Investment Philosophies: Successful Strategies and the Investors Who Made Them Work

by Aswath Damodaran

The philosophy behind the best investment strategies of all time
Investment philosophies are as unique as the individuals who practice them. In his latest endeavor, investment expert and NYU Stern School of Business professor Aswath Damodaran goes beyond investment strategies and looks at the individual underlying philosophies that support these techniques. He explores all of the time-tested investment philosophies that have worked over the long run, and discusses the greatest investors who made these philosophies so famous. Investment Philosophies will expose readers to a wide range of investment philosophies so as to give them a sense of what drives investors in each philosophy, how they attempt to put these philosophies into practice, and what determines ultimate success. In doing this, Damodaran provides an unbiased forum for the presentation of different investment philosophies, while supplying the tools-the definition and measurement of risk, the notion of market efficiency and how to test for inefficiencies, and the components and determinants of trading costs-and the empirical evidence for readers to make their own judgments on the investment philosophy that fits their specific investment goals and views of how markets work. Filled with valuable insights and expert advice, this book reveals various investment philosophies to a general audience of investors, not purely to professional investors.
Aswath Damodaran (New York, NY) is Professor of Finance at New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He is the author of Applied Corporate Finance ( 0-471-33042-6) and Investment Valuation ( 0-471-41488-3).

Genres: Finance, Business, Economics, Personal Finance, Money, Nonfiction

512 pages, Hardcover

First published January 20, 2003

About the author

Aswath Damodaran is a Professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University (Kerschner Family Chair in Finance Education). He is well known as the author of several widely used academic and practitioner texts on Valuation, Corporate Finance and Investment Management; as well as a provider of comprehensive data for valuation purposes.

Reviews

[Nick]

An excellent book providing a quantitative analysis of various investment philosophies. It's not really a how-to book (you could read it that way, but this would be inflexible and perhaps financially dangerous) but more of a book that provides checks and balances to your own philosophy. Damadoran shows several philosophies of investment can out-perform the market or alternative strategies, provided the former are used consistently and sensibly. It's not a light read, but certainly not a difficult one either.

[Palash Kulshrestha]

Ashwath presents all the different types of investment methodologies but crux of the matter comes out to be index funds wins in every study (mostly) . feeling nihilistic about investing after reading this masterpiece. kudos

[Alireza]

Most essential reading in financial markets; An academic review of most important papers about trading and finance in last 50 years with an emphasis on the stock market but lessons are applicable to all financial markets.
within the book, there's an explanation of "Efficient market theory" and scientific proof of why technical analysis is bullshit, and also some studies of hedge funds functionality which isn't very promising.
In a nutshell, by reading this book you will gain a clear vision of what wouldn't work in financial markets and a few ideas of strategies that might be profitable for you.

[Francisco]

prof.Aswath Damodaran is one of a kind! His approach is suited for any level, I like the factor that he focus more on the application part of finance and investment rather than the stories and theories. Highly recommendable for any one !

[Mustafa Maher Tawfik]

A must-read Handbook for Investment.

[Ricardo Teixeira]

Good book to debunk investment myths and start to gain a perspective of which is your investment philosophy.

Chapters could be better organized and a few key ideas and “philosophies” of investing seem to be missing - not a comprehensive book in that said.

That being sais, no one should read one investing book and expect to gain a full perspective about investing.

[Gautom]

Will make you a confident investor.
Completed online course offered by NYU.

[Santhosh Kumar]

Pragmatic and underrated