The Stock Market Collection

Although many people consider bloody-mindedness and stubbornness as being perfect qualifications for a contrarian investor, the approach is in fact a little different than that. Yes, it requires one to act against the crowd. However, it is futile to do so without good reason. A naïve contrarian investor pops into a pub looking for a fight and is delighted if his first opponent is Lennox Lewis. A more seasoned contrarian looks to fight only little old ladies. But looking for the right opponent in a local pub is far from straightforward - little old ladies can sometimes be veteran jujitsu champions - and detecting the easier battles in the stock market is similarly challenging. At first blush, many stocks are attractive and other appealing stocks may initially look like dogs.

There is no trustworthy shortcut to separate the dogs from the delightful. The long cut is the implementation of much hard work. Hard work as in understanding a company's business model, why other investors hate it, what positive factors they might have missed, how its balance sheet and cash flow interact, and whether its valuation is sufficiently attractive. None of that is rocket science perhaps, but that does not make it easy. The bull arguments are often well hidden and can only be discovered through meticulous work, a sceptical mindset, and deep thought.

In this collection of his writings, top fund manager Alastair Mundy takes a contrarian look at a host of topics and issues, providing a range of ideas and approaches and encouraging investors to think hard about their approach to investment. This book should be essential reading for any investor - contrarian or otherwise.

The early 21st century has been a period of extreme fear and greed in the world's financial markets. Vast sums of wealth have been lost by some, but also made by others. Faith in the investment industry is now at its lowest-ever ebb, and the crisis remains far from resolution.

Fear and Greed aims to prepare investors for the financial challenges and opportunities of the next few years. Having successfully guided his firm's investors through the turmoil since 2007, leading investment manager Nicolas Sarkis draws upon the lessons of history in order to illuminate the way ahead.

In particular, Sarkis explores the plight of equities in the developed world since the millennium and considers when they might finally recover, as well as the likely effects of reducing government indebtedness upon markets. He also offers his insights into the outlook for stocks in emerging nations, for gold and for the single European currency.

In addition to the prospects for the leading asset classes, Fear and Greed examines some of the biggest issues confronting the financial world as a whole. Sarkis focuses on the behaviour of central banks, regulators, and financial wrongdoers, especially in relation to their contribution to the current crisis.

In this lively and engaging book, Sarkis offers a clear vision of the coming years and plenty of inspiration for investors.

An analysis of the investment approach of the world's top investors, showing how to achieve market-beating returns

It is possible to beat the market. Taking this as a starting point, Excess Returns sets out to explore how exactly the most famous investors in the world have done it, year after year, sometimes by huge margins.

Excess Returns is not a superficial survey of what investors have said about what they do. Rather, Frederik Vanhaverbeke applies a forensic analysis to hundreds of books, articles, letters and speeches made by dozens of top investors over the last century and synthesises his findings into a definitive blueprint of how exactly these investment legends have gone about their work.

Among the legends whose work has been studied are Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Anthony Bolton, Peter Lynch, Charles Munger, Joel Greenblatt, Seth Klarman, David Einhorn, Daniel Loeb, Lou Simpson, Prem Watsa and many more.

Among the revealing insights, you will learn of the striking similarities in the craft of great investors, crucial subtleties in their methods that are ignored by many, and the unconscious errors investors commonly make and how these are counter to successful investing. Special attention is given to two often overlooked areas: effective investment philosophy and investment intelligence.

The investing essentials covered include:

- Finding bargain shares
- Making a quantitative and qualitative business analysis
- Valuation methods
- Investing throughout the business cycle
- Timing buy and sell decisions
- And much, much more!

Excess Returns is full of timeless and practical insights, presented in a unique style, to help investors focus on the most promising opportunities and lead the way to beating the market.

First published in 1841, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is often cited as the best book ever written about market psychology. This Harriman House edition includes Charles Mackay's account of the three infamous financial manias - John Law's Mississipi Scheme, the South Sea Bubble, and Tulipomania.

Between the three of them, these historic episodes confirm that greed and fear have always been the driving forces of financial markets, and, furthermore, that being sensible and clever is no defence against the mesmeric allure of a popular craze with the wind behind it.

In writing the history of the great financial manias, Charles Mackay proved himself a master chronicler of social as well as financial history. Blessed with a cast of characters that covered all the vices, gifted a passage of events which was inevitably heading for disaster, and with the benefit of hindsight, he produced a record that is at once a riveting thriller and absorbing historical document. A century and a half later, it is as vibrant and lurid as the day it was written.

For modern-day investors, still reeling from the dotcom crash, the moral of the popular manias scarcely needs spelling out. When the next stock market bubble comes along, as it surely will, you are advised to recall the plight of some of the unfortunates on these pages, and avoid getting dragged under the wheels of the careering bandwagon yourself.

Wouldn't life be better if you were free of the daily grind - the conventional job and boss - and instead succeeded or failed purely on the merits of your own investment choices? Free Capital is a window into this world.

Based on a series of interviews, it outlines the investing strategies, wisdom and lifestyles of 12 highly successful private investors. Each of them has accumulated £1m or more - in most cases considerably more - mainly from stock market investment. Six are 'ISA millionaires' who have £1m or more in a tax-free ISA, a result which is arithmetically impossible without exceptional investment returns.

Some have several academic degrees or strong City backgrounds; others left school with few qualifications and are entirely self-taught as investors. Some invest most of their money in very few shares and hold them for years at a time; others make dozens of trades every day, and hold them for at most a few hours. Some are inveterate networkers, who spend their day talking to managers at companies in which they invest; for others a share is just a symbol on a screen, and a price chart shows most of what they need to know to make their trading decisions.

Free capital - money surplus to immediate living expenses - is the raw material with which these investors work. It can also be thought of as their psychological habitat, free from the petty tribulations of office politics. Lastly, free capital describes the footloose nature of their assets, which can be quickly redirected towards any type of investment anywhere in the world, without the constraints which institutional investors often face.

Although it presents many advanced insights and valuable investment hints, this is not an overly technical book. It offers practical ideas and inspiration, with revealing detail and minimal jargon, making it an indispensable read for novice and experienced investors alike.

One of the major pursuits for investors is the search for income. This ongoing search can be more difficult at some times than at others. For example, when interest rates are low and when companies cut dividends, traditional income sources come under pressure. However, the fundamentals of income investing remain in all economic conditions. These fundamentals can be learned and applied by investors, thus improving their chances of finding and securing income.

This guide begins by covering the basics, providing you with an essential platform for effective income investing by giving detailed explanations of the concepts of interest rates, inflation and yield. The focus then moves on to the investment assets themselves: cash, fixed interest, equities, funds including ETFs, property, infrastructure and timber. For each there is a careful explanation of its traditional income performance, how income is paid and how investors can use the asset in question as part of a broader income-generating portfolio. Attention is also given to the risks involved when investing in each type of asset.

In the final part of the book, the focus falls on asset allocation and portfolio construction; how investments from various asset classes can be bought and held together to create a successful and balanced income portfolio. This includes ideas on how to set up and manage a portfolio along with example model portfolios for different risk appetites and age groups. The issues of securing an income from your pension in retirement and shielding your investment income from falling prey to more tax than is necessary are also covered.

If you are in search of income this thorough and accessible book, written by experienced personal finance journalist Maike Currie, will prove to be an indispensable guide.

Hugh Young is a star fund manager at Aberdeen Asset Management, with over 25 years' experience and a dazzling record of returns. He has marshalled Aberdeen portfolios through numerous market cycles, and in this eBook reveals the secrets of his success, accompanied by the witty illustrations of cartoonist Fran Orford.

