Editorial Review

In the last 25 years, the venture-capital industry has grown from a less than $1 billion to an over $60 billion business--growth that has far surpassed any other class of investment products. Today, the industry consists of several thousand professionals working at about 500 funds concentrated in California, Massachusetts, and a handful of other states. Despite the industry's size, there are many misconceptions about the nature and role of venture capitalists; their trade remains shrouded in mystery.Read more

Reviews (13)

The standard
This was one of the better books I've read on VC.Extremely well researched, very informative, though it took awhile to read.Recommended.

thorough but Not Practical
Very important content, but of limited use for actual VC investors or entrepreneur. It is very good with its findings, but they are all known to investors, and are of less interest to entrepreneur. that being said, I enjoyed reading the book, which shows the "proofs" to many of the things we in the industry are doing almost intuitively. The books suffers from the fact it is not sufficiently detailed to be useful in practice, while at the same time is providing good information for students learning investments. I guess it is just addressing a different audience than myself, an entrepreneru and investor.

Valuable and clear info for both sides of the vc process
We used this book in an MBA course on Venture Capital here at the University of Michigan b-school.I think this is an excellent book.Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Entrepreneurship    5. Finance    6. United States    7. Venture capital    8. Business & Economics / Finance   

Reviews (19)

EXCELLENT
This book is excellent! If you don't have a finance background but need to understand the financial statements this book will teach you everything you need. If you already know about finance this book will teach you what you don't know.

Don't read "Finance for Dummies"! Read this book
Everyone is familiar with the "Dummies" book series, and, perhaps, we all have a dozen of them on our shelves.In many cases, we reach for the "Dummies" books, because they represent our first foray into a subject we know nothing about, like "Fishing for Dummies," and we feel like we need to get a "handle" on it.In other words, we are non-experts, we'd like to learn from the experts, but we don't want to become an expert.We just want to "understand" the subject, so that we don't look stupid at work or during cocktail party conversations.
Better than Many, But Still Not that Good
This book gets 3 stars only for its organized content, as well as the fact that there are very few good books for beginners that take you from A to Z in reading financial statements.However, this book is not one of them in my opinion. The problem is that the author does not break the material down to a level that a novice can understand unless he reads the book many times.There is too much detail in many of the sections and the main points can easily be lost.I learned to read financial statements long ago, but this book did not help me, other than alerting me to the complexity involved.If you do have a background in financial statements, then this book might be good.Perhaps I will go back now and read the book now that I already know how to read fin statements and see if it makes sense. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Finance    6. Financial Accounting    7. Financial statements    8. Business & Economics / Finance    9. Financial reporting, financial statements   

Reviews (11)

A bit hard to understand
I had an older edition of this book, which wasn't very helpful, so I bought the new one hoping it was an improvement, but came away rather disappointed because, for an instructional manual, this one is hard to follow.Apparently, the authors have been in the valuation business for a long time, but it's not always easy to translate experience effectively into words. For most, this is a how-to project with potentially big consequences, so the instructions should be more clear than this. I liked "Unlocking the Value of Your Business" as an alternative.Once I read that book, I understood better what these guys were talking about.

This is a Terrific Resource for Practitioners Not Investors
I am a lawyer who has tried valuation cases and this book is a terrific resource for valuation experts and attorneys.I used it to defend and to attack witnesses. It is respected. It is used at the Federal Judicial Center as training for judges on these issues. It is not at all appropriate for people who are trying to value companies for investment purposes.

