics. The book
• Exposes the untold truths about suburban home ownership: green isn't always so green, life isn't cheaper after accounting for gas, water, and taxes, and modern suburban living isn't so idyllic considering the toll it takes on our health
• Includes exclusive research and analysis by experts in the field that debunks the many myths associated with suburban living
• Explores innovative solutions being developed in cities across the country
The American Dream of moving further from a city to buy a bigger house and find better schools has become a costly nightmare. The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome examines why and what can be done.
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Steal These Ideas!
Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star
by Steve Cone
Part 25 of the Bloomberg series
Working for nearly thirty years with and for leading companies including Citigroup, American Express, Epsilon, Apple, and Fidelity-with notable political and not-for-profit campaigns along the way-Steve Cone has the kind of hard-earned, high-level experience that translates into valuable, tested ideas on what really works-and doesn't-in marketing.
In Steal These Ideas! Cone delivers hundreds of pearls in a sharp, no-nonsense, and witty style on all facets of marketing, branding, and advertising with all the candor and freshness one would expect from a knowledgeable good friend in the business.
Illustrated throughout with examples of the good, bad, and ugly in advertising, this is the secret stuff that no one ever teaches. Anyone can now steal these ideas and become a marketing star today.
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Bonds
The Unbeaten Path to Secure Investment Growth
by Hildy Richelson
Part 26 of the Bloomberg series
In “Bonds: The Unbeaten Path to Secure Investment Growth”, Hildy and Stan Richelson expose the myth of stocks' superior investment returns and propose an all-bond portfolio as a sure-footed strategy that can ensure results. The book is designed to educate novice and sophisticated investors alike and serve as a tool for financial advisers as well. It explains why bonds can be the right choice and how to use them to achieve financial goals. It presents a broad spectrum of bond-investment options, describes how to purchase bonds at the best prices, and most important, shows how to make money with bonds.
The bond strategies presented in this book are used by the wealthiest investors and financial advisers to maximize the return on their portfolios while providing security of principal. These strategies can help you determine how to use bonds in your portfolio and take control of your financial destiny. You'll be playing it smart while playing it safe.
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Family
The Compact Among Generations
by James E. Hughes Jr.
Part 31 of the Bloomberg series
Why do some families thrive for generations? What accounts for the sad deterioration that others experience? This book takes families and the professionals who serve them beyond the now widely accepted practices offered in Family Wealth and offers a view of Hughes's panoramic insights into what makes families flourish and fail. It lays out the basis for the vision of family governance the author has been developing through his work and research. His advice addresses not only what to do but how to think about the complex issues of family governance, growth, and stability and the ongoing challenge of nurturing the happiness of each family member.
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Family Wealth
Keeping It in the Family--How Family Members and Their Advisers Preserve Human, Intellectual, and Fi
by James E. Hughes Jr.
Part 34 of the Bloomberg series
The landmark book that changed the way exceptional families think about their heritage, their wealth, and their legacy to future generations-now revised and expanded.
Every family, looking at the next generation, hopes to confer advantages that are more than just material and financial-to inculcate character and leadership, to inspire creativity and enterprise, to help all family members find and follow their individual callings, and to avoid the financial dependency and loss of initiative that can all too often be an unwanted consequence of financial success. Yet many families never succeed in realizing that vision, much less sustaining it for three, four, or five generations and beyond.
James Hughes has thought deeply about these challenges, and his insights are at once practical and profound. For more than three decades, he has personally guided multiple generations of families in creating strategies to preserve their human and intellectual capital as well as their financial assets. His teachings synthesize insights from psychology, anthropology, political history, philosophy, economic theory, and the law, with examples ranging from Aristotle to cutting-edge social science theory. His ideas have been taken up by numerous exceptional families, by their advisers, and by scores of authors, practitioners, and academics who have found value in the methods he pioneered.
The first edition of this book, privately published, became a word-of-mouth classic. Now, Hughes has updated and substantially expanded it with new chapters that challenge conventional notions of wealth and offer guidelines for conserving family assets in the broadest senses. Filled with tested principles and practices for family governance and joint decision making, it is a rich source of workable wisdom that family members can put into practice today, to the enduring benefit and gratitude of future generations.
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Why CRM Doesn't Work
How to Win by Letting Customers Manange the Relationship
by Frederick Newell
Part 38 of the Bloomberg series
CRM was supposed to help businesses better understand their customers and increase efficiency. Yet most companies are not getting the return they expected. Is it possible to make customers happy and, at the same time, improve ROI? Is there a practical, affordable way to get customers to say what they really want?
In “Why CRM Doesn't Work”, leading international marketing consultant Frederick Newell explains why it's time to change the game to CMR. (Customer Management of Relationships). CMR. allows companies to empower customers so they'll reveal what kind of information they want, what level of service they want to receive, and how to communicate with them-where, when, and how often. It is a bold solution for businesspeople at all levels in all industries who want to stay ahead of the curve in the development of customer loyalty.
Newell shows by lesson and example why the current CRM isn't working, what needs to change, and how to put the CMR. philosophy to work-without additional expense. The book includes case studies of good and bad relationship marketing from companies as diverse as Kraft Foods, Procter & Gamble, Budweiser, Charles Schwab, Dell, IBM, Lands' End, Sports Authority, Radio Shack, and Staples.
With the knowledge in this book, a company can learn to build long-term relationships and bring in profits instead of relying on one-time sales. “Why CRM Doesn't Work” is important reading for companies of every size that are trying to satisfy and sell to today's consumer.
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The Only Guide to Alternative Investments You'll Ever Need
The Good, the Flawed, the Bad, and the Ugly
by Larry E. Swedroe
Part 42 of the Bloomberg series
The rewards of carefully chosen alternative investments can be great. But many investors don't know enough about unfamiliar investments to make wise choices. For that reason, financial advisers Larry Swedroe and Jared Kizer designed this book to bring investors up to speed on the twenty most popular alternative investments:
Real estate, Inflation-protected securities, Commodities, International equities, Fixed annuities, Stable-value funds, High-yield (junk) bonds, Private equity (venture capital), Covered calls, Socially responsible mutual funds, Precious metals equities, Preferred stocks, Convertible bonds, Emerging market bonds, Hedge funds, Leveraged buyouts, Variable annuities, Equity-indexed annuities, Structured investment products, Leveraged funds
The authors describe how the investments work, the pros and cons of each, which to consider, which to avoid, and how to get started. Swedroe and Kizer evaluate each investment in terms of:
• Expected returns
• Volatility
• Distribution of returns
• Diversification potential
• Fees
• Trading and operating expenses
• Liquidity
• Tax efficiency
• Account location
• Role in an asset-allocation program
Any investor who is considering or just curious about investment opportunities outside the traditional world of stocks, bonds, and bank certificates of deposit would be well-advised to read this book.