Take a bite out of the markets with the Naked Trader!

This book is for anyone who really wants to consistently make money trading shares.

Trading and investing can be tough – most fail. The human mind is to blame. It’s prone to emotion, cluttered with distractions like Twitter and social media, easily trapped by scams. But it’s possible to make money in the markets – and to do so reliably.

Robbie Burns, aka The Naked Trader, has been trading successfully from his home for 15 years – making over £2m tax-free (while eating a lot of toast and watching Game of Thrones). He’s also met and helped thousands of fellow traders at his seminars, seen every possible trading meltdown, and knows exactly what can go wrong – but also how to put it right.

In Trade Like a Shark, Robbie uses his unique firsthand experience and the real-life stories traders have shared with him to expose exactly how the human mind can play havoc with your trading. At the same time he reveals his tried-and-tested methods for overcoming it, showing how to be a shark, gobbling up money from the 'fish' who are full of fear, greed and other emotions. (And also why modelling yourself on Mr Spock can work wonders.)

If you’ve run into problems trading in the stock market – or just want to reinforce good habits – there is no better or wittier guide to the pitfalls that are out there, and some surprisingly effective ways to overcome them. It's a must-read book on trading psychology – without the jargon. Read it and take your trading to the next level now!

How To Pick Quality Shares provides a three-step process for analysing company financial information to find good investments. The three steps boil down to finding quality companies, avoiding dangerous or risky companies, and not paying too much for companies’ shares. Applying the in-depth techniques described here will give investors a better understanding of companies, and an edge over other investors, including professional investors and analysts.

Phil Oakley, an experienced investment analyst and private investor, guides the reader step-by-step through these three stages:
1. For the first step, he shows how to identify the kind of high-quality companies that are capable of being profitable investments over the long term. Important themes are how much a company earns on the money it invests, reliable measures of profit and the importance of cash flow.
2. Next, he shows how to spot the dangers and risks that could lead to a company being a bad investment. Here the focus is on how to analyse debt, in particular hidden debt and pension fund deficits.
3. Lastly, he shows how to value a company’s shares and determine what is a reasonable price to pay to invest in that company. Phil shows why some common shortcuts to valuing shares are not very useful and how to use cash profits to value shares more reliably.

At each stage, Phil explains where the investor needs to look in company financial statements to get the information they need and how to analyse this information. Illustrative examples of analysis of real company financial statements are used throughout. If you have a company’s latest annual report and its current share price you have all the information you need to be a successful investor. How To Pick Quality Shares shows you how.

The Sterling Bonds and Fixed Income Handbook aims to fill the knowledge gap for sterling-base investors and their advisors. Whilst investors in the equity markets can rely on numerous resources to select stocks and build portfolios, there is little information available for those who wish to buy bonds. This book takes the reader through the key features of gilts and sterling corporate bonds and offers a practical guide to putting money to work in this important and profitable asset class.

How to invest money in secure, high-return assets

Alternative assets offer a proven means of diversifying your financial portfolio away from the volatility of the markets. In the past, investors have looked to property, hedge funds or private equity to accomplish this - but the safety and high returns they sought there have perished in the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis. As an antidote to this, experienced investment writer Peter Temple here introduces those tangible, and often portable, assets whose returns are impressive but whose value is not so subject to unsustainable bubbles or precipitous collapse.

Including everything from fine wine and rare books to stamps, art and diamonds, these alternative assets can serve as a store of value in the good years as well as in troubled times. Often with restricted supply they offer real security of value. And, though their value is concentrated in capital growth, their liquidity is often impressive; and their aesthetic appeal enduring.

A detailed overview of each sector is presented, including:

- the size and shape of the market, and its key historical and modern trends
- collecting areas and portfolio strategies for investors of all sizes
- the degree of volatility or cyclicality in the market, as well as its liquidity
- the long-term returns that can reasonably be expected based on the past
- whether or not there are tax advantages available
- how best to buy and sell, and through whom.

The book also provides extensive directory resources for where to go for more information - and where to start investing - with each tangible investment area.

This comprehensive and authoritative book shows investors and their advisors how they can use tangible assets as a means of diversifying a portfolio and securing wealth for the long term. It is an essential handbook for anyone interested in making rare, valuable and often beautiful possessions a part of their investment strategy.

A brand new, fully updated, second edition of the classic bestseller

Who are the professional investment managers responsible for moving and making millions on the stock market? What approaches and strategies do they adopt?

Britain has more successful stock market investors than any other country outside the United States. Yet for a long time their activities - and the secrets of their success - have remained shrouded in mystery to anyone outside the Square Mile.

Now the City's top professional investors have talked in depth to a leading financial writer about their lives and their strategies for making money on the stock market. They include such market wizards as the private investor's champion Jim Slater, Michael Hart, long time manager of the UK's oldest investment trust, stockpicker supreme Anthony Bolton, and emerging markets guru Mark Mobius,

Nobody with an interest in stocks and shares can fail to learn from reading how these consummate professionals go about their business. Or from their advice on what it takes to be a winner in the financial markets.

The Money Makers profiled are: Anthony Bolton, Ian Rushbrook, Nils Taube, Colin McLean, Michael Hart, John Carrington, Jim Slater and Mark Mobius.

In a financial world dominated by gigantism, the beauty of smallness hasn't had much of a look in. Yet beyond the credit boom, globalisation has been found wanting, with growth hard to find. Could it be that small firms are set to be the stock market outperformers of the future?

This book confounds the current 'big is better' consensus, with Gervais Williams' extraordinary data showing why smallness offers an effective path for investors beyond the financial crisis.

But this book is about so much more than just the case for small being beautiful. It also explains why the unique characteristics of AIM - the UK market for smaller, growing companies - will be a place of extraordinary vitality in the coming years.

There is a huge change taking place as the world moves inexorably towards a low-carbon economy. 'The Green Investing Handbook' is aimed at the investor looking to profit from this global transition.

The book provides a detailed overview of the investment opportunities emerging in the companies behind these environmental technologies and services. It covers the standout firms operating in all the key green technology sectors, the trends of each sector and the industry as a whole, as well as the most important or promising green funds, ETFs and private equity funds.

The book delivers both demystifying explanations of the intricate technology at the heart of the green revolution, as well as providing comprehensive investment insight. It is designed to help the investor to make better-informed decisions when engaging with these complex, innovative and rapidly growing industries. And it does so whether you are interested in investing through equities, direct investment or funds.

The ten sectors covered in depth are:
- Solar power - Wind power - Marine energy - Geothermal - Power storage - Smart grids - Hydrogen and fuel cells - Green transport - Green buildings - Waste and energy resources

Each chapter breaks down the trends and technology of the relevant sector, as well as its past performance, and looks at key advice and expert opinion on where they are headed. Notable company activity, technological development and government support is detailed throughout.

The second half of the handbook is dedicated to a comprehensive directory of over 150 green companies, covering performance snapshots and overviews. The activities of each are featured in turn, with important developments and key features covered. The directory also includes green funds - their size, strategies, charges and managers, and their manager's comments. The details of green private equity firms, ETFs and indices, as well as a bank of resources, round out this one-stop reference section giving you everything you need to start investing in the sustainability revolution.

One of the undoubted highlights of the book 'Professional Investor Rules' is the chapter by Paul Jourdan, AAA-rated fund manager and CEO of Amati Global Investors. A highly pellucid and thought-provoking piece, it takes an unflinching look at what it means to be a successful investor engaged in the "living and strangely intelligent organism" of today's financial markets - the importance of self-knowledge, the vital role of history and stories, and the limits of certainty that every investor must come to terms with.
This eBook exclusively reproduces the chapter as a standalone piece. It remains a striking and provocative piece of essential reading for every investor.