Super
This book, guide, reference, ... or what ever you name it. is essential for all business, financial and investment guides. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Corporate Finance    6. Corporations    7. Investments & Securities - General    8. Law and legislation    9. United States    10. Valuation    11. Budgeting & financial management    12. Business & Economics / Corporate Finance    13. Investment & securities    14. Reference works   

Reviews (5)

An Old Favorite Brought Up to Date
This book has two real aspects.
Very Good Economics Book.
I just finished a Managerial Economics MBA course that used this text.I found it to be very well written compared to textbooks I've read for other classes.I think it does a good job explaining supply and demand, intro to pricing, and intro to strategy and game theory.Examples are used to improve the reader's "economic" intuition.I talked to a friend who just finished a differnt MBA program who used this book.He recommended the book and especially liked the strategy segments and the prisoner's dilema.

overview only
It seems like a glorified table of contents.It tries to cover too much and absolutely no detailed in-depth explanations, and absolutely no rigorouse mathematical explinations.It's good only as an table of contents with some details.If you are interested in a specific topic, you are better off finding information on the web or go elsewhere.The cases are fun to read, and provide some insight into the real life problems.Recommend it for night time leisure reading, but not for seriouse students who wants to learn a solid fundation to the subject. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Management - General    5. Managerial economics    6. Organizational effectiveness    7. Reference    8. Budgeting & financial management    9. Business & Economics / Economics / General    10. Organizational theory & behaviour   

Reviews (2)

Highly recommended
Apgar's focus on learnable risks offers some very useful frameworks for applying risk management concepts to a real-word competitive business environment.

Excellent new perspective on risk
This is a fantastic book with powerful insight about the failing of portfolio theory when it comes to understanding and managing business risks. Apgar offers wonderful examples to illustrate how business risks are actually learnable and he creates a framework for preparing yourself to be good at learning about and mitigating risk.
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Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Corporate Finance    5. Management - General    6. Risk And Insurance Administration    7. Risk management    8. Risk assessment & analysis for business   

Reviews (20)

Strategically brilliant.
In order to become a market leader you must choose what kind of customers you want to serve, and design your operating model to fulfill the chosen customer value, while maintaining appropriate standards in the other two customer values.
A must-read for Customer Perspective in Balanced Scorecard
This book's concepts for strategic marketing management are so widely accepted that the popular Balanced Scorecard concept of Kaplan and Norton in 2001 decided to adopt the ideas for the "customer perspective".
Not just for the sales and marketing folks!
This business book should be in EVERY marketing and sales professional's library. In one reading of less than four hours you can understand the distinct value disciplines that define your company. And, just as important, you can recognize the value disciplines of your customers and competition. But, you don't have to be strictly a sales person. I'm my company's Chief Technology Officer and I felt the book was very valuable - after my CEO made me read it!Read more

Subjects:  1. Business / Economics / Finance    2. Business/Economics    3. Competition    4. Customer Service    5. Customer services    6. Entrepreneurship    7. Market segmentation    8. Marketing - General    9. Quality control    10. Quality of products    11. Business competition    12. Business strategy   

Reviews (2)

Most Appropriate for Basel II
If you are Banker/Banking Consultant then this book is the closest you will get to understanding Credit Risk from a Basel II perspective. Its clear & lucid style helped me understand the gamut of techniques used in Credit Risk Measurement. Unfortunately the Book does not get into the details of bulinding models so if your looking for a model building cookbook, look elsewhere.

a complete, robust and comprehensive valuable resource!
In Measuring and Managing Credit Risk, the authors provided a robust, complete and comprehensive treatment of several aspects of modern credit risk measurement and management. Written by two high talented practitioners, this book will become certainly a reference both for academics and practitioners thanks to its careful treatment of several not so known empirical issues which practitioners have to face everyday. At the same time, do not consider the book as a new recipes book for managing credit risk. Both authors already proved their deep knowledges of financial theory and establish once again, through this book, how advanced knowledges of theory combined with significant practical experience make leading researches. As a PhD candidate in Finance, actually writing on credit risk, I definitively adopted this book and higly recommend it for anyone dealing with credit risk issues either through a practical experience or through a theoritical work. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Applied    3. Banks & Banking    4. Business & Economics    5. Business / Economics / Finance    6. Business/Economics    7. Credit    8. Credit ratings    9. Finance    10. Management    11. Mathematical Models    12. Money & Monetary Policy    13. Risk management    14. Business & Economics / Corporate Finance    15. Credit & credit institutions   

Subjects:  1. Accounting - Financial    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Finance    6. Financial statements    7. Investments & Securities - General    8. Business & Economics / Accounting / Financial    9. Financial reporting, financial statements   

