(by 12 people)
Who cares most about your money?
1) Most investors follow similar investment advice.
2) Most advisers live well from the advise and management they provide.
3) Most investors will be greatly disappointed even before they reach retirement.
There is a better way to plan for your future; to create and manage your wealth.
No one cares more about your money than you -- unless they plan to use or steal your money. - Allan Wallace
A Breath Of Fresh Air
and the empty talking heads are trying to close the window.
Jim Rogers has accomplished great things - he is always worth your time. You need to watch this and then think about what Jim Rogers says; it is your future he is talking about.
Carefully considering one Jim Rogers quiet rant is worth more to you than months of financial news.
Jim Rogers on CNBC: ABOLISH THE FEDERAL RESERVE and Bernanke
Plan Your Investments - speculate according to your plan
Find your own way through the investment forest.
Their sales pitch will offer a path to predictable accumulation, followed by controlled distribution, and then the joy of changing society with your planned giving legacy.
Life is not linear!
Investment is diluted speculation; when investing you are paying someone to speculate for you -- while you wait anxiously. Instead, you can learn speculation rules that allow you to create, grow, and protect your own wealth.
The Speculation Rules definition of true wealth - when you can frequently give to great causes and not have to check your bank balance first. You will know when you achieve real wealth.
You can start on the road to true wealth by decreasing your take home money today. You won't miss it after a month or two. So arrange your income that 10% goes to savings and intelligent speculation, and 10% goes to helping others.
To discover true financial freedom learn to grow and protect your financial assets for yourself. An important speculation rule: there is a market trading style that fits you best - discover it!
There are two keys to gaining wealth:
* Wealth is created by concentration, preserved by diversification.
* Wealth is overwhelmingly created by profit and capital gains - not by salaries.
Buy The Book Before You Buy The Investment
A good finance book will help you create, grow, and preserve your wealth.
Knowledge that empowers you to act, and then directs your actions has great value.
There is a full meal of courage and wisdom in each well selected book. Be sure and take your daily dose to ensure your financial health.
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The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Text on Value Investing
Deep value investing by the master. It is not fast money, but it is very sure money. If a high school or college student wants to know the secret of stock market wealth - they should work their way through this tome.
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Amazon Price: $19.77 (as of 07/19/2008)
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Wealth: Grow It, Protect It, Spend It, and Share It (Paperback) (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
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Amazon Price: $10.87 (as of 07/19/2008)
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Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and Confusión de Confusiones (A Marketplace Book)
Early works that may help you avoid dancing off cliffs with investment lemmings. Get some perspective - these are extremely relevant today.
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Amazon Price: $16.47 (as of 07/19/2008)
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A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market
pre-order -- I just did.
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Amazon Price: $17.79 (as of 07/19/2008)
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The Ultimate Gift
DVD; get the gift - share the gift
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Amazon Price: $13.49 (as of 07/19/2008)
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Speculation Rules - The Anti-Investment Blog
When it is your money - speculation rules! Learn speculation rules governing your time and money.
Speculation may be understood by observation and cogitation. Developing mathematical models to explain or forecast events obfuscates reality.
Much more concise than obtuse math is Mark Twain's comment, "History does not repeat itself, it rhymes."
The following are links to the most recent journal entries.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand bystart small - grow slow and steady
You will be learning new ideas; you may start with a leap - or fall flat on your nose. Don't read too much into either, you will soon experience the other.
Something is always failing, most efforts never seem good enough, destruction looms menacingly; the recent bust in Real estate speculation offers a case in point."Growth is not steady, forward, upward progression. It is instead a switchback trail; three steps forward, two back, one around the bushes, and a few simply standing, before another forward leap." - Dorothy Corkville Briggs
However, overall both we and mankind can continue to progress. Persist once you have found an investment style that fits you.
In our attempts at progress it is easy to become fixated on the two steps we just fell back - rather than profit from the next three steps forward.
Swimming Up Stream
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Proverbs 4:7
In the middle of a move in the markets - the crowd is gaining courage and profits, becoming more bold.
The crowd is only always wrong at the extremes.
When everyone agrees that "this time it's different" is when they throw caution to the winds, and give back all the gains they have made - and usually far more.
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Money Game
A great look at wall street. Chapter 8 alone is so valuable I won't put a price on it.
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The Zurich Axioms
Probably the best investment or intelligent speculation guide you can find. I've shared many copies of this book with confused investors.
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The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey
Get at least two copies, one for you to read and re-read - the other to give to inquisitive kiddos.