It took the world's greatest investor, Warren Buffett, nearly four decades to make his first $100m. The Deals of Warren Buffett - Volume 1 charts the series of investments that made up that journey.

In revealing detail, and with a lucid descriptive style, experienced author and investor Glen Arnold explains Buffett's thinking behind these investment deals and shows how his cumulative returns compounded his wealth over time.

In this formative period, from 1941-78, Buffett developed and honed the investment philosophy that would lead him to become so successful as his career progressed. But it was not all plain sailing - Buffett made mistakes along the way - and Arnold shows how Buffett learned through success and failure how to select companies worth backing. Arnold also includes insightful 'learning points' at the end of each chapter, which reveal how investors can learn from the craft of Warren Buffett to improve their own investing.

Investments featured in this first volume include: GEICO, American Express, Disney, Berkshire Hathaway, See's Candies, and The Washington Post.

With stories and analysis drawn from decades of investing experience, join Glen Arnold and delve deeper in The Deals of Warren Buffett!

Jim Slater's classic text brought back into print

Jim Slater makes available to the investor - whether the owner of only a few shares or an experienced investment manager with a large portfolio - the secrets of his success. Central to his strategy is The Zulu Principle, the benefits of homing in on a relatively narrow area.

Deftly blending anecdote and analysis, Jim Slater gives valuable selective criteria for buying dynamic growth shares, turnarounds, cyclicals, shells and leading shares. He also covers many other vitally relevant aspects of investment such as creative accounting, portfolio management, overseas markets and the investor's relationship with his or her broker.

From The Zulu Principle you will learn exactly when to buy shares and, even more important, when to sell - in essence, how to to make 'extraordinary profits from ordinary shares'.

This book discusses the key areas that every stock market investor should consider. Starting with the reason for buying shares in the first place it then goes on to consider a host of essential topics, including: ratios, dividends, diversification, directors' deals, technical analysis, ETFs, commodities, dealing techniques and much more. Cotter On Investing is your straightforward guide to the not always straightforward world of stock market investment.

The markets can be a dangerous place and the risk involved can put people off the whole concept of stock investing. It shouldn't. Successful investors are those who manage risk and use mechanisms that reduce it to a level they are comfortable with. The stock market is potentially extremely rewarding in financial terms, but when the investor takes control of his or her own money it can also be fun, interesting and immensely satisfying.

Throughout the book the author gives his own opinions not only on the different investment vehicles you can use but also on the ways in which you can improve your performance as a self-directed investor. With nearly 40 years of stock market experience, John Cotter is the ideal guide to help you make your investment decisions. Slicing through the jargon and with a solid, 'keep it simple' approach, this book is the ideal companion for anyone building and running their own share portfolio.

Let the market come to you

Deep Value Investing by Jeroen Bos is an incredibly candid and revealing guide to the secrets of deep value investment. Written by an investor with a long and remarkable track record, it shares for the first time the ins and outs of finding high-potential undervalued stocks before anyone else.

Deep value investing means finding companies that are genuine bargains that can pay back phenomenally over the long term. They are firms so cheap that even if they were to close tomorrow their assets would pay you out at a profit. But if they can turn things around, the rewards will be many times greater ...

These were the favourite shares of Benjamin Graham, author of 'The Intelligent Investor'. Inspired by Graham's classic and with a long history of discovering these great value stocks - sometimes known as 'bargain issues' or 'netnets' - author and investor Jeroen Bos reveals:

- how to use only publicly available information to discover these shares and filter the gold from the dross

- everything he did when analysing, purchasing, monitoring and selling more than ten recent successful deep value investments

- the complete philosophy behind deep value investing, and the ins and outs of this strategy in practice

- what can go wrong and how to minimise the chances of it happening to you.

Deep value investing has a better track record than almost any other approach to the market. Even better, it doesn't require minute and technical knowledge of a company, nor is it fixated on earnings or often-unreliable future projections.

It's all about the balance sheet and patience. This makes it the perfect investing approach for those who want to see phenomenal stock market returns without wasting time or commission costs.

Who is the most successful investment manager in Britain? Arguments could rage forever, but no professional would dispute that Anthony Bolton of Fidelity is among the very best. £1,000 invested in his Special Situations fund at its launch in 1979 was worth more than £125,000 twenty seven years later. No other mainstream UK fund manager has put together such a consistently impressive performance over such a long period.

The 125-fold increase represents an average compound growth rate of more than 20% per annum, or 7% per annum greater than the FTSE All-Share Index over the same period. This track record of sustained outperformance stands comparison with that of the greatest American investment superstars such as Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch. For many years, until the fund was voluntarily split in 2006, Fidelity Special Situations was easily the largest and most popular fund in the UK.

What are the secrets of Anthony Bolton's success? This important book, now fully revised and updated, takes an in-depth look at the way that Bolton goes about his business and analyses in detail the fund's outstanding performance. Anthony Bolton gives his own personal account of the history of the fund, explains why he believes his contrarian stockpicking methods have worked so well for so long and summarises the lessons he has learnt from his long and succesful career. This book is required reading for anyone with a personal or professional interest in investment.

- Fully revised and updated second edition with 25 pages of new material and graphics.

- The only full-length book to analyse in detail the strategies and techniques used by the UK's number one professional investor.

- Detailed analysis of the performance of his funds and the lessons that investors can draw from its exceptional track record.

- Written jointly by Anthony Bolton and one of the UK's best known financial authors, a leading authority on the fund management business.

This book is a simple, practical guide to how you can use some of the newer investment products like spread betting, binary betting, contracts for difference, covered warrants and exchange-traded funds, as well as older ones like futures and options, to help your investing.

In different ways, each of these products allows you either to:

- boost the returns you get in exchange for taking on greater risk;

- hedge your bets in exchange for slightly lower returns;

- use much less capital to achieve the same market exposure; or

- move money into and out of a range of markets and sectors efficiently.

The author believes they are tools that all investors need to know about and be able to use when the occasion demands it. They should help you successfully confront any lengthy period of trendless or volatile markets.

While the past three years has seen a generally strong upward trend in stock markets, this is not bound to continue. Periodic volatility is the natural order of things. Interestingly enough - despite what appears to have been a bull market - recent years have also seen increased use by private investors of many of the tools described in this book. Proof, if needed, that they work, and can be applied, in all market conditions.

The economic climate is ripe for another golden age of shareholder activism
Deep Value: Why Activist Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations is a must-read exploration of deep value investment strategy, describing the evolution of the theories of valuation and shareholder activism from Graham to Icahn and beyond. The book combines engaging anecdotes with industry research to illustrate the principles and methods of this complex strategy, and explains the reasoning behind seemingly incomprehensible activist maneuvers. Written by an active value investor, Deep Value provides an insider's perspective on shareholder activist strategies in a format accessible to both professional investors and laypeople.

The Deep Value investment philosophy as described by Graham initially identified targets by their discount to liquidation value. This approach was extremely effective, but those opportunities are few and far between in the modern market, forcing activists to adapt. Current activists assess value from a much broader palate, and exploit a much wider range of tools to achieve their goals. Deep Value enumerates and expands upon the resources and strategies available to value investors today, and describes how the economic climate is allowing value investing to re-emerge. Topics include:

Target identification, and determining the most advantageous ends
Strategies and tactics of effective activism
Unseating management and fomenting change
Eyeing conditions for the next M&A boom
Activist hedge funds have been quiet since the early 2000s, but economic conditions, shareholder sentiment, and available opportunities are creating a fertile environment for another golden age of activism. Deep Value: Why Activist Investors and Other Contrarians Battle for Control of Losing Corporations provides the in-depth information investors need to get up to speed before getting left behind.

