After eight chapters of theory, Demaria drops a real case study on us. Not a made-up example. An actual deal. Advent International investing in Kroton Educacional SA, a Brazilian education company. This is where all the concepts from the book come alive.
George Bailey gives away his honeymoon money to save his neighbors. Walter Davis skipped town before anyone found out the money was gone.
Book: Trading and Exchanges: Market Microstructure for Practitioners Author: Larry Harris Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2003 ISBN: 0-19-514470-8
So you’ve learned how to trade EM credit, local rates, and FX. Now what? How do you actually put it all together into a portfolio? Chapter 10 is about the nuts and bolts of portfolio construction, and it has some genuinely surprising findings about indexes, risk parity, and why ESG is unfair to poor countries.
We’ve spent 15 posts walking through The Swiss Secret to Optimal Health by Dr. Thomas Rau, and it’s been a journey. From the foundations of Swiss biological medicine to the practical details of detox diets, liver cleanses, and the mind-gut connection. So now it’s time to step back and look at the whole picture. What did I take away from this book? What’s worth paying attention to? And what should you approach with healthy skepticism?
Chapter 7 of “The Hedge Fund Book” by Richard C. Wilson gets into the big leagues. We’re talking about hedge funds managing $1 billion or more. What do they do differently? Why do they keep getting bigger while most small funds stay small? Wilson lays out ten best practices from giant funds and brings in two interviews to back it up.
Chapter 7 opens with two quotes. One from Bernard Madoff saying he can’t discuss his proprietary strategy, and one from George Soros about how it’s not about being right or wrong, but how much you make when right and how much you lose when wrong. That contrast alone tells you everything about why portfolio analysis matters.
Previous: Intro post
Chapter 1 of Investing Psychology is called “Sensory Finance.” And it starts with a punch to the ego.
Chapter 1 is the foundation. It covers all the products you need to know before the book gets into the actual trading strategies. If you already know bonds, repos, swaps, and options, you can skim. But honestly, a quick review never hurts.
This is post 16 of 23 in a series on Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity by Jamshid Gharajedaghi (ISBN: 978-0-7506-7973-2).