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A Decade of Delusions: From Speculative Contagion to the Great Recession
The proven strategies rational investors require for success in an irrational market When the dot-com and real estate bubbles of the 1990s and 2000s burst, few were spared the financial fallout. So, how did an investment advisory firm located in Elkhart, Indiana--one of the cities hit hardest by the economic downturns--not only survive, but also thrive during the highly contagious speculative pandemics. By remaining rational. In A Decade of Delusions: From Speculative Contagion to the Great Recession, Frank Martin founder of Elkhart, Indiana's Martin Capital Management offers a riveting and real-time insider's look at the two bubbles, and reflects on how investors can remain rational even when markets are anything but.
Outlines strategies the average investor can use to wade through the endless news, information, and investment advice that bombards them Describes the epidemic of market speculation that gradually infects feverish investors Details how investors can spare themselves the emotional devastation and accompanying paralysis resulting from shocking financial losses Investors are still reeling from the instability in the market. A Decade of Delusions: From Speculative Contagion to the Great Recession provides the information investors need to achieve safety, liquidity, and yield.
Outlines strategies the average investor can use to wade through the endless news, information, and investment advice that bombards them Describes the epidemic of market speculation that gradually infects feverish investors Details how investors can spare themselves the emotional devastation and accompanying paralysis resulting from shocking financial losses Investors are still reeling from the instability in the market. A Decade of Delusions: From Speculative Contagion to the Great Recession provides the information investors need to achieve safety, liquidity, and yield.
- GenresFinance
480 pages, Hardcover
First published May 24, 2011
63 people want to read
About the author
Frank Martin
235 books56 followersLibrarian note:
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There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 29, 2020
My fav quotes (not a review):
-Page 29 |
"Rather than superior intelligence, Buffett confided, it is the capacity for unconditionally rational thought—followed by proportional action—that separates the winners from the also-rans."
-Page 51 |
"Mark Twain (loosely paraphrased) that there are liars, there are abominable liars, and then there are statisticians."
-Page 76 |
"growth investors tend to focus on technology companies and others with rapidly growing profits, while value managers seek undervalued and beaten-down stocks that often have low price-earnings multiples."
-Page 81 |
"Make no mistake, we believe investing is the only game of chance where anybody who is savvy and independent enough can become “the house” and set the odds. We abide in that conviction."
-Page 81 |
"the three most important words in the serious investor’s lexicon are margin of safety."
-Page 84 |
"utility—like a head is more than just a hat rack."
-Page 104
"the company, like its stepchild, Einstein’s Bagels, sunk into the ignominy of bankruptcy. McDonald’s recently purchased the remains of the company for pennies on the dollar. This time it is the Internet that is center stage—and the sellers are more clever than ever. In earlier superheated IPO markets, sellers would be suing their underwriters for underpricing the issue if the price in subsequent trading rose by the kind of percentages that are widespread today. This is not so nowadays because by intentionally keeping the initial offering relatively small, in the face of supercharged demand, a scarcity premium is created, and the post-sale price often skyrockets. It is on the strength of that price that real money is raised in a subsequent “secondary” offering. The illusion is that there is lots of easy money to be made by investing in IPOs. In reality, the people who take serious money off the table are the sellers. As for the buyers, recently disclosed secret “pot lists” indicate that institutions, who carry nearly as many sticks as"
-Page 110
"Wealth management, the markets in their own perverse way occasionally remind us, is not just about eating well, it’s also about sleeping well."
-Page 110
"Perhaps our profession is not unlike amateur tennis: It’s usually not the number of winners hit but rather the number of unforced errors that determines the outcome."
-Page 113
"there is great virtue in limiting the horses in one’s stable to a relatively small number of thoroughbreds."
-Page 154
"Surprisingly, over most 10-year periods in the past century, the economy grew rather steadily at an inflation-adjusted 2 to 3 percent compounded annual rate. The Dow Jones industrial average, however, told an entirely different story. During the twentieth century, there were three huge, secular bull markets that covered about 44 years, during which the Dow gained more than 11,000 points. Yet there were three long periods of stagnation, covering some 56 years, during which the Dow actually lost 292 points in the face of the country’s solid economic progress."
-Page 155
"From 1900 to 1920, new innovations in electricity, automobiles, and the telephone formed the backbone of solid economic growth, and yet the market moved at a snail’s pace: 0.4 percent per year, compounded, closing in 1920 at 71.95. The market exploded upward during the 1920s, advancing 430 percent to 381 in September 1929. Nineteen years later, the Dow stood at half of its 1929 highs, despite record-setting per-capita economic growth of 50 percent during the 1940s. For the next 17 years, coincidentally (the Baby Boom years of 1947–1964), the Dow advanced fivefold, a nice move but not “fat” by later standards. That brings us to the 17 lean years, followed by the 17 fat years"
-Page 163
"To quote seventeenth-century French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, most human misfortune stems from “man’s inability to sit still in a room.”"