An initial public offering (IPO) - the occasion when a firm's shares are issued to the public for the first time - is one of the most exciting events in the life of a company, providing new opportunities for the business, its managers and for investors. IPOs thus attract a lot of attention from stock market researchers, academics and investors seeking to understand more about how they work and how the shares of IPO companies perform once they are listed.

In this new book, Arif Khurshed delves into the history of IPOs on the London Stock Exchange, explains the mechanics of how IPOs are arranged and how they are priced, and provides an analysis - with detailed but lucid reference to past academic studies - of how the shares of IPO companies perform in the short and long term.

The book provides valuable insight into many fundamental IPO matters, including:
- the different methods of flotation that are used,
- the alternative ways in which IPO shares are priced,
- how common it is for IPO shares to over or underperform,
- the survival of IPO firms once they are listed.

There are also detailed case studies of a number of high-profile IPOs, including those of Google, Visa and MoneySupermarket.

If you are an academic, finance professional or serious investor looking to broaden your knowledge of stock market flotations then you will find Initial Public Offerings to be an indispensable guide.

Second edition featuring a brand new foreword.

If you had put $10,000 in Buffett's original investing partnership at its inception in 1956, you would have collected about $293,738 by the time he dissolved it at the end of 1969. He had never suffered a down year, even in the severe bear markets of 1957, 1962, 1966, and 1969. When the partnership was wound up, you could have elected to stay with Buffett as a shareholder of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., which was spun off from the partnership and became Buffett's investing vehicle. In that event, your $10,000 would by the end of 1986 have turned into well over $5 million.

So, John Train introduces the remarkable story of Warren Buffett in his classic text, 'The Midas Touch'. First published in 1987, 'The Midas Touch' was one of the first books to recognise Warren Buffett's spectacular record, and to attempt to explain how he achieved his success. It is short, lucid and written with style and wit. A worthy testimony to its remarkable subject.

From the back cover of the book:

This is the book that tells readers how to invest like the man known as 'the Wizard of Omaha' (Forbes) and the investor with 'the Midas Touch' .

Warren Buffett is the most successful investor alive - the only member of the Forbes 400 to have earned his fortune entirely through investing. Bestselling author John Train analyzes the strategies, based on the value approach, that have guided Buffett in his remarkable career, strategies that work even though Buffett operates a thousand miles from Wall Street.

A simple, quick and effective approach to quantitative fundamental analysis

The Lazy Fundamental Analyst presents a collection of strategies based on the application of quantitative analysis to fundamentals-based investing. It will appeal to anyone looking for simple, effective and low-risk investing strategies.

The strategies are organised by ten business sectors: Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, Energy, Financials, Health Care, Industrials, Information Technology, Materials, Telecommunication Service and Utilities. For each sector a strategy is proposed for large capitalisations (companies in the S&P 500 Index) and another is given for small capitalisations (companies in the Russell 2000 index).

For each sector, and each strategy, Fred Piard explains how to follow his 'lazy' approach to choose stocks by using only a couple of financial ratios. The strategies eschew detailed due diligence of companies and markets - instead they rely on applying quantitative techniques to filter out the best investments in each sector. These strategies can be managed in just a few minutes per month, making them suitable for those who only have limited time to devote to investing but still wish to have a winning return. Portfolio protection through the use of market timing and hedging is also presented and this can be used with any of the strategies.

If you don't have the inclination for in-depth fundamental analysis, or only have a few spare minutes per month for your investing, try Fred Piard's lazy approach to quantitative analysis.

Every investor needs an edge. Where better to look than the rules of the world's best investors?

These are the do's and don'ts that have driven profits in the billions. They are the practical precepts of many of the best investors in the UK and the US and further afield - the wisdom of the money manager who outperformed the market by staggering percentages for three decades in a row, of the private investor who once trained the professionals in the City, of the ex-hedge fund manager who now advocates the simplest investing system in the world.

And 50+ MORE of the most interesting minds in modern investing, from Wall Street to Westminster and back again.

The legendary Harriman Book of Investing Rules is back with a massive, all-new volume - packed with hundreds of pages of compelling content, bringing you the arguments of the very best investing minds around the globe in one unputdownable book.

The simplest way to make money in the stock market is to buy shares when they are cheap and make profits when their prices increase. This technique is known as value investing and is the creed of the world's most successful investor, Warren Buffett. But how do you know when a share price is cheap?

This book explains in simple terms how you can develop your own UK share and FTSE100 valuation spreadsheets to calculate share and market valuations. Comparing the valuations to current market prices reveals when shares are underpriced and produces calibrated buy and sell signals. The FTSE100 system, for example, indicates the periods when you should be invested in the FTSE100 and the periods when you should not be. Since 1984 the in-periods have produced 94 times more capital growth than the out-periods.

The new valuation system is the heart of this complete practical guide for managing your own investments. It shows how you should be able to double the value of your long-term investments purely through avoiding high commercial fund management fees. Using the new valuation system should help you do a lot better than this and, for example, secure a pension up to eight times larger than that provided by commercial managers.

As well as providing comprehensive information about the practical and profitable ways in which you can use the new valuation system, this book is a complete toolkit for creating personal wealth through UK equity investment. It includes risk controls, tax breaks, free information sources and recommendations on the best service providers. In short this book is your first step along the road to financial security.

The Almanac is an extremely valuable and unique reference work providing traders and investors with the strategies, methods and data to tackle the markets throughout the year. It is the one essential book for the serious trader or investor.

The Almanac consists of four main sections:

1. Calendar
The Calendar provides 12 two-page summary articles of the main features of each of the months of the year. This includes the historic average performance, the sectors and shares that tend to be strong or weak in the month, the month’s major anomalies and seasonality patterns, the significant dates coming up, and a chart of the average daily performance throughout the month.

2. Strategies
This section describes the major anomalies and seasonality effects in the UK market and how they can be exploited.

3. Analysis
In-depth analysis of the characteristics of the UK and international markets, to help give traders and investors an edge in the markets they are active in.

4. Reference
The Reference section includes background information about UK and international stock indices. Topics covered include basic facts about the market, trade codes, a timetable of the trading day, a timetable of company results announcements, and a look at the original constituents of the FT 30 of 1935 and the FTSE 100 of 1984.

www.stockmarketalmanac.co.uk
@UKAlmanac

Effective share portfolios for the private investor

Running an efficient portfolio of shares means buying and selling the shares that make the most sense for you, and at the right time and price. Rodney Hobson, author of the bestselling Shares Made Simple, sets out how to do this without having to be a financial expert or full-time trader. Using plain language, he takes the reader simply and logically through the process, giving helpful examples and real-life case studies at every turn.

In How to Build a Share Portfolio you can:

- find out how to determine the right objectives for your portfolio
- learn how to pick shares that fulfill your investment ambitions, and when to drop those that no longer do so
- understand how best to set your portfolio's size and ensure it is diversified against risk
- discover the best ways of monitoring your portfolio, and of reducing losses and rebalancing it when necessary.

Anyone who is thinking of investing, however much or however little, will benefit from the information, advice and guidance contained in this book. Similarly, those who already have a portfolio will find it helps them to stand back and reassess whether they are making the most of their money and whether their portfolio is meeting their needs.