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The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security
Practical Strategies for Money, Work, and Living
by Mark Miller
Part 119 of the Bloomberg series
A timely guide to overcoming the retirement challenges we all face.
The Great Recession has placed a wake-up call to America's baby boomers. Many have not saved enough for retirement and have not taken a hard look at how many post-work years they may need to finance.
Written in a straightforward and accessible style, “The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security” tackles the tough questions about retirement in the new post-crash economy. Page by page, it puts retirement in perspective by touching on important issues such as insuring against the risk of outliving your assets, recalibrating damaged retirement portfolios, managing the risk of health-care expenses in retirement, and career strategies for workers who are 50 years old and up.
• Reveals how to boost lifetime income through better planning, and working just a few additional years
• Offers advice on how to hire a financial advisor whose first loyalty is to you, not Wall Street
• Discusses why you should rethink housing in the wake of the real estate crash
• Offers detailed advice on career reinvention, the 50+ job market and midlife entrepreneurship
Engaging and informative, this practical guide provides the strategies needed for a truly fulfilling and secure retirement.
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Seizing Power
The Grab for Global Oil Wealth
by Robert Slater
Part 121 of the Bloomberg series
How oil volatility may lead to violence among oil powers
The world supply of oil is running out. Meanwhile, the balance of oil power is shifting away from the United States and the Arab states toward national oil companies (NOCs) in Russia, China, and some emerging economies in Africa and South America. As developing countries seek a middle-class existence, their demand for oil grows exponentially, causing oil prices to spiral, turning some into international bullies. Until another fuel is found the world risks being at the mercy of these tyrants whose insatiable appetites for higher oil prices heighten competition and spur the threat of violence, domestic as well as global.
In Seizing Power: The Grab for Global Oil Wealth, bestselling author Robert Slater:
• Profiles petroaggressors like Russia's Putin, Venezuela's Chavez, and IranÕs Ahmadinejad
• Describes how oil-rich outlaw nations are using a valuable natural resource as a weapon in global politics
• Warns that, as oil dwindles, these outlaw nations may turn upon one another in the fight for what oil is left
Seizing Power clearly explains why oil is potentially toxic to world stability.
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Sentiment Indicators
Renko, Price Break, Kagi, Point and Figure - What They Are and How to Use Them to Trade
by Abe Cofnas
Part 124 of the Bloomberg series
A practical guide to profiting from the proper use of sentiment indicators
In Sentiment Indicators, noted trading expert Abe Cofnas draws on his own trading and training experience as he shares his knowledge about the latest techniques and strategies for using Renko, price break, Kagi, and point and figure tools to successfully analyze all markets.
Written with the serious trader in mind, Sentiment Indicators offers key information on these potential-filled tools and how to use each in shaping trading strategies. Along the way, it provides a practical overview of how to implement these little-known indicators and why each can enhance your trading endeavors.
• Shows how these indicators work in different markets: futures, equities, forex, and others
• Provides a solid understanding of charting techniques and uses real-world examples to illustrate strategies and tactics
• Presents new sentiment research that analyzes word mining and what it means for markets
From historical context and Robot Trading alerts to the critical factors of a trading system, Sentiment Indicators presents a proven approach to trading that will help you identify conditions that have a high probability of profit.
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201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business
by Jane Applegate
Part 126 of the Bloomberg series
Completely revised and updated edition of this very popular and successful small business book
The first edition of “201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business” was hailed by management guru and author Tom Peters as "Brilliantly researched. Brilliantly written. A gem of priceless value on almost every page. Read. Inhale. Absorb. Great Stuff!"
In this completely updated third edition of “201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business”, renowned small-business expert and consultant Jane Applegate shares new, powerful, creative, simple, and proven approaches for building a better small business.
• Details how business owners can use online marketing and social networking more effectively
• Offers timely strategies for thriving in challenging economic times
• Includes scores of real-life success stories and all-new interviews with small-business owners, experts, and VIP's including Guy Kawasaki, Kay Koplovitz, and Michael Bloomberg
It may be small, but your business is a big deal to you, your customers, and employees. “201 Great Ideas” provides lively, practical strategies to help you manage, grow, and promote your business.
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The Quest for Alpha
The Holy Grail of Investing
by Larry E. Swedroe
Part 130 of the Bloomberg series
The final word on passive vs. active investing.
The debate on active investing-stock picking and market timing-versus passive investing-markets are highly efficient and almost impossible to outperform-has raged for decades. Which side is right? In “The Quest for Alpha: The Holy Grail of Investing”, author Larry E. Swedroe puts an end to the debate, proving once and for all that active investing is likely to prove futile as the associated expenses-costs, fees, and time spent analyzing individual stocks and the overall market-are likely to exceed any benefits gained. The book
• Presents research, data, and quotations that reveal it's extremely difficult to outperform the market
• Explains why investors should focus on asset allocation, fund construction, costs, tax efficiency, and the building of a globally diversified portfolio that minimizes, if not eliminates, the taking of idiosyncratic, uncompensated risks
Investors are on a never-ending search for a money manager who will deliver returns above the appropriate risk-adjusted benchmark, aka the "Holy Grail of Investing." “The Quest for Alpha” demonstrates that it's a loser's game-while it's possible to win, it's so unlikely that you shouldn't try.
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When Prime Brokers Fail
The Unheeded Risk to Hedge Funds, Banks, and the Financial Industry
by J. S. Aikman
Part 132 of the Bloomberg series
An informative primer on the new landscape of leading prime brokers
Before the recent financial crisis, both regulators and market participants disregarded the complex and dangerous nature of the relationship between prime brokers (the banks) and their clients (the funds). In When Prime Brokers Fail, J. S. Aikman examines the convoluted structure of this relationship, the main participants, and the impact of the near collapse of prime brokerages on the financial world.
Filled with in-depth insights and expert advice, When Prime Brokers Fail takes a close look at the unheeded risks of prime finance and lays out the steps required for managers to protect their funds and bankers to protect their brokerages.
• Examines the challenges, trends, and risks within the prime brokerage space
• Discusses the structural adjustments firms will need to make to avoid similar disasters
• Analyzes the complex relationship between hedge funds and their brokerages and the risks that multiply in extraordinary markets
• Covers new ways to manage an inherently risky business and the regulations that may soon be introduced into this arena
Engaging and informative, this timely book details the intricacies and interdependencies of prime brokerages and the role that these operations play in our increasingly dynamic financial system.