Reviews (2)

A bit disappointing
Honestly I was surprised to see the book is founded on the mainstream economic theory when the hedge fund industry itself is an idealization of alternative thesis. There is no quantitative insight whatsoever into the hedge fund strategies there, even though the author does provide useful information for anyone interested in understanding the bits of this secretive industry. In my humble opinion, the book should have moved beyond those generic topics to how the quantitative models are derived and which fields of knowledge are assisting in that endeavour, ie quantum mechanics, chaos theory, etc. Instead of those interesting insights, I got a recap of what a MBA student learns in her first semester in finance class, coupled with some considerations about how to put upon the microsope the hedge fund historical data.
Somewhat misleading title, but good book
I bought this book with the hope that finally I would learn how hedge fund strategies should be implemented in a quantitative and practical way. What a delusion I was under! Suffice to say that I regretted this purchase. You will not learn about investment strategies here, so if this is your motivation, look somewhere else (Lhabitant's first book "Hedge Funds: Myths and Limits" is better on investment strategies, but only in a qualitative way). All the same, I have found some use for this book. If you want a review of finance/investment theory like asset pricing models (CAPM, APT), risk and return measurement, regression analysis, etc. the book will do just fine. I recommend looking at the table of contents to see if this book suits your purpose. I have found chapter 5 on hedge fund indices, and the problems with these, very useful. Also, chapter 9 on style analysis is good, as well as chapter 8.5 on hedge funds as option portfolios which summarizes the scientific papers by Fung, Agrawal and those guys. However, you will find most of the book's topics in finance textbooks used in graduate schools, but if you haven't read those, I guess this book will be very useful for you. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Economics - General    5. Finance    6. Hedge funds    7. Institutional Investment    8. Investments & Securities - General    9. Mathematical Economics    10. Business & Economics / Finance    11. Investment & securities   

Reviews (10)

Very useful book
This is a great book for those who want to learn quantitative finance, but don't have the benefit of being enrolled in a financial engineering program. It has the advantage of being self-contained and begins instruction from the ground up: you can "cold start" on the subject with this book. Just a basic knowledge of differential equations (non-stochastic) is required.
If you already know the field
If you already know almost everything it is a very good book. No error and the guy knows what he is doing. However, if you know everything, why do you want to buy this book?
This is a highly recommended work for any quant.
As I write this in June of 2005, quantitative finance has grown up. What was once a cross-over subfield of finance with a veneer of mathematics is now a field unto itself, and hence, in the past decade there have been an explosion of books which often replicate or restate what has been said before with little new to add. Also, there remains an unforgiving gap between introductory texts that are too superficial and specialists' mathematics books that are rigorous and difficult works beyond the commitment for mastery of the busy, intelligent, practical front-line quant. In addition, works that were once adequate are now simplistic and under serve their readers by lulling them into false confidence. Into this fray Dr. Mark S. Joshi's "The Concepts and Practice of Mathematical Finance" enters with a modern voice and delivers what previous texts have only promised and failed to. The work lives up to its title by presenting both concepts and practicalities, and makes other works that do neither well obsolete. Those familiar with my other reviews on quantitative finance texts know that I place a premium on clarity, and on this front Joshi deserves six stars, for he is a master of what William Strunk called "the plain style." I am always sensitive to the fact that many of the world's best quants come from nations where English is not the first language. Readers from China, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Russia and eastern Europe will enjoy Joshi's clarity and find his English easy to follow. It would be impossible to cover everything in quanfin in a single volume, however there is nothing horribly glossed over here and neither is there a single wasted word or equation.
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Subjects:  1. Derivative securities    2. Finance    3. Interest rates    4. Mathematical Analysis    5. Mathematical models    6. Mathematics    7. Options (Finance)    8. Prices    9. Probability & Statistics - General    10. Reference    11. Science/Mathematics    12. Mathematics / Applied    13. Probability & statistics   

Reviews (22)

the most comprehensive review on value
In short, this book is grounded on economics and common sense. It summarizes "the intelligent investor", "security analysis", and the modern books on Buffett pretty well (there are other paths to heaven besides Buffett's). Its verbiage is beautifully chosen and a joy to read, especially for avid value investors. Best of all it is a scholarly work - if you're sick and tired of the commercial investing books that flood bookstores, buy this book.