They are the world's best - the professional investors at the head of global investment funds and the mavericks operating from behind nothing more than a laptop and a point of view; some with millions of pounds at their disposal and the fate of companies and customers' savings hanging on their decisions, others with nothing more (or less) than their reputation and their own fortune on the line.

What sets them apart from the thousands of other investors out there is their track record. The professional investors who have contributed to this book include multiple award winners, fund managers who have managed to double or triple investment returns every two years, as well as the heads and founders of firms with billions - occasionally trillions - under management and half a century of profits to which they can point.

There are no better investors to learn from when making your own way in the markets, and this book is the indispensable collection of the secrets behind their success, straight from the investors themselves.

Featuring the investing rules of award-winning experts in Asian, Latin American and Western markets, contrarian specialists, mutual fund managers and more, Professional Investor Rules is a compelling snapshot of some of today's best investing minds. No investor can afford to be without it.

Rodney Hobson, author of bestseller Shares Made Simple, is back with a brand new book designed to help you build a balanced share portfolio that provides dividend income, whether you're just starting out or ready to retire.

Dividends - the distribution of part of a company's earnings to shareholders, usually twice a year - can be a valuable income stream for anyone. Designed for longevity but particularly pertinent in times of low interest rates, The Dividend Investor is packed with real-life examples and analysis of how to gain such
added income through reliable shares with healthy dividends.

Topics made simple with Hobson's classic style include: ratios, yield, dividend cover, the dividend payout ratio, total return, cash flow, burn rate, gearing or leverage, interest cover, earnings per share and the price/earnings ratio. Plus the advantages and disadvantages of shareholder perks.

If you're looking to make the most from your investments, then this book is for you.

"Gambling is investing, and investing is gambling," says the Red Joker.

Both situations begin with a common pool of money. The pool is distributed among those who have created it on the basis of a series of events that are partly controllable. Through a mixture of skills, self-control and sheer luck, some of those who have created it will receive more than others.

There is no inherent difference between sifting through a horse's prospects of winning a race and a company's prospects of returning regular profits. There is no inherent difference in deciding whether to raise the betting on a particular hand of cards and deciding whether a property is a good or bad buy.

But there is a world of difference between the pace of gambling and the pace of investing. A gambler faces as many investment situations in a week as an investor does in a lifetime. The rules are the same, but the gambler is in a situation where he can learn the rules very quickly.

This is a book of advice from the gambler to the investor - The Red Joker Rules.

From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Dr Daniel Crosby, comes the behavioral finance book all investors have been waiting for.

In The Laws of Wealth, psychologist and behavioral finance expert Daniel Crosby offers an accessible and applied take on a discipline that has long tended toward theory at the expense of the practical. Readers are treated to real, actionable guidance as the promise of behavioral finance is realised and practical applications for everyday investors are delivered.

Crosby presents a framework of timeless principles for managing your behavior and your investing process. He begins by outlining ten rules that are the hallmarks of good investor behavior, including 'Forecasting is for Weathermen' and 'If You're Excited, It's Probably a Bad Idea'. He then goes on to introduce a unique new taxonomy of behavioral investment risk that will enable investors and academics alike to understand behavioral risk in a newly coherent and complete way.

From here, attention turns to the four ways in which behavioral risk can be combatted and the five equity selection methods investors should harness to take advantage of behaviorally-induced opportunities in the stock market. Throughout, readers are treated to anecdotes, research and graphics that illustrate the lessons in memorable ways. And in highly valuable 'What now?' summaries at the end of each chapter, Crosby provides clear, concise direction on what investors should think, ask and do to benefit from the behavioral research.

Dr. Crosby's training as a clinical psychologist and work as an asset manager provide a unique vantage and result in a book that breaks new ground in behavioral finance. You need to follow the laws of wealth to manage your behavior and improve your investing process!

How does one spot the bottom of a bear market? What brings a bear to its end?

There are few more important questions to be answered in modern finance. Financial market history is a guide to understanding the future. Looking at the four occasions when US equities were particularly cheap - 1921, 1932, 1949 and 1982 - Russell Napier sets out to answer these questions by analysing every article in the Wall Street Journal from either side of the market bottom.

In the 70,000 articles he examines, one begins to understand the features which indicate that a great buying opportunity is emerging.

By looking at how markets really did work in these bear-market bottoms, rather than theorising how they should work, Napier offers investors a financial field guide to making the best provisions for the future.

This new edition includes a brand new preface from the author and a foreword by Merryn Somerset Webb.

Practical and powerful improvements for value investors

Buying undervalued shares and selling when the price is many times greater has a natural appeal - and research shows it works. But not all value investors are successful. As Andrew Hunt shows in this must-read new book, many are guilty of common errors in their planning and execution and these critically undermine their success.

Better Value Investing provides a straightforward framework to help all value investors improve, showing them what to focus on and what to cut out in order to be successful.

Supported by the latest empirical research, 15 years of real investing experience, studies of what the top investors have said and done, and wide reading, Andrew Hunt reveals:

- how financial strength is at the heart of value investing
- why to invest like an owner
- the importance of contrarianism
- why you should buy only the very best bargains
- the essentials of constructing and managing a portfolio
- how checklists control the process and keep the value investor on track.

This concise guide to honing the craft of value investing is essential reading for all value investors new and old. With its help you can concentrate on what is important, cut out errors and achieve what you set out to do, making you a better value investor.

Investors who build diversified, multi-asset portfolios, have an ever increasing range of investment assets at their disposal. In order to invest effectively - and build a solid, performing portfolio - it is essential for investors to understand each of these single asset classes and how to use them in portfolios. The Investment Assets Handbook covers the full spectrum of different asset classes and investment types available today, providing investors with the definitive information they need to reach an understanding of the broad range of investment assets.

The Handbook is divided into four parts:

1. An introduction to asset classes, including how they should be defined, the main features that can be used to characterise asset classes and the roles that different assets fulfil within a multi-asset portfolio.

2. Traditional assets, including global equities, fixed income and cash.

3. Alternative assets, including real estate, commodities, private equity and hedge funds.

4. New alternative investments, including currency, infrastructure, structured finance, leveraged loans, structured products, alternative or smart betas, volatility, art, insurance-linked securities and timber.

Each asset chapter within these sections provides a description of the asset and its characteristics, its historic performance, how to model its future long-term performance, the role it performs in a multi-asset portfolio, its risks, how to access it, and other relevant topics. Long-term investment themes that may impact the future behaviour of assets and investing generally are also highlighted and discussed.

The Investment Assets Handbook is the essential guide that investors need as they navigate the universe of investment assets and build multi-asset portfolios.

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is the unforgettable story of the life of Jesse Livermore, one of Wall Street's greatest ever stock speculators.

Loosely fictionalised in 1923 in collaboration with journalist Edwin Lefevre, this is the story of the highs and the lows, the strategies and the street smarts, the epic wins (and sometimes epic losses) that has inspired generations of investors and traders.

This edition comes with an exclusive foreword by Tim Price, author of Investing Through the Looking Glass.

Harriman Definitive Editions offer the best quality editions of the best financial books of all time. Meticulously proofread, beautifully typeset in new designs, accompanied by forewords by the best modern financial writers, printed and bound in high-quality hardcovers on acid-free paper - they are essential long-term additions to the portfolio of every investor and trader.

In this fully revised, updated and expanded second edition, Michael Coulson gives a masterly overview of the mining sector. He explains both the rewards and the pitfalls of investing in mining shares, provides a study of the history of mining - focusing particularly on the significant booms and busts - looks at the latest, biggest importers
such as China and India, and argues convincingly that mining should form a core sector for all investors.