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Alternative Assets and Strategic Allocation
Rethinking the Institutional Approach
by John B. Abbink
Part 134 of the Bloomberg series
An insightful guide to making strategic investment allocation decisions that embraces both alternative and conventional assets.
In this much-needed resource, alternative and portfolio management expert John Abbink demonstrates new ways of analyzing and deploying alternative assets and explains the practical application of these techniques.
“Alternative Assets and Strategic Allocation” clearly shows how alternative investments fit into portfolios and the role they play in an investment allocation that includes traditional investments as well. This book also describes innovative methods for valuation as applied to alternatives that previously have been difficult to analyze.
• Offers institutional investors, analysts, researchers, portfolio managers, and financial academics a down-to-earth method for measuring and analyzing alternative assets
• Reviews some of the latest alternatives that are increasing in popularity, such as high-frequency trading, direct lending, and long-term investment in real assets
• Outlines a strategic approach for including alternative investments into portfolios and shows the pivotal role they play in an investment allocation
Using the information found in this book, you'll have a clearer sense of how to approach investment issues related to alternative assets and discover what it takes to make these products work for you.
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In Too Deep
BP and the Drilling Race That Took it Down
by Stanley Reed
Part 137 of the Bloomberg series
The truth behind the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history
In 2005, fifteen workers were killed when BP's Texas City Refinery exploded. In 2006, corroded pipes owned by BP led to an oil spill in Alaska. Now, in 2010, eleven men drilling for BP were killed in the blowout of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.
What's next? In “In Too Deep: BP and the Drilling Race That Took it Down”, Stanley Reed?a journalist who has covered BP for over a decade?and investigative reporter Alison Fitzgerald answer not only that question, but also examine why these disasters happen to BP so much more than other large oil companies.
• Places the blame on a corporate culture created by former BP CEO John Browne who was forced to resign in 2007 after he lied in court documents in a case involving his gay lover
• Details a BP built on risk-taking and cost-cutting
• Examines the past, present, and future of BP
In August 2010, BP successfully "killed" the company's damaged deepwater well. But, the environmental fallout and public relations campaign to rebuild the brand are just beginning. “In Too Deep” details why BP, why now, and what's next for this oil giant.
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The Evolution of Technical Analysis
Financial Prediction from Babylonian Tablets to Bloomberg Terminals
by Andrew W. Lo
Part 139 of the Bloomberg series
A comprehensive history of the evolution of technical analysis from ancient times to the Internet age
Whether driven by mass psychology, fear or greed of investors, the forces of supply and demand, or a combination, technical analysis has flourished for thousands of years on the outskirts of the financial establishment. In The Evolution of Technical Analysis: Financial Prediction from Babylonian Tablets to Bloomberg Terminals, MIT's Andrew W. Lo details how the charting of past stock prices for the purpose of identifying trends, patterns, strength, and cycles within market data has allowed traders to make informed investment decisions based in logic, rather than on luck. The book
• Reveals the origins of technical analysis
• Compares and contrasts the Eastern practices of China and Japan to Western methods
• Details the contributions of pioneers such as Charles Dow, Munehisa Homma, Humphrey B. Neill, and William D. Gann
The Evolution of Technical Analysis explores the fascinating history of technical analysis, tracing where technical analysts failed, how they succeeded, and what it all means for today's traders and investors.
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Financial Origami
How the Wall Street Model Broke
by Brendan Moynihan
Part 140 of the Bloomberg series
An in-depth look at the failure of Wall Street's "proven" financial models
Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into intricate and aesthetically attractive shapes. As such, it is the perfect metaphor for the Wall Street financial engineering model, which ultimately proved to be the underlying cause of the 2008 financial crisis.
In “Financial Origami”, Brendan Moynihan describes how the Wall Street business model evolved from a method to transfer risk into a method for manufacturing risk. Along the way, this timely book skillfully dissects financial engineering and addresses how it's often a mechanism to evade regulatory constraints, provide institutional investors with customized products, and, of course, generate revenue for financial engineers.
• Reveals how Wall Street's financial engineering business model morphed into something destructive
• Highlights how the origami model worked well in the comparatively stable years of the early 2000s, when there was less risk to transfer
• Discusses how Wall Street began manufacturing risk by creating products that multiplied risk exposures and encouraged subprime lending
With the collapse of Lehman Brother the Wall Street business model effectively broke. But there are many lessons to be learned from what has transpired, and Financial Origami will show you what they are.
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Investing in REITs
Real Estate Investment Trusts
by Ralph L. Block
Part 141 of the Bloomberg series
The new Fourth Edition of the definitive handbook on investing in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which provide some of the best total returns in the investment world, along with above-average dividend yields and stable earnings, have become increasingly popular with both individual and institutional investors. Investing in REITs, Fourth Edition has established itself as the definitive guide to understanding this attractive asset class. The book is invaluable for investors, financial planners, and investment advisers interested in understanding REITs and REIT investment opportunities.
As their earnings and dividends are beginning to grow again after the Great Recession-and as they are in a unique position to take advantage of distressed sale opportunities-now is an excellent time for investors to consider REITs for both diversification and strong total returns. The new edition covers:
• A comprehensive history of the REIT industry
• How REITs compare with other competitive investments
• How to spot blue-chip REITs and control investment risk
• How to value individual REIT stocks, and REIT shares generally
• How to build a diversified REIT portfolio, directly or with REIT mutual funds
• Understanding the risk-and-reward dynamics of commercial real estate
• Assessing non-US REITs and how to invest in them
• Important new developments and strategies in the REIT industry
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Steal These Ideas!
Marketing Secrets That Will Make You a Star
by Steve Cone
Part 144 of the Bloomberg series
The marketer's guide to standing out from the crowd and connecting with consumers.
As advertisements become more ubiquitous online and off, the struggle to really capture a customer's attention is heating up. In “Steal These Ideas!”, Second Edition, Steve Cone, internationally renowned marketing expert, reveals how to resonate with a target audience, providing a fresh perspective riddled with pearls of wisdom and wit. Full of practical ideas that the reader can learn in a matter of hours, and apply successfully to their business for years, Steal These Ideas! proved an instant classic on outside-the-box marketing when it first published in 2005, and this newly revised edition, refreshed for the present day, promises to have the same impact as it's predecessor.