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Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street
entertaining - and it contains real investment insights.
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Amazon Price: $10.20 (as of 07/19/2008)
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Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
Based on the valuable insights of C.F. Bastiat, this is economic reality in easy to swallow bite sized pieces. A truly simple way to become economically literate.
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Follow these links to sites or pages of value.
There are lots of good resources about managing your own money, select the ones that are of value to you.
- Squidoo lens with free Elliott Wave materials
- Elliott Wave Theory is a power tool you want in your investment tool box; along with Benjamin Graham and Douglas Casey. Free Elliott wave videos, free e-books, and free Elliott wave tutorials. Whats not to like?
Very Cool: free link to watch the History's Hidden Engine documentary. - Doug Casey Research
- Not free, but with a risk free trial. You will learn a great deal more than just profitable speculation from Doug. Subscribe for a year, you will probably stay much longer.
- Sovereign Society
- A free newsletter that will keep you up to date on international investing and speculation. Very valuable
- BFU College Of Human Interaction
- This is the social science school at Bastiat Free University. You will find easy to understand economics courses here. Apply and register for free, monitor the classes at no charge. Also check the courses in the College of Entrepreneurship.
You can also earn a self-directed, distance learning degree at a low cost. - Three Steps Forward ...
- One of many technical analysis methods. Their primary value is in limiting risk when initiating a position.
There is a free course available to gain insight into the ideas. - List of speculation rules
- This is not a complete speculation rules list. It is however the current outline of a book I work on occasionally.
Use it as a reference to make your own list, or write your own book.
Send me a copy. - insurance versus investment
- To be direct, all insurance is an expensive way of protecting what you can not afford to protect alone.
There Are A Million Ways To Make A Million Dollars In The Markets
Sadly they are all hard to find and only last a short time.
Wealth is made through concentration, but preserved through diversification - don't give back what you've earned.
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Small Uncorrelated Speculations Protect Your Wealth
Gambler's ruin will catch up with plungers
Earned wealth turned into instant poverty when the hero backed his opinions too deeply and in too focused a manner. You can learn a lot from these books.
You won't learn how to put it all on the line for one opinion; you will learn to maximize returns while controlling volatility.
It may even keep you from self destruction. Of course if what you want is the thrill of the markets - self destruction could be part of your goal.
A Short History of Financial Euphoria (Whittle)
An entertaining read, very useful insights for today's markets.
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Reminiscences of a Stock Operator Illustrated (A Marketplace Book)
Every successful trader I've asked values this book. You will too.
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The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
It is huge events, largely unforeseen, that define progress and disaster.
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Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics (Agora Series)
A disjointed series of rants - but very good for challenging your complacency in your financial knowledge.
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Amazon Price: $11.18 (as of 07/19/2008)
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The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders (A Marketplace Book)
Powerfully illuminating Interviews with top traders. You may want to buy all three financial wizards books now - they are so good you won't stop at just one. Click on the picture and order them now.
Let these traders become your investment mentors.
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Throwing math at economics is illogical
"Economic man," an academic construct, does not exist.
Humans can be rational alone if they work at it. Put them in a large group, be it in a broker's office, entering the housing market, or walking through a casino; and kiss reason goodbye.
Modern academics love the validity they accrue by applying math to sociology, anthropology, economics, or political science. If they convolute math enough they can claim to "prove" any harebrained concept. They have to assume so much, and modify math or the discipline so much; either the math or the reality it supposedly represents becomes a joke.
An economist came to a horse handicapper and said he had found a perfect way to predict the winner in horse races. The gambler became excited; no more reading stats, comparing jockeys, watching weather, etc. In other words winning would no longer be hard work and risk. The bookie took the economist off to one side and asked for a hint to the process. The economist said " well, first we assume horses are ellipses."
Economics is about people as individuals. Sociology and psychology are about people. We are people, and we know a lot of what we do is not rational. All of us irrational beings do not suddenly become rational when we form a large group. We become far less rational as a mob.
Any time someone defines a group as having emotions or plans they commit an error of reasoning. It is the individual that thinks and acts, or panics and acts, not a loosely defined stereotypical unity.
Modern economics has become the art of building ugly mathematical structures and calling them elegant. The models used are full of fallacies, the final product is obscene. I know, you want to know what I really think.
I think economists were created to make weathermen look good; or as
Galbraith said "Economics exists to make astrology look respectable."
Finance, particularly your finances, can be a very interesting subject.
Learning to run your own finances is an important step in running your own life.
Do you want some more building wealth ideas?
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