The prospect of instant riches gives the mining sector an obvious glamour. And when the mining sector begins to run it can be an awesome sight. But due to the counter-cyclical nature of many mining stocks, they can also offer a valuable refuge when stock markets turn down. An Insider's Guide to the Mining Sector is aimed at anyone interested in the sector, particularly at those looking at mining as an investment. It covers all of the subjects fundamental to acquiring sufficient knowledge about the mining sector, allowing the reader to invest with confidence.

The book provides a comprehensive and in-depth study of the sector delivering valuable information to industry professionals and potential investors alike.

Richard Farleigh reveals the 100 secret strategies that he developed to enable him to succeed in the markets.

During his time running a trading desk, Farleigh set out to develop a repeatable methodology based on observation and reasoning, not just on one-off flukes and luck, to enable him to outperform the market on a regular basis.

The (potentially controversial) beliefs that he incorporates into his strategies include:

- Markets tend to under-react, not overreact.
- Big, obvious ideas offer great opportunities.
- It is safe to invest with a consensus view.
- Contrarian trading is usually irrational.
- It is best to enter and exit the share market at the right times instead of always staying invested.
- Price trends are well known but under-utilised.
- Chartists are just astrologers.
- Investment and trading are increasingly similar.

Some of the techniques simply involve being better than other investors at some of the basics, including only chasing genuine opportunities, managing risks and coping with losses.

As his trading results started to attract some attention, Farleigh was frequently asked to give presentations of his ideas to other professional traders. From the feedback during these sessions he realised that others were interested in an approach to investing which was based on first principles. Finding that anecdotes were the best way to make a point, and that ideas could be summarised into numbered strategies, allowed him to show clearly how the methodology worked.

Years later, he is still using the same approach, and has found that amateurs, as well as professionals, are keen to find out how markets work and how to improve their investment performance. This book contains those secrets.

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About the 100 Strategies

The rules are based on two broad experiences. Firstly, my involvement with investing and trading has been an endless pursuit of looking for patterns and developing my own repeatable methodologies. I have wanted to turn an art into a science. Secondly, from so many conversations with intelligent and educated people, who are curious about markets, but have been unhappy with a lack of useful reading material.

The book is intended for anyone with an interest in trading or investing, whether they are amateurs or professionals. The laws grew out of a series of popular lectures that I gave in my early career and out of the process of training new people to trade the markets.

Perhaps a unique thing about my approach in this book is that I have developed a framework which is applicable to all markets, whether they are bonds, money market, commodities, currencies, stocks, or property. The more I have learnt about these markets the more I have been convinced that it is sensible to approach them the same way. This is very useful, especially when some markets are underperforming.

This is a serious book. It is definitely not a "how to get rich quick" trick. I have presented my observations and interpretations as laws for practical purposes. It incorporates equally a lot of groundwork analysis of markets.

In finance there has been a gap between practitioners and the theoreticians. I intend to bridge that gap with a solid and, at times, theoretical explanation for my observations. Nevertheless, I have presented the material in a personal way. It is light hearted, with lots of anecdotes. I have not done endless amounts of research on each of the laws, so at times I may have erred on the detail. However it is always the concepts that are important, as these are what I am trying to get across.

DIY Financial Advisor: A Simple Solution to Build and Protect Your Wealth

DIY Financial Advisor is a synopsis of our research findings developed while serving as a consultant and asset manager for family offices. By way of background, a family office is a company, or group of people, who manage the wealth a family has gained over generations. The term 'family office' has an element of cachet, and even mystique, because it is usually associated with the mega-wealthy. However, practically speaking, virtually any family that manages its investments—independent of the size of the investment pool—could be considered a family office. The difference is mainly semantic.

DIY Financial Advisor outlines a step-by-step process through which investors can take control of their hard-earned wealth and manage their own family office. Our research indicates that what matters in investing are minimizing psychology traps and managing fees and taxes. These simple concepts apply to all families, not just the ultra-wealthy.

But can—or should—we be managing our own wealth?

Our natural inclination is to succumb to the challenge of portfolio management and let an 'expert' deal with the problem. For a variety of reasons we discuss in this book, we should resist the gut reaction to hire experts. We suggest that investors maintain direct control, or at least a thorough understanding, of how their hard-earned wealth is managed. Our book is meant to be an educational journey that slowly builds confidence in one's own ability to manage a portfolio. We end our book with a potential solution that could be applicable to a wide-variety of investors, from the ultra-high net worth to middle class individuals, all of whom are focused on similar goals of preserving and growing their capital over time.

DIY Financial Advisor is a unique resource. This book is the only comprehensive guide to implementing simple quantitative models that can beat the experts. And it comes at the perfect time, as the investment industry is undergoing a significant shift due in part to the use of automated investment strategies that do not require a financial advisor's involvement. DIY Financial Advisor is an essential text that guides you in making your money work for you—not for someone else!

This book provides straightforward quantitative strategies that any investor can implement with little work using simple, free or low-cost tools and services.

But what exactly is quantitative investing?

There are various possible definitions of quantitative investing, but the author defines it as:

"Identifying reasonable and measurable hypotheses about behaviours of the financial market so as to make investment decisions with an acceptable confidence in expected returns and risks."

The main advantages in using quantitative models are that they:

- make the investment process independent of opinions and emotions (the most important factor for an individual investor), and
- make it reproducible by anyone at any time (the most important factor for a fund)

With a set of good strategies, quantitative investing allows one to act in the market at specific pre-planned times. It is possible to work on this just once a week or month, and ignore charts and the news. It removes most of the doubts and emotions with the discipline of keeping a long-term vision and sensible money management. This book will show you how.

Small is beautiful - if you have an eye for an opportunity.

While most big fund managers and private investors seek the apparent safety of the largest stocks, the best investment ideas can be found among nearly 2,000 smaller companies whose shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange.

This guide opens up a whole new world to investors, a world of solid companies that have found a profitable niche, ambitious start-ups with enormous growth potential and attractive takeover targets.

However, the risks match the rewards and the unwary investors need to learn how to spot the pitfalls and which companies are small because they do not deserve to grow.

The book is packed full of case studies demonstrating the successes, failures and potential of small companies. Each succinctly presents the lessons to be learnt from their experience.

All investors looking to widen their portfolios will welcome this highly informative book covering an area of the stock market that is too often neglected by pundits, investors and the press.

Corporate actions are normally considered as incidental to the business of investing and marketing investments, but in fact they are highly relevant. The aim of this concise guide is to define what corporate actions are, list and describe the main corporate actions and show how individual corporate actions are applied to investors' holdings of securities. This will give an overview of the way in which the corporate actions processing function works both in the UK and other important global markets.

The guide is designed to be an introduction to corporate actions for investment industry practitioners in general. Those starting out in corporate actions processing will find it a helpful outline, but it is also designed to be useful for all who encounter corporate actions tangentially in disciplines such as fund management or financial advice provision. Different industry participants have differing interests in corporate actions, and for the sake of consistency the guide is (mainly) written from the point of view of the beneficial owners of securities.

The first section of the book deals exclusively with equity corporate actions, providing the definitions of a corporate action and the legal framework(s) underpinning corporate actions, followed by a look at the most significant actions one by one, and then a detailed examination of the staging of some of these. The corporate actions of debt securities are given separate treatment later in the book.

Next the focus moves from the corporate actions themselves to the industry that has grown up to process them, covering respectively the corporate actions industry, its efficiency and its progress (recent and future).

After that the author takes a look at the impact of successive corporate actions on one particular share and shareholdings in it. This is then followed by a look at the scope investors have for influencing such events through shareholder voting.

