- ISBN13: 9781576603239
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Since Burton Malkiel’s seminal work A Random Walk Down Wall Street was published, the financial world has swallowed whole the idea that market movement is chaotic and random. Richard Lehman, coauthor of New Insights in Covered Call Writing, uses behavior-based trend analysis to debunk that theory. He demonstrates that the market has discernible trends that are forseeable. By learning to spot those trends, traders and investors can predict market movements to boost returns in anything from equities to 401(k) accounts.
BUY NOW: Far from Random: Using Investor Behavior and Trend Analysis to Forecast Market Movement
Lehman cracks open a door we should all be looking through. This book goes way beyond his first one on options (which is still a great primer on covered call writing, by the way). Not only does he shoot holes in the traditional (and always self-serving) rhetoric on Wall Street, he offers an alternative — and a doggone provocative one at that! Thankfully, someone credible is willing to hit Wall Street between the eyes with their blind obsession to buy-and-hold. I’d been seeing references to Behavioral Finance and thinking it was just marketing spin, but I now see things quite differently. We will sit around for decades waiting for Wall Street to change the way they think. If you’re tired of being herded into a convenient but untenable philosophy about the stock market, you want to read this.
While I know next to nothing about finance, I do have an advanced degree and extensive background in the social sciences. Who knew that there is actually a close connection between human behavior and the workings of the stock market? Finally, an entree into the world of finance accessible to folks like me. From the first chapter opener – a literary nod to Lewis Carroll – I was hooked. “Far From Random” is well-written, readable, and highly provocative – and as far as I can tell, long overdue. Given all the research Mr. Lehman cites in behavioral finance, it’s remarkable that so little of it has been brought to public attention or adopted by the financial industry. Their eyes must have been closed. This book opened mine, and should do the same for many other worried investors. Kudos to Lehman for his keen insight and his ability to make foreign concepts comprehensible.
In Far From Random, we learn we aren’t so removed from our ancestors as we might think. This highly readable book demonstrates that markets are neither efficient nor random, and that being stone-cold frozen with fear (a saber-tooth tiger eyes us for lunch) is akin to buy-and-hold-no-matter-what (our securities portfolio drags us down to our doom). Rick Lehman boldly states that human emotion, and not green-eyeshade analysis, is what really drives prices –whether it’s Dutch Tulips, Stocks on margin, or 30 X 1 leverage on illiquid credit default swaps and subprime mortgage derivatives. Far from being nonsense, this view makes perfect sense. Far From Random shows how our collective emotional behaviors, and the markets they move, become predictable. That’s an edge any investor would want, and Far From Random will give you a tantalizing glimpse at that edge.
Jim Glidden, veteran Wall St. Bond Salesman
As an avid investment student of age 61, I read “Far from Random” entirely. The book is close to worthless. It should be dismissed.
FFR purports to teach us how trend analysis can make investors money in the market. The treatment is superficial. If you have interest in technical trading, there are many more superior books starting with the classic from Pring.
My great dissapointment is because Bloomberg Press printed the book. I thought the publisher would impose a respectable standard of quality. They did not. Henceforth, investbook books from Bloomberg should be considered suspect. McMillan, of Options Writing fame, should be ashamed of his endorsement.
One can learn from investment books and apply ideas profitably. However, FFR is not the book in any manner. The book is not appropriate for any level of investor, nor any age.