"Nobel Prize-winning financial economist William Sharpe shows that investment professionals cannot make good portfolio choices unless they understand the determinants of asset prices." -- Provided by publisher.

Publisher description

From the Foreword by Charles Schwab "The Investor's Business Daily Guide to the Markets is. . .clear,concise, innovative, and authoritative, giving you the informationyou need to make important investment decisions with confidence.Whether you're a new or experienced investor, you'll learn a greatdeal from this book. What a pleasure it is to discover a book thattells it like it is with no hidden agendas. It's sure to pay youdividends and capital gains again and again in the yearsahead." "Before investing in the markets, you should invest in this book."--Alice Kane Executive Vice President, New York Life InsuranceCompany "Investor's Business Daily Guide to the Markets is thequintessential guide for anyone interested in gaining insight andhelpful information about the financial markets." --Louis G.Navellier, President, Navellier & Associates Inc., Editor, MPTReview. "A great book for people who want to understand the markets. Don'tmiss this comprehensive roundup--the mutual funds chapter alone isworth the price of the book." --James M. Benham, Chairman of theBoard, Benham Funds. "Developing an investment portfolio is like building a house: youmust start with a solid foundation. This book gives you theinvestment foundation you need. Buy it before you put anotherdollar in stocks, bonds, or mutual funds."--Ted Allrich. author,The Online Investor "The On-line Investor" (America Online). "Bill O'Neil, for years the unheralded hero of institutionalinvestors worldwide, began offering his expertise to the individualinvestor over ten years ago through Investor's Business Dailynewspaper. Now his Investor's Business Daily Guide to the Marketstakes the next step for investors by putting basic financialinformation into meaningful terms and useful strategies. This is a'must read' for all investors --big and small." --Richard W.Perkins, CFA, President and Portfolio Manager, Perkins CapitalManagement, Inc.

A pioneer in the field of behavioral finance presents an investment guide based on what really drives investors Perfectly timed to give readers a real edge for investing in post-crash markets Author is a leading authority on the theory and application of behavioral finance and a fixture in The Wall Street Journal and other leading media outlets Poised to become the definitive text on how investors and managers make financial decisions—and how these decisions are reflected in financial markets

Since the 2008 financial crisis, a resurgence of interest in economic and financial history has occurred among investment professionals. This book discusses some of the lessons drawn from the past that may help practitioners when thinking about their portfolios. The book’s editors, David Chambers and Elroy Dimson, are the academic leaders of the Newton Centre for Endowment Asset Management at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Finance for Normal People teaches behavioral finance to people like you and me - normal people, neither rational nor irrational. We are consumers, savers, investors, and managers - corporate managers, money managers, financial advisers, and all other financial professionals. The book guides us to know our wants-including hope for riches, protection from poverty, caring for family, sincere social responsibility and high social status. It teaches financial facts and human behavior, including making cognitive and emotional shortcuts and avoiding cognitive and emotional errors such as overconfidence, hindsight, exaggerated fear, and unrealistic hope. And it guides us to banish ignorance, gain knowledge, and increase the ratio of smart to foolish behavior on our way to what we want. These lessons of behavioral finance draw on what we know about us-normal people-including our wants, cognition, and emotions. And they draw on the roles of these factors in saving and spending, portfolio construction, returns we can expect from our investments, and whether we can hope to beat the market. Meir Statman, a founder of behavioral finance, draws on his extensive research and the research of many others to build a unified structure of behavioral finance. Its foundation blocks include normal behavior, behavioral portfolio theory, behavioral life-cycle theory, behavioral asset pricing theory, and behavioral market efficiency.

In 2005, Joel Greenblatt published a book that is already considered one of the classics of finance literature. In The Little Book that Beats the Market—a New York Times bestseller with 300,000 copies in print—Greenblatt explained how investors can outperform the popular market averages by simply and systematically applying a formula that seeks out good businesses when they are available at bargain prices. Now, with a new Introduction and Afterword for 2010, The Little Book that Still Beats the Market updates and expands upon the research findings from the original book. Included are data and analysis covering the recent financial crisis and model performance through the end of 2009. In a straightforward and accessible style, the book explores the basic principles of successful stock market investing and then reveals the author’s time-tested formula that makes buying above average companies at below average prices automatic. Though the formula has been extensively tested and is a breakthrough in the academic and professional world, Greenblatt explains it using 6th grade math, plain language and humor. He shows how to use his method to beat both the market and professional managers by a wide margin. You’ll also learn why success eludes almost all individual and professional investors, and why the formula will continue to work even after everyone “knows” it. While the formula may be simple, understanding why the formula works is the true key to success for investors. The book will take readers on a step-by-step journey so that they can learn the principles of value investing in a way that will provide them with a long term strategy that they can understand and stick with through both good and bad periods for the stock market. As the Wall Street Journal stated about the original edition, “Mr. Greenblatt…says his goal was to provide advice that, while sophisticated, could be understood and followed by his five children, ages 6 to 15. They are in luck. His ‘Little Book’ is one of the best, clearest guides to value investing out there.”