The final chapter looks at how corporate actions are treated in the context of stock indices, stock charts and a number of more complex investments.

Those who simply require a handy and straightforward introduction to specific corporate actions will find the quick guide to the content and the glossary of corporate actions terms especially useful.

This guide provides a snapshot of the current state of affairs in the corporate actions industry, alongside some of the forces for change that are at work. The aim has been to provide sufficient detail to give the reader a working model that is helpful in navigating the corporate actions universe.

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) - state investment vehicles based on balance of payment surpluses - have come increasingly under the scrutiny of public opinion over the past decade. Their remarkable investments in developed economies have also attracted the attention of politicians, academics and financial operators.

At first ignored, then seen as a cause for concern, they finally came to be viewed as stabilising agents amid the troubles of the 2007-2009 financial tsunami. Having sponsored the bailouts of some significant Western banks, SWFs underwent a phase of retrenchment concomitant with the shrinking of economic growth, the bursting of financial and real-estate bubbles and the emphasis on refocusing liquidity on domestic markets that followed in the wake of the crisis. Since the second half of 2009, however, SWFs have adjusted targets and strategies to the new financial paradigm and re-engaged in the global economy, proving to be major players in the international financial markets.

The universe of SWFs symbolises a shift in the balance of economic power, with the dominant areas being the Gulf Council countries, China, Singapore, Russia, Libya and Norway. It is also an area of finance that has hitherto remained - and not accidentally - profoundly obscure. This book presents comprehensive research and analysis of this shift, as well as the related issue of transparency. It furthermore brings together the best research and information available on the activities of SWFs, detailing previously hard to find operational information.

In this book the authors answer key questions, such as:

- What defines a SWF?
- When and how did SWFs emerge?
- What investment strategies do SWFs pursue?
- What are the main financial, economic and political consequences of the operations of SWFs?
- What reactions have SWFs triggered in their domicile countries and abroad?
- Is transparency in SWFs really important and for whom?
- What approach has been taken by international organisations towards SWFs?

'Sovereign Wealth Funds' provides a detailed guide to an area of finance worth trillions of dollars, involving many of the world's governments, and affecting a wide array of sectors. It should prove essential reading for anyone looking to understand this international financial phenomenon.

Owning an investment fund is the easiest and most convenient way for investors to put their money to work in the world's financial markets. Yet only a handful of people really seem to understand how to make the most of the opportunity that funds offer. Too many pick the wrong fund in the wrong market at the wrong time - a sure-fire recipe for disappointment.

In this important new book, an award-winning manager at one of the UK's best fund management firms explains in simple language what it takes to buy and sell investment funds successfully - and how to avoid the common mistakes that so often condemn fund investors to poor results.

John Chatfeild-Roberts, head of the fund of funds team at Jupiter Asset Management, is responsible for sifting through the thousands of funds that are open to UK investors and hand-picking the best 10 - 15 for his clients' portfolios. The Jupiter Merlin range of funds has won a string of industry awards for their consistent performance.

Now, in Fundology - The Secrets of Successful Fund Investing, he explains in detail how to set about becoming an expert fund investor - what to do and (just as importantly) what not to do. While he concentrates on unit trusts and open-ended investment companies (OEICs), his specialist area, many of the principles outlined here apply equally well to other types of fund.

The topics covered include:

- Why funds are worth considering
- How unit trusts and OEICs work
- How to pick the best managers
- The truth about costs
- The trouble with index funds
- Which funds the Jupiter team own (and why)
- The most common mistakes that investors make

Easy to read and outspoken in places, Fundology is a must read for anyone interested in knowing how to get the most out of their investments. Knowing how the experts go about choosing funds can only increase your chances of improving your own success rate.

3 simple strategies to earn high returns and beat the professionals

Would you like to use a simple, low-risk investing system that beats market indexes and fund manager performance over the long term, but requires only a few minutes of your time each month? Does it sound like a lot of hard work? It's not - even the laziest investor can achieve it.

The Idle Investor includes three straightforward DIY strategies for long-term investing. All you have to do is follow the simple rules. Each method requires only a limited amount of your time and they all make use of easily accessible, low-cost funds. The reasons why the strategies work and everything else you need to know to put them into practice is explained clearly, with numerous worked examples.

The three strategies are:

1. The Bone Idle Strategy: Part of your portfolio is allocated to shares and part is allocated to bonds, with adjustments only required twice a year. The rest of the time you do nothing.

2. The Summer Hibernation Strategy: For part of the year your portfolio is allocated to shares and for part of the year it is allocated to bonds. Once again, adjustments to the portfolio are only required twice per year. The rest of the time you do nothing.

3. Multi-Asset Trending Strategy: A simple trend-following method determines whether to hold your portfolio in shares or bonds. For this strategy you will need to check your investments and make adjustments once a month.

Even on the very few occasions each year when action is required - twice a year for strategies 1 and 2, and once a month for strategy 3 - you'll only spend a few minutes checking your portfolio and making simple changes. The activity levels range from yearly rebalancing, for the laziest investor, through to monthly reallocation, for those who are more active. How much you do depends on how lazy you are feeling.

Testing the three Idle Investor strategies for the period 1990 to 2012 resulted in average annual returns of up to 28%. Compare this to a buy-and-hold approach of investing in UK shares, which would have delivered 8.5% per year over the same period, and you can see that being idle doesn't mean being unsuccessful!

If you are looking for a straightforward investing method that lets you get on with your life while your money grows in the background, then become an Idle Investor.

Funds are an ideal solution for savers who want to invest in a variety of asset classes, such as equities and bonds, without having to commit the time and effort to becoming an expert themselves.

Not only do funds give you the ability to access some of the brightest investment brains in the world, they also enable you to access a wider range of markets and stocks than you could achieve directly, and to do so more efficiently.

However, with thousands of investment funds available available to investors, knowing how to select the right ones for your investment portfolio can be daunting. This candid eBook - written by a legendary investor in funds - solves this problem in a jargon-free, focused guide that is designed to take less than 30 minutes to read.

By removing the mystery surrounding successful investment in funds, and revealing what you should really look for, it empowers any investor to pick those funds with the greatest potential.

Described by the author as "a slightly autobiographical and heavily biased book about investing", Simple But Not Easy has plenty of interest to the experienced professional, and is aimed also at the interested amateur investor.

The theme of the book is that investment is simpler than non-professionals think it is in that the rudiments can be expressed in ordinary English, and picked up by anybody. It is not a science. But investment is also difficult. People on the outside tend to think that anyone on the inside should be able to do better than the market indices. This is not so. Picking the managers who are likely to do better is a challenge.

Richard Oldfield begins with a candid confession of some of his worst mistakes and what they have taught him. He discusses the different types of investment, why fees matter, and the importance of measuring performance properly. He also outlines what to look for, and what not to look for in an investment manager, when to fire a manager, and how to be a successful client.

If you want to get rich, no matter how inexperienced you are in investment, this book can help you. Its message is that you must learn neither to avoid risk nor to court it foolhardily, but to manage it - and enjoy it too.

The 12 major and 16 minor Zurich Axioms contained in this book are a set of principles providing a practical philosophy for the realistic management of risk, which can be followed successfully by anyone, not merely the 'experts'. Several of the Axioms fly right in the face of the traditional wisdom of the investment advice business - yet the enterprising Swiss speculators who devised them became rich, while many investors who follow the conventional path do not.

Max Gunther, whose father was one of the original speculators who devised the Axioms, made his first capital gain on the stock market at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Now the rest of us can follow in his footsteps. Startlingly straightforward, the Axioms are explained in a book that is not only extremely entertaining but will prove invaluable to any investor, whether in stocks, commodities, art, antiques or real estate, who is willing to take risk on its own terms and chance a little to gain a lot.

