World Famous Comics: Invest Like a Dealmaker: Secrets from a Former Banking Insider (Agora Series)
Invest Like a Dealmaker: Secrets from a Former Banking Insider (Agora Series)
By: Christopher W. Mayer Publisher: Wiley Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Wiley Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 240 Publication Date: January 28, 2008
Product Description: Invest Like a Dealmaker outlines an approach to investing that is far removed from what most investors have been conditioned to believe, but which has produced consistent profits for its practitioners decade after decade. While the concepts covered are not well known by the average investor, they are well appreciated by Wall Street insiders and dealmakers—particularly those who think about stocks as whole companies, as things with real assets, and cash flows that exist in the real world.
New packaging for timeless principles and techniques I think it was in the Money Game that I read that everything important about money and markets has already been written (many years ago.) So I did not expect to pick up anything new, despite the seductive title.
Invest Like a Deal Maker, has managed to put together some timeless concepts in a new way. And in doing so gives us an intersting, entertaining and easily readable reminder of basics and more advanced ideas of value investing (as espoused by Graham, Buffet, Munger and others.) As well as the techniques of many less well known masters of the Game.
What I found most useful in this book were the 8 hunting grounds where Chris (the author) finds new original stock ideas. I would guess his unique contribution (I haven't seen this list anywhere else.)
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Lots of Summaries...and that's about it I can't recommend this book as a standalone contribution to the how-to world of personal investing. The title is misleading, and the book itself...well, it isn't really a book. It's more like a lengthy newsletter followed by a summary of a bunch of other books and newsletters.
Here's what you get in the 200 pages...
1. The simple notion that a 'Dealmaker' doesn't think in terms of earnings, as earnings are regularly massaged and manipulated to satisfy Wall Street analysts. Instead, look at enteprise value, cash, and assets that are actually worth something and may be understated on the balance sheet (i.e. land). This is essentially the only real investment discussion in the book.
2. Constant plugging for the author's Capital & Crisis newsletter.
3. Meandering summaries of different fund managers' philosophy styles, and constant plugs for their newsletters, books, memoirs, etc...
The positive of this book is that it essentially lists many different books and styles to explore, briefly summarized here. It is a good jumping-off point for examining other literature. The summaries though are highly superficial. Things like 'Joe Blow beat the S&P500 10 years in a row by not following the herd. He explains this in his book called...'
A cynic would say that the general summary of this book is "Investing is hard, here are some investing generalities, you probably won't feel comfortable investing with these generalities, so invest in my newsletter and I'll add context to the generalities".
I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt though for compiling summaries of many different books that you may not have heard about, and may interest you.
Great book, but don't start with this one Having been reading Chris Mayer's articles (in which he recognised the housing bubble already in 2003) and his investment newsletters, I was really happy when he finally published a book about investing.
If you will read only one book about investing I wouldn't recommend this one because this one is simultaneously something more and something less than an ordinary investing guide.
ILDM is a book about investors own attitude towards stock investing and the whole wealth creation process and how you should think the whole philosophy of investing (and what great names have thought about it). It is also about how to avoid making the usual mistakes in investing. I had a little Deja Vu feeling having already read Mark Tier's book "Winning Investment Habits of Warren Buffett and George Soros", which I recommend warmly.
This book is not a "How to become a millionaire"- style book about the physical process of picking stocks. It is not a book about cyclical analysis either (as an co-advocate of the Austrian School I was a little disappointed). And there is actually hardly any mention about competing asset classes such as bonds, commodities or gold.
Fun to read although occasionally too anecdotical, and maybe should have needed more graphical illustrations and some examples on how to use for example EBITDA/EV - model.
Perhaps not a classic like "Intelligent Investor" (Graham) or "Margin of Safety" (Klarman), but absolutely worth of reading if you already know something about the subject.
A book of two halves Started off really well and I though I was in for a treat! The author makes a lot of sense in the first hundred pages by challenging the reader to look past the usual 'value' rations such as P/E and to focus on real tangible value and assets.
The next half of the book read more like a book review where his favourates were glorified.
Wished it was stronger - you are better of just reading the first half.
Lost interest, for now I'm about a third of the way through....and am taking a break. I don't know very much about the details of stocks, but bought the book to become better educated and a better investor. I'm in what the author calls "the hardest chapter to get through"...and it is. A lot of technical info that a sample balance sheet or income statement would make a lot easier to understand. Something to refer to so you could see what the heck he's talking about would be nice. Like I said I am a novice when it comes to evaluating the value of investors...I'm sure someone with more experience would understand it better. I'll pick it up again...maybe it will come around and be easier to understand.
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