• This new edition includes material on social networking, customer loyalty campaigns, building websites, and sending effective email blasts
• The book is illustrated throughout with examples of the good, bad, and ugly in advertising
• Includes new ideas on how to take full advantage of online marketing and social media
• Highlights the art of building an effective loyalty program, the power of public relations and sponsorship, and using a spokesperson
Everything you didn't learn in business school (or in the field), “Steal These Ideas!” gives marketers the edge in today's fast-paced, oversaturated marketplace.
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Bonds
The Unbeaten Path to Secure Investment Growth
by Hildy Richelson
Part 145 of the Bloomberg series
Updated edition of the established classic on investing in bonds
In “Bonds: The Unbeaten Path to Secure Investment Growth”, Second Edition, the fully revised and updated edition of the classic guide to demystifying the bonds market, veteran investor husband and wife team Hildy and Stan Richelson expose the myth of stocks' superior investment returns and propose an all-bond portfolio as a sure-footed strategy that will ensure positive returns. Designed to educate novice and sophisticated investors alike, as well as to serve as a tool for financial advisers, the book explains why and when bonds can be the right choice. Case studies, detailed bond strategies, and a financial planning overview bring home the value of bonds in achieving financial goals.
Presenting a broad spectrum of bond-investment options and describing how to purchase bonds at the best prices, the book shows how to make real money by investing in bonds. The strategies presented here are designed to help the reader determine how to use bonds to take control of their own financial destiny.
• New edition includes information on corporate bonds, emerging market bonds, municipal bonds, the new global ratings, and how to protect against municipal defaults
• Looks at how bond portfolios protected against market volatility in the 2007-2008 crash and how they can do the same in the future
• Includes information on how the bond market has changed
• The wealthiest investors and financial advisers use the bond strategies outlined in this book to maximize the return on their portfolios while providing security of principal
With more bond options available than ever before, Bonds continues to be a must-have for anyone looking to understand the investment opportunities available to them.
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Endless Appetites
How the Commodities Casino Creates Hunger and Unrest
by Alan Bjerga
Part 151 of the Bloomberg series
How to understand the twenty-first century food crisis
Since 2007, farm-product prices have rocketed and plunged, causing hunger, malnutrition, and social and political upheaval around the world. Endless Appetites explores how "food security," the availability of food and the reasonable ability to buy it, has become one of the most challenging topics of our time. With every jump in grocery-store prices, the issue becomes more and more pressing, proven by this year's record increase in food prices, which has already topped the spike of 2008.
• Award-winning commodities reporter Alan Bjerga explains the food crisis and why it is happening in an accessible, articulate manner
• Why is this happening when more food is being grown than ever?
• Why are crop markets first established in the 1800s? To help stabilize agricultural commodity prices? Acting like an investors' casino, with prices absorbed by rich nations taking food from the mouths of the poor?
• From college campuses to emergency UN meetings, "food security" is one of the hottest topics of the day, with no shortage of interest in how to stabilize food prices worldwide to close the hunger gap
To understand the growing international food crisis, readers need an expert they can rely on. One of the most widely acclaimed journalists on food security, Alan Bjerga is up to the task, taking readers from the trading floor of Chicago to the highlands of East Africa to the rice paddies of Thailand on a global trek to find the causes of the food-price crisis? And the solutions.
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Aqua Shock, Revised and Updated
Water in Crisis
by Susan J. Marks
Part 155 of the Bloomberg series
An objective look at America's rapidly shrinking water supply
Once believed to be a problem limited to America's southwest, water shortages are now an issue coast to coast, from New England to California. In “Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America”, author Susan J. Marks provides a comprehensive analysis of the current conflicts being waged over dwindling water supplies. She presents the findings of university studies, think tanks, and research groups, as well as the opinions of water experts, including Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security. The book
• Explains where our water comes from and who controls it, as well as the cost of water on cash, commodities, and capitalism
• Describes the risks of running out of water
• Details how we can preserve and protect our most precious, yet most undervalued natural resource
Right now, battles over water supplies rage across the country. “Aqua Shock” is an objective look at how we arrived at this crisis point and what we can do-and should be doing-to solve the water crisis in America.
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Zombie Banks
How Broken Banks and Debtor Nations Are Crippling the Global Economy
by Yalman Onaran
Part 160 of the Bloomberg series
An in-depth look at the problems surrounding zombie banks and their dangerous effect on the global economy
Zombie banking has become standard operating procedure for big debtor nations. They prop up failing institutions, print money, and avoid financial corrections. But in an attempt to prolong the inevitable, bigger problems are created. The approach used now has not, and will not, work. This timely book reveals why. “Zombie Banks” tells the story of how debtor nations and failing institutions are damaging the long-term prospects of the global economy.
Author Yalman Onaran, a veteran Bloomberg News reporter and financial banking sector expert, examines exactly what a zombie bank is and why they are kept alive. He also discusses how they hurt economic recovery and what needs to be done in order to restore stability. Along the way, Onaran takes an honest look at how we arrived at this point and details the harsh realities that must be faced, and the serious steps that must be taken, in order to get things headed in the right direction.
• Puts insolvent banks and debtor nations in the spotlight and examines how they are crippling the global economy
• On the record sources include Paul Volcker, Joseph Stiglitz, Sheila Bair, and many more bank executives, regulators, politicians, and policymakers in the United States and abroad
• Takes the complexity of the current situation and translates it in a way that makes it understandable
While the short-term measures taken to stave off depression and rejuvenate economic growth may offer hope, they are unsustainable over the long term. Get a better look at what really lies ahead, and what it will take to improve our economic situation, with this book.
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Investing 101
by Kathy Kristof
Part of the Bloomberg series
People wanting basic advice about stocks, bonds, mutual funds, retirement planning, and tax strategies are often frustrated by information overload. Picking the right book seems as daunting as deciding what to do with their savings and investments.
Investing 101: Updated and Expanded removes both roadblocks, putting people on a path that they can understand and stick with. Kristof is renowned for taking the mystery and anxiety out of investing by keeping choices manageable.
Kristof walks readers through the entire investment cycle and the way they think of their financial lives, rather than presenting stand-alone concepts like stocks and real estate. This expanded edition has new information about 529 college savings plans, annuities, Roth IRAs, reverse mortgages, and why declining markets can be good for you. It includes a cautionary look at home mortgages as investments. There's even a portfolio for the lazy investor.
Kristof's loyal readership and the success of this book's first edition demonstrate that she understands what's on the minds of investors as intimately as she knows what's happening in financial markets.