A brand new edition of the classic bestseller

The goal of all investors is to make the maximum possible profit from their investments. 'Beyond The Zulu Principle' shows you how to do this by focusing on growth shares. Jim Slater believes he has discovered a major market anomaly that should enable both private and institutional investors to enjoy exceptional returns in the stockmarket.

A number of important factors are crucial to successful investment. Jim Slater explains how to choose a company operating in the right sector with an advantage over its competitors. He also highlights the importance of directors' dealings, CEO changes, relative strength, cash flow accelerating earnings, and the capacity of some companies to clone their activities.

Simple but enormously effective, the guidance offered here should help readers to make stockmarket profits well beyond the market averages.

Investing is an activity that's rife with opportunity to fall into bad habits, be led astray or make decisions for the wrong reasons. Being aware of the behavioural traps and temptations that lie in wait for the unwary investor is the first step to avoiding them.

The Seven Deadly Sins were formulated in early Christian teachings to make followers mindful of man's natural vices - lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.

On the following pages, The Seven Deadly Sins are adapted to the world of multi-asset investment, revealing the all-too-common investor tendencies that the authors look to avoid in order to achieve reliable long-term performance.

Ratios provide an extremely effective method of understanding company accounts. At their most basic this usually involves taking one figure from the published accounts and dividing it by another - however, this seemingly simple process can reveal an enormous amount about both the nature and performance of a company.

'Ratios Made Simple' looks at ratios from the perspective of an investor, providing a toolkit for investors to use to accurately analyse a company from its accounts. This book is divided into nine chapters, with each chapter looking at a different aspect of potential concern to an investor:

1. Profitability Ratios
2. Investment Ratios
3. Dividend Cover
4. Margins
5. Gearing
6. Solvency Ratios
7. Efficiency Ratios
8. Policy Ratios
9. Volatility

For each ratio, financial expert Robert Leach provides a detailed definition, explains how it works, describes its use. Investors are also given a simple explanation of how to calculate each ratio, what the ratio means and how the investor should apply the answers in making investment decisions.

This book provides the investor with an essential guide to the use of these powerful analytical tools - tools that should form a vital part of an investor's decision-making process.

Smart Portfolios is about building and maintaining smart investment portfolios. At its heart are the three key questions every investor needs to answer:

1. What to invest in.
2. How much to invest.
3. When to make changes to a portfolio.

Author Robert Carver addresses these three areas by providing a single integrated approach to portfolio management. He shows how to follow a step-by-step process to build a multi-asset investment portfolio, and how to rebalance the portfolio efficiently. He covers both investment in collective funds like ETFs, and also direct investment in individual equities.

Important features include:

-- Why forecasting future returns is so difficult, and how to account for uncertainty when making investment decisions.
-- How to accurately calculate the true costs of an investment, including costs that you may not even be aware of.
-- How to select the best ETF for each asset class.
-- How to compare the costs and other features of different ETFs.
-- How to select individual shares.
-- Calculating the number of shares needed for adequate diversification.
-- How to use systematic forecasting algorithms to adjust portfolio allocations.
-- How to cut trading costs through smart rebalancing strategies and execution tactics.

Robert Carver also explains how to blend assets with different levels of risk, and how to construct portfolios that suit the level of risk that the investor can cope with.

Smart Portfolios is detailed, comprehensive, and full of practical methods, rules of thumb and techniques, all fully explained with examples. It is intended for professional investors worldwide, including financial advisors, private bankers, wealth managers and institutional funds; as well as experienced private investors.

Investing can be a passport to a better life. But where should you invest your money?

Mark Dampier has been helping thousands of investors answer this question for over 30 years. In his first ever book he brings together everything he has learnt from grilling fund managers, weighing up investments and surviving through dramatic ups and downs. The result is the must-read insider’s guide for how to succeed as a DIY private investor.

As Mark explains, successful investing doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Armed with this book, you can find effective ways to make your money work for you, no matter how much or how little you start out with.

Writing in plain English and using real-life examples throughout, Mark reveals:

- the secrets of picking the best investment funds
- how he invests his own savings and pension fund
- starter portfolios for first-time investors
- the most common traps that investors fall into
- the trouble with buy-to-let and other popular alternatives.

With today’s powerful online platforms and generous tax incentives (also outlined in the book), the markets have never been more accessible. But success without a plan is far from guaranteed. Effective Investing is the guide you’ve been waiting for to make sure you get what you want from your investing.

80 must-read tips and techniques for trading success

Trading shares can make you rich - but it's not risk-free. You need years of experience to navigate the dangers and seize the best opportunities.

Malcolm Stacey has done the hard work for you: he's learned how to be successful through years of his own trading and countless conversations with top traders. Now he's ready to share this knowledge and give you a head start.

Probably Britain's best-known shares blogger, Malcolm has traded from his armchair for nearly 30 years. He's gone through it all, from frothy bull market bubbles to crunching crashes.

As a BBC business reporter, he interviewed some of the most successful share traders in the world who revealed to him their top-secret strategies and tips. He's also spoken to countless business leaders to learn what makes a good company - the kind you want to be backing with your cash.

In Share Attack he distils all of this into 80 vital trading tips and techniques that you can put into practice right now.

Filled with insight and experience, Share Attack is a trading book with teeth - a fascinating beginner's guide for those who want to start trading more actively. It's fast-moving and entertaining - and packed with years of techniques, tricks and red flags. You'll learn from Malcolm's early mistakes and benefit from his successes.

Malcolm can't guarantee to make you rich by trading shares, but you can give yourself a vital edge by learning the top secrets of those who've done it all before. It's time for the Share Attack!

For the first time, the tactics, strategies and insights relied on by 150 of the world's most respected financial experts are revealed in a concise, digestible form. Learn how you really make money in the markets from:

- fund managers of billion-pound equity funds
- traders in the options and futures markets
- industry-rated analysts
- economists from top business schools
- writers on leading financial newspapers

Each provides focused and practical rules on how to succeed in the market. Often counter-intuitive, their rules tell you exactly what to do and what not to do. No padding; just a rock-hard list of do's and don'ts.

The contributors to this book are the elite of investing. They consistently beat the market because they know which shares to buy, at what price, and when. And, just as importantly, they know when to sell.

Never before has so much quality advice been packed into a single book. If you want to increase your wealth through investing, this is an unmissable opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills from the best in the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa is now one of the world's most talked about regions in terms of emerging investment opportunities and sources of new growth. Its economies represent a quintessential frontier market and they are set to develop into an area of long-term investment interest. 'Africa - The Ultimate Frontier Market' is an investor's guide to the transformations that have occurred in the African business landscape in the last 50 years and the key areas of interest for the future.

This book provides a detailed but lucid look at the changing trends in social life, government and business since the 1960s. It explains the background to consumer market developments and why they have occurred, the enablers that have been laid down within Africa that ready it for business expansion, and the sectors where there is opportunity for investment and growth. The business environment is then broken down into seven key areas on which investors should focus:

Agriculture - Real estate - Consumer retail - Financial services - Telecoms - Transport and logistics - Manufacturing and processing

Each of these chapters describes the major themes in the area and identifies the specific consumer sectors anticipated to experience the biggest growth in the years to come.

By following the long-term developments described by David Mataen, you will understand the pace of change in Africa in the past and gain an appreciation for how its business and economy will progress in the future. At this time of great opportunity, this book is an essential addition to your investment library.