Must-read for serious investors of any stripe
A must-read for investors of any stripe, growth or value.This book, written by a couple of the most popular professors at Columbia Business School, explains the innovations in the field of value investing as practiced by some of the most successful investors in the field. (fair disclosure: I will be taking courses from them in 2007) This book successfully bridges the gap between the traditional Graham & Dodd style of value investing to what works today. Although it's a paperback, it's written with the density of a textbook.The writing style is not light, and the actual meat of the book takes some time to wade through.If you don't have some experience in accounting or corporate finance, then Joel Greenblatt's The Little Book That Beats the Market is good to read first.
Good content, but confusing
Good content and good approach. I'm a fan of value investing. The book teaches the reproduction cost of assets and the earning power value. It also hints on how to incorporate growth.
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Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Corporate Finance    5. Investment Finance    6. Investments & Securities - General    7. Business & Economics / Investments & Securities    8. Investment & securities    9. Personal finance   

Reviews (8)

Insufficient and disappointing. Not even a good introductury text.
As a graduate student in Financial Engineering I have found this book useless.
Great Book for Undergrad Quants
Mathematics for Finance (An Introduction to Financial Engineering) is a book intended for undergrad students "IN MATHEMATICS" or other discipline with a relative high mathematical content.
Joining the chorus
I can only echo the other reviewers. As far as I can tell this book has no serious competition. This is an excellent introduction to mathematical finance for those with a solid undergraduate level understanding of higher math but without graduate level exposure. I agree that it is ideal for self study as that is exactly what I am using it for. The price is right especially in contrast with its overpriced brethren. Five stars! ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Applied    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business Mathematics    4. Finance    5. General    6. Investments    7. Mathematical models    8. Mathematics    9. Science/Mathematics    10. Applied mathematics    11. Business & Economics / Finance    12. Derivative Securities    13. Financial Engineering    14. Mathematical Finance    15. Portfolio Theory    16. Risk Management   

Reviews (12)

Very dated material
The Q&A approach adopted in this book is very useful.It would provide for a very useful reference manual on M&A if its content were not so dated.Its discussion of taxes, accounting, and deal structures does not reflect recent changes in rules and M&A practices.It would be helpful if the author would update the material. Other more current and more comprehensive books on the subject that I have found useful include Mergers, Acquisitions, and Other Restructuring activities by Depamphilis and Bruner's M&A book.

Excellent reference for beginners in M&A
Easy to use reference, it helped me get the answer instantly.

Great Reference Book
This is a fantastic reference tome for anyone involved with M&A. As a private equity Associate, I have found this book to be invaluable on multiple levels as both a reference guide for securities law, as well as for procedural issues such as sample formats for term sheets, DD check lists, etc. Read more

Subjects:  1. Accounting - General    2. Business & Economics    3. Business / Economics / Finance    4. Business/Economics    5. Consolidation and merger of co    6. Consolidation and merger of corporations    7. Corporate & Business History - Strategies    8. Corporate Mergers And Acquisitions    9. Mergers & Acquisitions    10. Business & Economics / Corporate Finance    11. Takeovers, mergers & buy-outs   

Reviews (9)

Well, it's almost okay
Murphy's books are great.The information in this book SHOULD work, but it doesn't.I've checked the data going back 20 years and it just doesn't hold up... although, again, I'll be the first one to say that it SHOULD hold up.Oh, well, guess that I'll have to stick with what Murphy REALLY does with his own money which is... ahh, shucks, I'll never tell, even though I really do know.

