Stock-market

David Denby is a selfish man. He refers to his wife of nearly two decades as the "novelist Cathleen Schine" and hardly ever mentions his kids except as nuisances. His greeds leads him to the diabolical duo of Henry Blodget and Sam Waksal who then fleece Denby out of much of his life savings.

American Sucker is the work of a selfish, greedy self-obsessed man. The book is similarly awful. It is a waste of both your money and your reading time.

Having read a good but cautionary review when the book came out and having an interest in the topic, I waited for a copy at the local library. Good idea. Buying this book to learn something about investing would be like buying the stocks Denby chose to make money. At least the reader's intentions or motives would be a bit more rational. Denby apparently has watched too many movies and read too many great books. What he really needed was some good common sense.

The title is misleading. Denby's entire downfall is not based on his being "American" or a "sucker". Yes, he was greedy and willing to be gullible. He waxes eloquent on greed and envy. But these are besides the point. Yes, he listemed to precisely the wrong people. But his initial, critical, deadly mistake was to assume that he could make a million dollars in one year by not doing anything other than "invest". He was greedy, envious, naive, uninformed and lazy. He wanted so much to make that million that he ignored red flags, warning bells, and first-year business student advice on investing.

He has a cynical view of investing, based on Keynes' observations as to the risks involved. That pretty much explains how he thinks he can make a million in one year just by buying technology stocks in 2000. Denby also decides that taking risks means being irrational, that progress requires irrational behavior. What he fails to do is to listen even to the people who he indirectly accuses of having duped him; even Henry Blodgett told Denby to be more careful. Denby seems convinced that Alan Greenspan's effort to raise interest rates was the market's true undoing, This is a bad case of denial from the recent dot.com bust debacle.

Denby's self-absorption with his attempts to maintain his liberal, upscale, upper West Side lifestyle and apartment in the face of a pending divorce speaks volumes for his willingness to do incredibly foolish, shortsighted and greedy things makes this more of a lesson in how not to dissolve a marriage than any sort of morality play, note of sympathy, or tale of snake oil salesmen swindling a poor, innocent, well-read but naive movie critic. It is hard to feel sympathy, even for such a large, personal loss.

In terms of page count, "American Sucker" is about obsessions like money and real estate. But what is going on beneath the surface is something about the loss of family values. [Hey, hang in there with me for a minute--I promise I'm not for Bush.] What we have, at least on the surface, is a happy and successful family, an American success story, if perhaps more New York, upper-west-side literaryish than most. Was there a mid-life crisis? Sure, it happened back before "Great Books," when Denby's wife Cathleen Schine told him "...why don't you take your Columbia courses again?" Why? Because "I no longer knew what I knew." A few years later, "my wife...announced that she no longer wanted to be married to me." So Denby, already vulnerable, is left with "there is no there there;" rudderlessness; oblivion. Porn, suit-in-the-closet affair, foolish investing? He didn't kill himself--he wrote a book! He's a survivor.

I'm not all that up on the New York literary scene or the political correctness of women leaving men, but this strikes me as serious self-indulgence on the part of the wife. Schine's books don't exactly suggest that conventional marriages can endure. In "The Love Letter," the divorced heroine takes up with a younger man (the letter turns out to be from one woman character to another). I haven't read "She Is Me," but isn't it about a wife leaving her husband for a woman? See a pattern?

How does it go? "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Denby should have seen it coming, but who knows what he could have done about it.

Sure, Denby wallows in self-interest and indulgence in this book; but his family is destroyed. Family values meant something to him. Too bad he couldn't figure out how to write about them in "American Sucker." It would have been a lot more interesting to me than the stock market stuff.

the book that i will be reading will help me get started. I will understand the market alot more.but this book will be great. It will get me on my feet.Other that that this book will great for people that wanting to get started with the stock market.I all ready love this book and i havent even read it yet.

thanks for your help.
chris green

This dual authored 249-page book McGraw-Hill paperback covers different investment styles. It is divided into 10 chapters and includes a 15-page appendix of on-line investing resources, and 100 useful Websites, as well as a 9-page glossary. One unique feature is the inclusion of Psychological Quotient (PQ) Charts that can help readers ascertain their investment style and, thereby increase their odds on selecting the most appropriate investments.

The authors put forth the theory that if an investing strategy does not fit a person's personality that he/she will not stick with it for very long. Therefore, they provide a selection of currently used investing strategies together with the personality traits needed to execute the strategy successfully.

According to the authors, the investing process encompasses stock selection, timing of entry and exit points and portfolio management (asset allocation, number of holdings). However, they point out that the strategies for picking investment vehicles depends upon the investor's style of investing.

The authors point out that if an investor can use a systematic investing approach while maintaining discipline that he can more than double the annual return compared to random investing.

