Tomorrow's Gold: Asia's Age of Discovery
Author: Marc Faber
List Price: $35.95
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ISBN: 9628606727
Publisher: CLSA (12 November, 2002)
Sales Rank: 2,022
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
a worthy, and sometimes compelling, read
faber and his "i know best" attitude (which you'll either appreciate, as i did, or grow weary of) decidedly spell out his vision of what will happen in the time to come re: asian development and capital flows; he tells you what to do (in so many words) and why the herd will be wrong. his historical analyses are quite useful (except the chapters on business cycles and kondratieff cycles, which i agree are muddy) and he lays out plenty of evidence to support his positions. i must say that while i'm not quite bought into the doom and gloom that he is known for, his cases are compelling, and if this leads the reader to take offsetting positions in investing to better hedge their portfolio, then it is well worth its weight in gold.his style is quite casual, making an economics book (as this is precisely that) rather easy to digest.
to succinctly summarize, global capital flows (and their ever increasing supply) will eventually flow to china and asia proper to support their ever-increasing per capita income. resource plays are the best bet. also, in a more general sense, he states how $$ can be made by spotting how market inefficiencies result from misallocation of foreign direct investment.
a worthy read? definitely. but i refuse to support it fully when i know faber sits on the boards of select mining companies that are primarily engaged in asian development (ivanhoe mines); a conflict of interest? it certainly seems that way...but that doesn't make him wrong.
Rating: 5 out of 5
There is a Whole World Out There
Two weeks ago I was sitting in the dentists chair. When he finished sticking his instruments in his mouth, we talked for a few minutes about the stock market. He expressed the common hope of the moment that the war in Iraq will make everything good again. When I told him why that wasn't likely to happen, he made the remark that there is so much "money on the sidelines" that it will have to go back into stocks eventually. He probably heard that from CNBC. "There is a whole world out there," I told him. Money can to go to China or Russia. It doesn't have to go into Cisco. I then told him to read this book.American investors who were conditioned by the 1990's to buy and hold forever need a new way of thinking. They need to understand that financial markets move in cycles of boom and bust that provide real opportunities to make money. Faber teaches the reader to follow the money and to understand that we now live in a global economy. With a secular bear market in the United States, over the course of the next decade the best investment opportunities will likely be elsewhere in the world and in commodities such as gold and silver. This book will open their minds and in time will help them fatten their wallets.
Faber's book contains all kinds of little gems that are worth remembering. It also has several chapters that I found especially thought provoking and unique to investment literature. First is a valuable chapter on the cycle of emerging markets. Second is a discussion of the United States as an emerging market in the 19th century. His comparison of the US to emerging markets such as China, Russia, and Asia is thought provoking - a process of wild boom and busts swings is not unique to them, but was a large part of the history of the US in the 19th century. It seems to go hand in hand with rapid modernization.
His discussion of history and financial bubbles is a good introduction to the subject and one that will help US investors understand the last few years.
Read this book. It is worth your time and effort. A lot of meat in it. Will make you think. Investment professionals will benefit from it too. If you are a stock broker, this book is worth a whole year of sales promotion literature and analyst recos coming from upstairs. Learn something to actually help your customers. If you are fund manager learn to think big and follow the money.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Some good ideas hiding in a lot of useless junk
This book contains some good ideas about investing, and has a long-term perspective that is more valuable than the perspective of many investment books. But it is not a very carefully written book. Much of the history that it includes seems like a tedious recitation of names and dates that are of marginal relevance to understanding financial markets. Many of the charts are less informative than they should be, for example using a linear y-axis when any experienced trader would know that they should be shown with a logarithmic y-axis. Similar Products
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