Winner: Cover and Interior Design, The Bookbinders Guild of New York/2009 New York Book Show Awards
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Angela Merkel
A Chancellorship Forged in Crisis
by Alan Crawford
Part of the Bloomberg series
Angela Merkel was already unique when she became German chancellor: the first female leader of Europe's biggest economy, the first from former communist East Germany and the first born after World War II. Since 2010, the debt crisis that spread from Greece to the euro region and the world economy has propelled her to center-stage, making Merkel the dominant politician in the struggle to preserve Europe's economic model and its single currency. Yet the Protestant pastor's daughter is often viewed as enigmatic and hard-to-predict, a misreading that took hold as she resisted global pressure for grand gestures to counter the crisis. Having turned the fall of the Berlin Wall to her advantage, Merkel is trying to get history on her side again after reaching the fundamental decision to save the euro, the crowning achievement of post-war European unity. Merkel has brought Europe to a crossroads. Germany's economic might gives her unprecedented power to set the direction for the European Union's 500 million people. What's at stake is whether she will persuade them to follow the German lead.
Angela Merkel: A Chancellorship Forged in Crisis is the definitive new biography of the world's most powerful woman. Delving into Merkel's past, the authors explain the motives behind her drive to remake Europe for the age of globalization, her economic role models and the experiences under communism that color her decisions. For the first time in English, Merkel is fully placed in her European context. Through exclusive interviews with leading policy makers and Merkel confidants, the book reveals the behind-the-scenes drama of the crisis that came to dominate her chancellorship, her prickly relationship with the U.S. and admiration for Eastern Europe. Written by two long-standing Merkel watchers, the book documents how her decisions and vision — both works in progress — are shaping a pivotal moment in European history.
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The Audacity of Help
Obama's Stimulus Plan and the Remaking of America
by John F. Wasik
Part of the Bloomberg series
The United States confronts its greatest economic crisis since the 1930s. President Obama has taken quick and decisive action to enact an economic stimulus package strong enough to address problems of historic proportions. What does this new package mean for American families, businesses, investors, and taxpayers?
The Audacity of Help unrolls the blueprints and offers insights on how the economic stimulus package-as passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama-will affect healthcare, education, the environment, energy, taxes, and more. The book includes analysis of sectors and industries that will benefit, as well as those that will not. Wasik's conclusions are firmly grounded in a comprehensive and enlightening evaluation of the final economic package passed into law. Extensive study and interviews with experts from each economic sector support his analysis.
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More Than Money
A Guide To Sustaining Wealth and Preserving the Family
by Michael A. Cole
Part of the Bloomberg series
A new, more comprehensive approach to long-term family wealth management
More Than Money provides a high-level, integrated approach to preserving both financial resources and family harmony. Research has shown a failure rate of 70 percent in long-term multigenerational wealth management, and contrary to popular assumption, only five percent of that failure is due to bad investment, poor tax planning, or inadequate performance by legal and financial advisors. The number-one reason family wealth management fails is the family itself, poor communication, lack of trust, divergent visions, and a failure to prepare succeeding generations will tear down the resources the family has worked so hard to build. Traditional wealth management cannot fix this. Instead, this book offers a fresh approach that integrates strategic and tactical wealth management to align the family's assets with the family members. With helpful tools and advice drawn from a real-world understanding of family complexities, you'll improve your ability to preserve your family's resources over multiple generations.
With an expert's perspective on the real forces behind successful family wealth management, this book provides a clear model and a practical roadmap for long-term financial preservation.
• Develop a shared family vision and mission
• Improve communication and trust among members
• Merge strategic and tactical planning
• Ensure the longevity of your family's wealth
The wealth management sphere tends to focus on taxes, investments, banking, and estate planning, but little thought is given to the people themselves-this overlooks the fact that individual family members are the most critical factor in multigenerational wealth management, and fails to provide solutions. More Than Money merges traditional strategies with family dynamics, communication, governance, and preparation to help your resources last for generations to come.
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Sweat Equity
Inside the New Economy of Mind and Body
by Jason Kelly
Part of the Bloomberg series
Go inside the trend that spawned a multi-billion-dollar industry for the top five percent
Sweat Equity goes inside the multibillion-dollar trend toward endurance sports and fitness to discover who's driving it, who's paying for it, and who's profiting. Bloomberg's Jason Kelly, author of The New Tycoons, profiles the participants, entrepreneurs, and investors at the center of this movement, exploring this phenomenon in which a surge of people-led by the most affluent, are becoming increasingly obsessed with looking and feeling better. Through in-depth looks inside companies and events from New York Road Runners to Tough Mudder and Ironman, Kelly profiles the companies and people aiming to meet the demands of these consumers, and the traits and strategies that made them so successful.
In a modern world filled with anxiety, pressure, and competition, people are spending more time and money than ever before to soothe their minds and tone their bodies, sometimes pushing themselves to the most extreme limits. Even as obesity rates hit an all-time high, the most financially successful among us are collectively spending billions each year on apparel, gear, and entry fees. Sweat Equity charts the rise of the movement, through the eyes of competitors and the companies that serve them. Through conversations with businesspeople, many driven by their own fitness obsessions, and first-hand accounts of the sports themselves, Kelly delves into how the movement is taking shape.
• Understand the social science, physics, and economics of our desire to pursue activities like endurance sports and yoga
• Get to know the endurance business's target demographics
• Learn how distance running, once a fringe hobby, became a multibillion dollar enterprise fueled by private equity
• Understand how different generations pursue fitness and how fast-growing companies sell to them
The opportunity to run, swim, and crawl in the mud is resonating with more and more of us, as sports once considered extreme become mainstream. As Baby Boomers seek to stay fit and Millennials search for meaning in a hyperconnected world, the demand for the race bib is outstripping supply, even as the cost to participate escalates. Sweat Equity, through the stories of men and women inside the most influential races and companies, goes to the heart of the movement where mind, body, and big money collide.
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The Voice of the Rising Generation
Family Wealth and Wisdom
by James E. Hughes Jr.
Part of the Bloomberg series
Avoid "Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves" by Finding Your Voice
Growing up in a family with significant wealth or a family business can often feel like an exercise in silence. What should you ask? Whom should you ask? When? Is it ever right to talk about such things?
“The Voice of the Rising Generation” speaks directly to those who find themselves living in that silence, the so-called "next generation." Great wealth or a family business can act like a "black hole," sapping the dreams and aspirations of future generations who feel that they can never measure up to the fortune's founder. This book, written by a psychologist, an educator, and a wise counselor who single-handedly changed the landscape of family wealth, diagnoses with economy and precision the cause of entitlement and dependency. It is not too much money or too few chores. It is the failure of rising generations to individuate, that is, to pursue their dreams, develop their resilience, and find their voice.