A MUST READ FOR ANY SERIOUS INVESTOR/TRADER
Are you still trading with a narrow vision? We live in a world beyond our imagination. The impact of the Asian markets on the US, relationship between crude oil and transports, impact of Taiwanese semi-conductors on the $SOX, etc... All these are crucial information that can help anticipate market direction. I highly recommend this book to any serious investor/trader.
A must read for any serious investor
If you ever wondered why you zigged when the market zagged, this book is for you. Understand how to identify which market and/or sector is peaking and which will be growing ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Finance    5. Futures And Options Trading    6. Investment analysis    7. Investments & Securities - General    8. Stocks    9. Business & Economics / Finance    10. Corporate finance    11. International economics   

Editorial Review

Whether from business-focused cable TV channels, newspapers, magazines, Web sites, or friends and family, investment advice comes these days from every corner. The nagging question for conscientious investors remains, though: how to separate good advice from bad? In a world of squawking television commentators and garish headlines, who and what should we trust? With Read more

Reviews (29)

Good Chapters - Edited by a good thinker
I confess I'm a weekly reader who appreciates the author's take on all things investing.Some excellent chapters in this book, some just pretty good. overall very much worth the read

12 diverse essays with even more diverse value/quality
If you compare this book directly with Market Wizards I & II, you will definitely be very disappointed. However, if the presence of 2 or 3 very bright ideas in one single book can already satisfy you well, you may still give it a try. IMHO, the chapters by Andy Kessler (lower cost creates its own huge market), Dennis Gartman (12 trading rules) and Gary Shilling (the long bull market of long bonds) are outstanding, whilst the rest are just so so or even substandard. Sorry to say that there are many better alternatives in the market of the "various authors" genre. On the other hand, "Wall Street Meat" and "Running Money", two books by Andy Kessler alone, are much better and interesting than this. In short, not recommended.
Just One Thing:Twelve of the World's Best Investors . . .
A good follow on to Mauldin's first book on Bullseye Investing.In that book, he passed along his ideas.Knowing that he doesn't have all of the answers, in this second book, he passes along the ideas of some of the top traders and investment advisors.
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Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Finance    5. Handbooks, manuals, etc    6. Investments    7. Investments & Securities - General    8. Business & Economics / Finance    9. Investment & securities   

Reviews (3)

Fundamentals of Financial Management
The quality of the book was good and the price was even better.It arrived within 5 days of my purchase which was good because my class starts tomorrow.

Fundamentals of Financial Management: Concise
The quality of the book was very good.There was a large amount of highlighting but, the price was fair.The book was shipped with good packing materials and received in an expected time frame.

The Long Way Book
I was very disappointed in this book because I looked forward to my finance class in college. But this book was poorly put together - one short paragraph would talk about carry forward and back but nothing was elaborated on the subject - it would just go right into the equation. I heavily depended on the professor's lecture and not once referred to the book when studying for the exam. However, I did use the book to make sure I was using the correct terminology for the exam. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Business & Economics    2. Business / Economics / Finance    3. Business/Economics    4. Corporations    5. Economics - General    6. Finance    7. Budgeting & financial management    8. Business & Economics / Finance   

Editorial Review

Investors -- be they aggressive or conservative, self-directed or professionally managed -- are always on the lookout for an edge. And in James O'Shaughnessy's Read more

Reviews (63)

The best stock tactics of all time:with proof
This is the rare 5 star ***** book. It is no nonsense and gives you exactly what its title suggests. It shows what has really worked on Wall Street from 1951 to 1996 by using the Standard and Poors compustat data base to simulate what would have happened if an investor (or mutual fund) would have bought the top 50 stocks meeting the criteria measurement. Example: Highest P/E ratios, top 50 price increases, top 50 price decreases, best dividends, high or low book to price value, etc.He goes further by breaking the top 50 into only the large cap meeting this criteria and if he bought out of all stocks available. He measures stocks and their performance from almost every imaginable angle. It is fascinating and educational to see what the final dollar amount is for each investment approach. He also shows how each style performed in each decade and how each percentile of stock did in each category.(Example: how the top 5 stocks did with low P/E's versus the bottom 5 in the top 50 stock group, this helps the individual stock investor focus his investments).