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Boom and Bust: The Rise and Fall of the World's Financial Markets
Argues that the world faces a huge economic collapse, argues that the financial markets are in grave peril, and advises what steps to take
197 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1989
12 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Wood
4 books5 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Described by London’s Telegraph newspaper as ‘the first to predict the US sub-prime meltdown’, Christopher Wood is best known for his weekly GREED & fear newsletter. He’s been ranked No.1 Asian equities strategist every year since 2002 by either Asiamoney or Institutional Investor and usually by both. A former finance journalist with the Far Eastern Economic Review and The Economist, Wood is also the author of Boom & Bust, The Bubble Economy and The End of Japan Inc. He also wrote the CLSA milestone research report, The Real Pacific Century: Asia’s Billion Boomers.
Described by London’s Telegraph newspaper as ‘the first to predict the US sub-prime meltdown’, Christopher Wood is best known for his weekly GREED & fear newsletter. He’s been ranked No.1 Asian equities strategist every year since 2002 by either Asiamoney or Institutional Investor and usually by both. A former finance journalist with the Far Eastern Economic Review and The Economist, Wood is also the author of Boom & Bust, The Bubble Economy and The End of Japan Inc. He also wrote the CLSA milestone research report, The Real Pacific Century: Asia’s Billion Boomers.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 22, 2016
I have been following the work of Chris Woods for years. Among his better known books is "The Bubble Economy" written on Japan in 1990 predicting a long and protected deflationary slump. Clearly this was amazingly insightful and landed him the well-earned job of Asian investment bank CLSA's strategist.
Chris is among the less than a handful of thoughtful investors that I know globally who have been bullish on both gold and the long bond for many years. Its a unique view that takes a unique framework. Chris has them both in spades. He is one of the most thoughtful investment strategists plying the craft. I think his background as a reported for the Economist in Japan gave him the insight to put these unusual threads together.
This work is one of Chris' first. I read it recently and was amazed at how modern it was, how fresh the issues sounded, like it was written post 2008 rather than post 1987. That drove the biggest takeaways I had from his book: 1.) that change happens slowly, 2.) the power of the authorities -especially central bankers - to deal with escalating financial crises has risen in lockstep with the indebtedness that drives financial crises. It should be a cautionary tale for the doom-mongers in the world, especially in the financial research publishing field. In the margins of this book many times I scribbled "30 years too early," since in the investment business being early is the same thing as being wrong. Wrong by a generation.
But wrongness itself, paradoxically does not equal misunderstanding. I rate Chris very highly in his understanding of how the world works, its only his timeline that could be faulted. And that frankly no one could have foreseen. If its deeper knowledge you seek into the workings of an ever-interconnected global financial world, then this author is your man.
That is the great power of this book - to illustrate that even a deep understanding of cyclical causality - such as an overindebted world - is not a guarantee of investment success in this world. And that is the most humbling conclusion one can derive from this thoughtful work. For that reason I found that my reading of this work advanced my thinking - as well as the caution with which that thinking is applied.
Chris is among the less than a handful of thoughtful investors that I know globally who have been bullish on both gold and the long bond for many years. Its a unique view that takes a unique framework. Chris has them both in spades. He is one of the most thoughtful investment strategists plying the craft. I think his background as a reported for the Economist in Japan gave him the insight to put these unusual threads together.
This work is one of Chris' first. I read it recently and was amazed at how modern it was, how fresh the issues sounded, like it was written post 2008 rather than post 1987. That drove the biggest takeaways I had from his book: 1.) that change happens slowly, 2.) the power of the authorities -especially central bankers - to deal with escalating financial crises has risen in lockstep with the indebtedness that drives financial crises. It should be a cautionary tale for the doom-mongers in the world, especially in the financial research publishing field. In the margins of this book many times I scribbled "30 years too early," since in the investment business being early is the same thing as being wrong. Wrong by a generation.
But wrongness itself, paradoxically does not equal misunderstanding. I rate Chris very highly in his understanding of how the world works, its only his timeline that could be faulted. And that frankly no one could have foreseen. If its deeper knowledge you seek into the workings of an ever-interconnected global financial world, then this author is your man.
That is the great power of this book - to illustrate that even a deep understanding of cyclical causality - such as an overindebted world - is not a guarantee of investment success in this world. And that is the most humbling conclusion one can derive from this thoughtful work. For that reason I found that my reading of this work advanced my thinking - as well as the caution with which that thinking is applied.
Displaying 1 of 1 review