Many books are addressed to parents and grandparents who worry about the effects of wealth on their descendants. Almost alone in the field, this book speaks directly to 20-, 30-and 40-somethings, encouraging them-literally, giving them courage-to meet the challenge of integrating wealth's power into their lives, rather than disappearing into the black hole. Readers will:
• Come to understand the true causes of entitlement and dependency
• Identify the psychological characteristics of the rising generation and the challenges proper to its development
• Clarify their own dreams, work, and vocation
• Navigate personal relationships and communication within the context of wealth
• Recognize the special challenges faced when rising is delayed until mid-life.
If you are a young person who is starting your life's journey and wondering about the effects of parental gifts, trusts, or a family business, this book will offer you questions, reflections, and lessons-learned to help you find your own way. If you are a parent, grandparent, elder, or mentor, “The Voice of the Rising Generation” can serve the young people in your life as a gift more precious than gold.
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Passing the Torch
Preserving Family Wealth Beyond the Third Generation
by Ilze Alberts
Part of the Bloomberg series
Sustain and grow your family's capital throughout generations.
Families need to have vision and foresight to sustain the family's capital throughout generations. Unfortunately, many of them build wealth effectively but find, near the end of their lives, that it has little sustainability to prepare the next generations that will be the beneficiaries of their hard work.
“Passing the Torch” teaches high net-worth families how to foster a strong family dynamic to be truly generational. Inside, first-generation wealth creators will learn how to create a culture of sustainability and growth and endow subsequent generations with the tools and mindset necessary to prosper. Subsequent generations will learn how to receive the torch, sustain and grow the family's capital and pass the torch to the next generation.
• Discover the importance of emotional intelligence
• Learn to view generational wealth from a behavioral lens
• Transcend financial instruction to find a sense of purpose and direction
• Map out your family's legacy
Whether you're consulting an advisor or taking matters into your own hands, this is the essential reference you need to sustain wealth for generations to come.
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Kids, Wealth, and Consequences
Ensuring a Responsible Financial Future for the Next Generation
by Richard A. Morris
Part of the Bloomberg series
Leaving children with a substantial amount of money can be a boon or a burden. High-net-worth parents need to give their children an education to navigate today's complex world. The question becomes how to raise children with a sense of reality and balance, imparting a strong work ethic, and making them good stewards of their wealth.
“Kids, Wealth, and Consequences” enlightens high-net-worth parents about the unique issues they need to explore. The book addresses the "hard" financial issues, such as investing and estate planning, as well as the "soft" emotional issues relating to values, family, and communication. Morris and Pearl detail strategies and techniques to help parents raise children who appreciate and know how to manage the wealth they inherit.
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Hedge Hunters
Hedge Fund Masters on the Rewards, the Risk, and the Reckoning
by Katherine Burton
Part of the Bloomberg series
The hedge fund industry's top managers have a penchant for high returns and low profiles. The combination makes them a regular focus of the media, eager to know what makes them tick. Now, thanks to Katherine Burton, who's been covering these noteworthy traders for Bloomberg News for more than a decade, we know considerably more about them. With candor and detail, the industry's most successful hedge fund managers describe the events that shaped their personal journeys, the strategies they use to produce returns even in uncooperative markets, and the attributes that make a smart investor. Hedge Hunters offers a rare look at the industry's top performers and an introduction to some of the most talented new managers, handpicked by the masters themselves.
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Bust
Greece, the Euro and the Sovereign Debt Crisis
by Matthew Lynn
Part of the Bloomberg series
Athens, Greece-May Day 2010. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU) were putting together the final details of a $100 billion euro rescue package for the country. The Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, had agreed to a savage package of "austerity measures" involving cuts in public spending and lower salaries and pensions. Outside, riot police were deployed as protestors gathered to fight the austerity program. A country with a history of revolution and dictatorship hovered on the brink of collapse, with the world's financial markets watching to see if the deal cobbled together would be enough to both calm the markets and rescue the Greek economy, and with it the euro, from oblivion.
In “Bust: Greece, the Euro, and the Sovereign Debt Crisis”, leading market commentator Matthew Lynn blends financial history, politics, and current affairs to tell the story of how one nation rode the wave of economic prosperity and brought a continent, a currency, and, potentially, the global financial system to its knees.
Bust is a story of government deceit, unfettered spending, and cheap borrowing: a tale of financial folly to rank alongside the greatest in history. It charts Greece's rise, and spectacular fall from grace, but it also explores the global repercussions of a financial disaster that has only just begun. It explains how the Greek debt crisis spread like wildfire through the rest of Europe, hitting Ireland, Portugal, Italy, and Spain, and ultimately provoking a crisis that brought the euro to the edge of collapse. And it argues that the Greek crisis is just the start of a decade of financial turmoil that will eventually force the break up of the euro, and a massive retrenchment in the living standards of all the developed economies.
Written in a lively and entertaining style, “Bust: Greece, the Euro, and the Sovereign Debt Crisis” is an engaging and informative account of a country gone wrong and a must-read for anyone interested in world events and global economics.
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Fine Art and High Finance
Expert Advice on the Economics of Ownership
by Various Authors
Part of the Bloomberg series
Art and finance coalesce in the elite world of fine art collecting and investing. Investors and collectors can't protect and profit from their collections without grappling with a range of complex issues like risk, insurance, restoration, and conservation. They require intimate knowledge not only of art but also of finance.
Clare McAndrew and a highly qualified team of contributors explain the most difficult financial matters facing art investors. Key topics include:
• Appraisal and valuation
• Art as loan collateral
• Securitization and taxation
• Investing in art funds
• Insurance
• The black-market art trade
Clare McAndrew has a PhD in economics and is the author of The Art Economy. She is considered a leading expert on the economics of art ownership.
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The Dragon Network
Inside Stories of the Most Successful Chinese Family Businesses
by A. B. Susanto
Part of the Bloomberg series
What's driving the burgeoning global Chinese family businesses?
Chinese family businesses are the driving force behind Asia's economic prosperity. As the world becomes more global they have had to adapt to the new environment. This timely book draws on an extensive regional survey to reveal the key players and the strategies that will drive their success going forward. The book discusses and analyzes the business life and achievements of some prominent overseas Chinese family businesses in Asia and reveals their life philosophies, their business journey, and their family role in business.
• Includes analysis regarding how the senior Chinese generations prepare their children to run the business in the future
• Reveals that flexibility, ability to adapt to changing business environments, and resilience contribute to the success of many overseas Chinese family businesses
• Offers illustrative examples of successful family businesses from Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines, and China
Based in solid research and filled with illustrative examples, The Dragon Network offers an inside look at how family businesses succeed and thrive in Asia.