-Page 181
"Indeed, crowds have their rightful place in history—and they are capable of incredibly heroic deeds, as the young Chinese students at Tiananmen Square demonstrated. However, investing is a cerebral endeavor, dependent on intellect and not force, reason and not impulse, self-control and not high emotion."
-Page 202
“My research finds that investors consistently overpay for growth. I want people to think about investing this way: The great growing companies are not often the ones that give you the best returns. The tried and true triumph over the bold and new.”
-Page 29 |
"Rather than superior intelligence, Buffett confided, it is the capacity for unconditionally rational thought—followed by proportional action—that separates the winners from the also-rans."
-Page 51 |
"Mark Twain (loosely paraphrased) that there are liars, there are abominable liars, and then there are statisticians."
-Page 76 |
"growth investors tend to focus on technology companies and others with rapidly growing profits, while value managers seek undervalued and beaten-down stocks that often have low price-earnings multiples."
-Page 81 |
"Make no mistake, we believe investing is the only game of chance where anybody who is savvy and independent enough can become “the house” and set the odds. We abide in that conviction."
-Page 81 |
"the three most important words in the serious investor’s lexicon are margin of safety."
-Page 84 |
"utility—like a head is more than just a hat rack."
-Page 104
"the company, like its stepchild, Einstein’s Bagels, sunk into the ignominy of bankruptcy. McDonald’s recently purchased the remains of the company for pennies on the dollar. This time it is the Internet that is center stage—and the sellers are more clever than ever. In earlier superheated IPO markets, sellers would be suing their underwriters for underpricing the issue if the price in subsequent trading rose by the kind of percentages that are widespread today. This is not so nowadays because by intentionally keeping the initial offering relatively small, in the face of supercharged demand, a scarcity premium is created, and the post-sale price often skyrockets. It is on the strength of that price that real money is raised in a subsequent “secondary” offering. The illusion is that there is lots of easy money to be made by investing in IPOs. In reality, the people who take serious money off the table are the sellers. As for the buyers, recently disclosed secret “pot lists” indicate that institutions, who carry nearly as many sticks as"
-Page 110
"Wealth management, the markets in their own perverse way occasionally remind us, is not just about eating well, it’s also about sleeping well."
-Page 110
"Perhaps our profession is not unlike amateur tennis: It’s usually not the number of winners hit but rather the number of unforced errors that determines the outcome."
-Page 113
"there is great virtue in limiting the horses in one’s stable to a relatively small number of thoroughbreds."
-Page 154
"Surprisingly, over most 10-year periods in the past century, the economy grew rather steadily at an inflation-adjusted 2 to 3 percent compounded annual rate. The Dow Jones industrial average, however, told an entirely different story. During the twentieth century, there were three huge, secular bull markets that covered about 44 years, during which the Dow gained more than 11,000 points. Yet there were three long periods of stagnation, covering some 56 years, during which the Dow actually lost 292 points in the face of the country’s solid economic progress."
-Page 155
"From 1900 to 1920, new innovations in electricity, automobiles, and the telephone formed the backbone of solid economic growth, and yet the market moved at a snail’s pace: 0.4 percent per year, compounded, closing in 1920 at 71.95. The market exploded upward during the 1920s, advancing 430 percent to 381 in September 1929. Nineteen years later, the Dow stood at half of its 1929 highs, despite record-setting per-capita economic growth of 50 percent during the 1940s. For the next 17 years, coincidentally (the Baby Boom years of 1947–1964), the Dow advanced fivefold, a nice move but not “fat” by later standards. That brings us to the 17 lean years, followed by the 17 fat years"
-Page 163
"To quote seventeenth-century French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, most human misfortune stems from “man’s inability to sit still in a room.”"
-Page 181
"Indeed, crowds have their rightful place in history—and they are capable of incredibly heroic deeds, as the young Chinese students at Tiananmen Square demonstrated. However, investing is a cerebral endeavor, dependent on intellect and not force, reason and not impulse, self-control and not high emotion."
-Page 202
“My research finds that investors consistently overpay for growth. I want people to think about investing this way: The great growing companies are not often the ones that give you the best returns. The tried and true triumph over the bold and new.”
Displaying 1 of 1 review