The authors created PQ charts. They rate each investment style on a scale of 1 to 10 for each of ten personality traits. These traits are: discipline; patience; risk tolerance; reward expectation; volatility tolerance; time horizon; time commitment; quantitative skill; charting skill; and investing confidence.

Nine specific investment styles are reviewed. The four major styles are growth (high risk/high reward); value (hunting for bargains); momentum (where the action is); and technical investing (using charts). There is one chapter on each style and together they cover 100 pages and are the heart of the book.

Each chapter follows the same format by providing the PQ chart personality rankings, anatomy of the types of stocks that fit that category, chart patterns of these stocks, how to screen for stocks, checklist of questions on evaluating stocks, exit and entry strategies, portfolio strategy, a case study, stock chart evaluation checklist, on-line resources, and helpful hints.

Five minor investing styles are portrayed in a separate chapter. They include: fundamental investing (balance sheet review), income investing (dividend payers), hybrid investing (combining styles), active trading (day traders, swing traders, position traders), and style surfing (style now in vogue).

Also provided are market capitalization strategies. Those covered include: large-, mid-, small-, and micro-cap strategies. A few advanced strategies are briefly discussed. They include short-selling, market-neutral investing, index trading, option hedging, and global investing.

Each style is explained and a PQ chart is included. A table showing the names of specific index funds and ETFs is also included for each investing style or market cap. This table provides readers with the specific funds to consider based upon their investment profile.

Overall, this book provides readers with a crisply written introduction to understanding the different investing styles, determining their style, help in locating funds that track these styles. This book contains sufficient resources to help investors strengthen their knowledge about investing and the markets. I highly recommend this book to new investors, as well as those who don't have a clue as to what they should be focusing on.

The preponderance of research for the past 100 years or so has demonstrated convincingly that stock markets are pretty efficient and that stock prices move randomly, or almost randomly. That is a strong argument against trying to time the market. Author Leslie N. Masonson disagrees, contending that if you use a few simple techniques to time the market, you can avoid losses and wind up with a more profitable portfolio than if you simply bought a representative selection of stocks and held them, as most financial advisors now recommend. He could have presented more evidence to support his opinion, but he is honest enough to contrast his point of view with the many arguments against attempting to time the market. He acknowledges that timing requires certain staunch character traits that are far from universally present in the investing populace. That is to his credit. Also to his credit, according to us, is the fact that he usefully defines and discusses a number of trading techniques and information sources that even non-investors should know about and that investors should understand.

The preponderance of research for the past 100 years or so has demonstrated convincingly that stock markets are pretty efficient and that stock prices move randomly, or almost randomly. That is a strong argument against trying to time the market. Author Leslie N. Masonson disagrees, contending that if you use a few simple techniques to time the market, you can avoid losses and wind up with a more profitable portfolio than if you simply bought a representative selection of stocks and held them, as most financial advisors now recommend. He could have presented more evidence to support his opinion, but he is honest enough to contrast his point of view with the many arguments against attempting to time the market. He acknowledges that timing requires certain staunch character traits that are far from universally present in the investing populace. That is to his credit. Also to his credit, according to us, is the fact that he usefully defines and discusses a number of trading techniques and information sources that even non-investors should know about and that investors should understand

I have been investing since the mid 60's and the philosophy I follow, spelled out by all the stock mavens, is to buy "quality" and "hold". Masonson's book points out the folly of this approach. He makes a convincing case that in spite of all the wisdom that I have absorbed over 40 years, that "it ain't so". I will need to spend more time digesting his simple marketing timing strategies. In the future, I expect to be a smarter investor and not sit tight when the market is collapsing. Thanks for opening my eyes to the real world of investing. This book is well written, has tons of interesting facts, and lays bare the critical importance of cutting losses short and investing with the odds in your favor.

I have spent the last year losing money in the stock market. Everything I tried lost money. I saw the ad for the Alchemy book and thought what have I got to lose? Within one week I was making money, a lot of money. On my first trade I [made quite a bit]. Now all my friends are asking me what option writing is about and if it is hard to do. The program was easy, and the thing I like the best was that I can do it forever. I just wanted to say that this is a great book and I am really glad I found it.

This is a must for a serious trader or a novice just getting started in the market. It goes into great details on how to watch the market and make an instant treasure within a day, or for more sophisticted strategies over a period of time. For times like these, this book has been very helpful to me understanding the market, and of course cashing in.
What differentiates this book is the detail the book goes into. It gives every step in each chapter. If you are thinking of getting some type of second income, than Alchemy is the book to get started with. This book certainly has motivated me be smarter on the market and has brought new life to my financial world.

I found Mr. Czlonka's technique's easy to understand and even entertaining to read through. My husband is already invested in the stock market but these techniques helped us become actively involved with our investments. I would recommend this book as a must read for anyone who is considering ways to make their money grow.