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China's Superbank
Debt, Oil and Influence - How China Development Bank is Rewriting the Rules of Finance
by Henry Sanderson
Part of the Bloomberg series
Inside the engine-room of China's economic growth, the China Development Bank
Anyone wanting a primer on the secret of China's economic success need look no further than China Development Bank (CDB) which has displaced the World Bank as the world's biggest development bank, lending billions to countries around the globe to further Chinese policy goals. In China's Superbank, Bloomberg authors Michael Forsythe and Henry Sanderson outline how the bank is at the center of China's domestic economic growth and how it is helping to expand China's influence in strategically important overseas markets.
100 percent owned by the Chinese government, the CDB holds the key to understanding the inner workings of China's state-led economic development model, and its most glaring flaws. The bank is at the center of the country's efforts to build a world-class network of highways, railroads, and power grids, pioneering a lending scheme to local governments that threatens to spawn trillions of yuan in bad loans. It is doling out credit lines by the billions to Chinese solar and wind power makers, threatening to bury global competitors with a flood of cheap products. Another $45 billion in credit has been given to the country's two biggest telecom equipment makers who are using the money to win contracts around the globe, helping fulfill the goal of China's leaders for its leading companies to "go global."
Bringing the story of China Development Bank to life by crisscrossing China to investigate the quality of its loans, China's Superbank travels the globe, from Africa, where its China-Africa fund is displacing Western lenders in a battle for influence, to the oil fields of Venezuela.
• Offers a fascinating insight into the China Development Bank (CDB), the driver of China's rapid economic development
• Travels the globe to show how the CDB is helping Chinese businesses "go global"
• Written by two respected reporters at Bloomberg News
As China's influence continues to grow around the world, many people are asking how far it will extend. China's Superbank addresses these vital questions, looking at the institution at the heart of this growth.
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Road to Power
How GM's Mary Barra Shattered the Glass Ceiling
by Laura Colby
Part of the Bloomberg series
Follow a pioneer's journey from factory floor to CEO
Road to Power is the story of how Mary Barra drove herself to the pinnacle of a company that steers the nation's wealth. Beginning as a rare female electrical engineer and daughter of a General Motors die maker, Barra spent more than thirty years building her career before becoming the first woman to ever lead a global automaker. With $155 billion in sales and 200,000 employees, GM is widely considered to be a proxy for the U.S. economy, making Barra's position arguably the most important corporate role a woman has ever held. This book describes the personal character, choices, and leadership style that enabled her to break through the glass ceiling.
When 52-year-old Mary Barra was named CEO of General Motors in 2013, only people outside of the company were surprised. She had done everything from working on the factory floor to overseeing manufacturing, from improving union relations to paring down bureaucracy, and from running human resources to helping drag the company back from its 2009 bankruptcy. This book details each step of her career, and the lessons she learned along the way.
• Learn how Mary Barra's willingness to take on diverse assignments helped steer her career trajectory
• Examine the fine details of Barra's management style and her ability to relate to colleagues
• Discover the qualities and experiences Barra had that drove her to lead this male-dominated profession
• Study the valuable lessons Barra learned at each stage in her professional life, and why they stuck with her throughout her journey to the top
Barra is most certainly a pioneer for women in business, but she's also a living lesson as to how far the right outlook, skills, and drive can take you in your career. Road to Power explores the talent and the mindset that got her all the way to the top.
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Japanization
What the World Can Learn from Japan's Lost Decades
by William Pesek
Part of the Bloomberg series
An in-depth look at Japan's economic malaise and the steps it must take to compete globally
In Japanization, Bloomberg columnist William Pesek-based in Tokyo-presents a detailed look at Japan's continuing twenty-year economic slow-down, the political and economic reasons behind it, and the policies it could and should undertake to return to growth and influence. Despite new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's promise of economic revitalization, investor optimism about the future, and plenty of potential, Japanization reveals why things are unlikely to change any time soon.
Pesek argues that "Abenomics," as the new policies are popularly referred to, is nothing more than a dressed-up version of the same old fiscal and monetary policies that have left Japan with crippling debt, interest rates at zero, and constant deflation. He explores the ten forces that are stunting Japan's growth and offers prescriptions for fixing each one.
• Offers a skeptical counterpoint to the popular rosy narrative on the economic outlook for Japan
• Gives investors practical and detailed insight on the real condition of Japan's economy
• Reveals ten factors stunting Japan's growth and why they are unlikely to be solved any time soon
• Explains why most of what readers believe they know about Japan's economy is wrong
• Includes case studies of some of the biggest Japanese companies, including Olympus, Japan Airlines, Sony, and Toyota, among others
For many investors, businesspeople, and economists, Japan's long economic struggle is difficult to comprehend, particularly given the economic advantages it appears to have over its neighbors. Japanization offers a ground-level look at why its problems continue and what it can do to change course.
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Reckoning to Revival
How American Workers Rebuilt an Industry
by Keith Naughton
Part of the Bloomberg series
A special report on the resurgence of the Detroit auto industry using the Chrysler Jeep plant at Jefferson North as a focal point. The report centers on the characters behind the plant and the new technology it is using for manufacturing cars, while also looking at the economic desperation of the neighborhood in which the Jeep plant sits.
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The Crisis of Crowding
Quant Copycats, Ugly Models, and the New Crash Normal
by Ludwig B. Chincarini
Part of the Bloomberg series
A rare analytical look at the financial crisis using simple analysis
The economic crisis that began in 2008 revealed the numerous problems in our financial system, from the way mortgage loans were produced to the way Wall Street banks leveraged themselves. Curiously enough, however, most of the reasons for the banking collapse are very similar to the reasons that Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), the largest hedge fund to date, collapsed in 1998. The Crisis of Crowding looks at LTCM in greater detail, with new information, for a more accurate perspective, examining how the subsequent hedge funds started by Meriwether and former partners were destroyed again by the lapse of judgement in allowing Lehman Brothers to fail.
Covering the lessons that were ignored during LTCM's collapse but eventually connected to the financial crisis of 2008, the book presents a series of lessons for hedge funds and financial markets, including touching upon the circle of greed from homeowners to real estate agents to politicians to Wall Street.
