Bull! : A History of the Boom, 1982-1999: What drove the Breakneck Market--and What Every Investor Needs to Know About Financial Cycles
Author: Maggie Mahar
List Price: $27.95
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ISBN: 006056413X
Publisher: HarperBusiness (21 October, 2003)
Sales Rank: 9
Average Customer Rating: 4.64 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
A Truly Enlightning Book
The dualistic title of the book comes to refer to the nature of the roaring stock market of the 80's and 90's as well as what was being shoveled to fuel that market. The book may not break any new ground but does an excellent job pointing out how price increases fuel further speculation; driving up prices still further. As price and speculation feed upon itself there is tremendous pressure not to be left behind. Analysts are pressured not to say anything bad about a stock; the media is pressured to be cheerleaders and not fault-finders; and corporate executives find creative ways to make their companies more profitable than they really are. The result is a price bubble and when it bursts people get hurt.Maggie Mahar, a financial journalist since 1982, writes a coherent study of how the bull market came to be, what fueled it, and what can investors do now. It is up-to-date book and truly enlightening. Much of the material has been covered in financial journals and newspapers but never in such a concise manner; and you'll soon discover many surprises that you probably didn't know about the bull market.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Captivating & Informative--Best I've read on the Bull Market
I finished Bull! in two days, and I enjoyed every page. The problem that I've had with most books on economic history or investing (and particularly those, such as this one, that include considerable economic detail) is that they are miserable to plow through, and are invariably filled with dry and seemingly superfluous detail. This book is different. Mahar mixes witty anecdotes with incisive analysis, and her claims about investing are offered in intelligent often playful prose, surrounded with a copious amount of recent historical material. Even well known stock-market figures--like Warren Buffet--look new here: we get a sense of why they acted as they did, and often a hint of what they may have been thinking. Recommended for anyone interested in learning more about investing, uncovering what the last bull run was all about, or meeting some of the major Wall Street players that were made into near-celebrities.
Rating: 5 out of 5
HISTORY KEEPS REPEATING ITSELF. BUT IS ANYONE LEARNING?
I found this to be an exciting read, very readable and full of wit. I wish I had read a book like this earlier before I bought and held all my stocks during the high tech stock wreck that brought my investments crashing down about 35% of their value. I bought and held Lucent, AT & T, and many favorites that past authors would have placed in the "buy & hold" part of ones portfolio. Perhaps the rules have changed and we did not want to change with the times. This book gives a great reason to monitor a portfolio (and money managers) on a regular and ongoing basis. This book, in some ways, reminds me of the somewhat unregulated "penny stock boom" in the 1970's and early 1980's. I was investing during that time. I remember how penny stocks were pumped and dumped, and most of the underwriter firms were closed down. The sadest story was in the paper was about "OTC NET" (I believe that was the underwriter's firm). They had done so many crooked public offerings that one on the top executives was sentenced to prison. It seems the more things change the more they stay the same. After reading "Bull!" I went to my home financial library (I must have hundreds of financicial books in my study) and got my very worn and read copy of HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN PENNY STOCKS: THE ULTIMATE SOLUTION FOR THE SMALL INVESTOR by Jim Scott. I reread it before writing this review, and it is absoluting amazing to me that the fall of the high tech penny stocks in the 1970's and early 1980's was so much like the recent tech wreck. You would think the SEC would have become better in regulating these small and sometimes "paper only companies" (those companies not yet operating or making money). Especially after almost 30 years the SEC could have created safer safeguards to protect investors. But during the same time as the tech wrech I was following another writer in the financial world named R. Max Bowser. He has been investing and writing a funny-to-read, but easy-to-understand investment newsletter for somewhere close to 30 years. During the past three or so years, his newsletters remarks about the "invisible stock market," which he indicates are the small profitable companies that Wall Street and the news do not cover or write about. Those are the companies that most often make profits in times of a down market. He keeps a running portfolio that he updates at the end of the year and publishes in a forthcoming newsletter of the following year. I have read his three books several times and I believe his books have worked out most mistakes that the high tech investors got caught in. His system has you selling half each stock when it doubles, and sell the balance if it backs down a certain percentage. He also warns when to sell out of a stock completely based on his own warning signals, company earnings, insider trading as well as other indicators. His followers apparantly made money in the tech wreck mess. One of my favorite books by Mr. Bowser is MAKING DOLLARS WITH PENNIES: HOW THE SMALL INVESTER CAN BEAT THE WIZARDS ON WALL STREET. He apparently had so many readers make money using his investment system that he includes their stories in another book, PENNY STOCK WINNERS: TRUE STORIES OF SUCCESSFUL INVESTORS. But I was amazed when Mr. Bowser came out with a $5,000 guarantee that if you follow his investment system and lose money, he will pay the reader (investor) $5,000. So, I am taking his 30 years of wisom and exerience to the test, and I am going through that book page by page, playing his easy-to-understand investment system (see GUARANTEED PROFITS WITH SMALL STOCKS: THE ONLY INVESTMENT SYSTEM THAT COMES WITH A 5,000 GUARANTEE). If I lose money on his system, I will at least have $5,000 to show for it. For all investors, my final thought is to learn that the old rule of "buy and hold" may not be the new way to invest for the long run. Similar Products
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