• Guides the reader through the real story of Long-Term Capital Management with accurate descriptions, previously unpublished data, and interviews
• Describes the lessons that hedge funds, as well as the market, should have learned from LTCM's collapse
• Explores how the financial crisis and LTCM are a global phenomena rooted in failures to account for risk in crowded spaces with leverage
• Explains why quantitative finance is essential for every financial institution from risk management to valuation modeling to algorithmic trading
• Is filled with simple quantitative analysis about the financial crisis, from the Quant Crisis of 2007 to the failure of Lehman Brothers to the Flash Crash of 2010
A unique blend of storytelling and sound quantitative analysis, The Crisis of Crowding is one of the first books to offer an analytical look at the financial crisis rather than just an account of what happened. Also included are a layman's guide to the Dodd-Frank rules and what it means for the future, as well as an evaluation of the Fed's reaction to the crisis, QE1, QE2, and QE3.
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Systemic Liquidity Risk and Bipolar Markets
Wealth Management in Today's Macro Risk On / Risk Off Financial Environment
by Clive M. Corcoran
Part of the Bloomberg series
The dramatic and well chronicled crisis of 2007/8 marked a watershed moment for all stakeholders in global capital markets. In the aftermath, financial markets have become even more tightly coupled as correlations in returns across multiple asset classes have been at historically elevated levels. Investors and fund managers are, to a much larger degree than previously and often much more than they realize, subject to the risk of severe wealth destruction. The ultimate hazard, which is not adequately characterized by the widely touted notion of tail risk, is the systemic risk which arises when liquidity in markets completely evaporates. Not only did this happen in the second half of 2008, but it has been repeated episodically since then—most notably in May 2010, in an incident known as the Flash Crash, and in the fall of 2011 when correlations were at historically elevated levels.
Conventional asset allocation tools and techniques have failed to keep pace with the changing financial landscape which has emerged since 2008. In addition to the preponderance of algorithmic trading and the associated changes in the liquidity characteristics of financial markets, a new paradigm of risk on/risk off asset allocation has emerged. Risk on/risk off is a widely adopted style of trading and macro allocation strategy where positions are taken in several closely aligned asset classes depending on the prevailing sentiment or appetite for risk. The consequences of the day to day (and intraday) switching between either a risk on or risk off tactical strategies poses significant new challenges to investors who are still making investment decisions with outmoded notions from traditional asset allocation theory.
How can one cushion the impact of systemically threatening events when the ability to exit financial instruments becomes almost nonexistent? How can one trust the integrity of financial models and orthodox macro financial theory which have become increasingly discredited? Can central bankers be relied upon to become the counter-parties of last resort and provide a safety net under the financial system? These vital questions, and many others, need to be addressed by everyone who has a stake in modern financial markets, and they are addressed in Systemic Liquidity Risk and Bipolar Markets.
Proper functioning markets require fractiousness or divided opinion, and this needs to be lubricated by communications from central bankers, economic forecasters, corporate executives and so on. As long as such messages and market conditions remain ambiguous, providing asymmetric information to different market players, then the conditions are present to enable systemic liquidity to be preserved. Seen in this context the prevailing paradigm of bipolar risk on/risk off asset allocations is both a prerequisite to liquid markets, and also paradoxically, when one side of the polarity becomes too extreme, a major source of systemic instability. Should such polarities become critically unbalanced, and should the signals received by market players become symmetrically disadvantageous as they were in the fall of 2008, then an even more substantial systemic liquidity crisis than that seen in those troubled times is a dangerous possibility.
Apart from the practical risk management tools and tactics that are recommended in Systemic Liquidity Risk and Bipolar Markets, there is a provocative and cogent narrative to provide anxious and perplexed investors with a coherent explanation of the post GFC financial environment, and which should assist them in navigating the choppy waters ahead.
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The Mystery of Market Movements
An Archetypal Approach to Investment Forecasting and Modelling
by Niklas Hageback
Part of the Bloomberg series
A quantifiable framework for unlocking the unconscious forces that shape markets.
There has long been a notion that subliminal forces play a great part in causing the seemingly irrational financial bubbles, which conventional economic theory, again and again, fails to explain. However, these forces, sometimes labeled 'animal spirits' or 'irrational exuberance, have remained elusive-until now. “The Mystery of Market Movements” provides you with a methodology to timely predict and profit from changes in human investment behaviour based on the workings of the collective unconscious.
Niklas Hageback draws in on one of psychology's most influential ideas-archetypes-to explain how they form investor's perceptions and can be predicted and turned into profit. “The Mystery of Market Movements” provides;
• A review of the collective unconscious and its archetypes based on Carl Jung's theories and empirical case studies that highlights and assesses the influences of the collective unconscious on financial bubbles and zeitgeists
• For the first time being able to objectively measure the impact of archetypal forces on human thoughts and behaviour with a view to provide early warning signals on major turns in the markets. This is done through a step-by-step guide on how to develop a measurement methodology based on an analysis of the language of the unconscious; figurative speech such as metaphors and symbolism, drawn out and deciphered from Big Data sources, allowing for quantification into time series
• The book is supplemented with an online resource that presents continuously updated bespoken archetypal indexes with predictive capabilities to major financial indexes
Investors are often unaware of the real reasons behind their own financial decisions. This book explains why psychological drivers in the collective unconscious dictates not only investment behaviour but also political, cultural and social trends. Understanding these forces allows you to stay ahead of the curve and profit from market tendencies that more traditional methods completely overlook.
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Hess
The Last Oil Baron
by Tina Davis
Part of the Bloomberg series
A glimpse of the savvy that built a global corporation from scratch.
“Hess: The Last Oil Baron” profiles a titan of the oil industry, mapping the journey of the quintessential American dream. The story of Leon Hess follows an immigrant kosher butcher's son as he builds an oil dynasty that may never be matched. The multinational, multi-billion-dollar company began with a single second-hand delivery truck and the Rockefeller-caliber business acumen of one young man. Interviews with former employees, beneficiaries, and even his high school sweetheart provide an insider's perspective on the man behind the legacy, allowing today's aspiring entrepreneurs the opportunity to learn from one of the nation's most inspiring success stories.
Leon Hess built a global empire from the ground up. Along the way, he fought in a war, did business with Muammar Qaddafi, won a Super Bowl as the owner of the Jets, was involved in Watergate, and introduced the Hess toy truck that became a holiday tradition for millions of Americans. More than just a book of business strategy, Hess tells the story of a life fascinatingly lived, and the legacy he left behind.
• Discover the man behind the company, the Jets football team, and the iconic toy truck
• Learn how the actions of Leon Hess affected the modern push toward energy independence
• Study the strategy that turned a single-truck operation into a major integrated company
• Consider the challenges Hess Corp. faces to its family legacy today, and the solutions being implemented
Leon Hess' strategies and techniques can be emulated and imitated, but his entrepreneurial fire is something altogether more rare. Hess provides readers with a glimpse of the man whose unrivaled ambition changed an industry and a nation.