I picked up this book on the recommendation of a reader and I am glad I did. The author, John Lawrence Reynolds, delivers a scathing criticism of the investment industry in Canada for being more interested in lining its pockets than its fiduciary responsibility towards the average investor. The subtitle of the book Why Almost [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Book Review'
Book Review: The Naked Investor
October 29th, 2006 · 9 Comments
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Book Review: Why Swim with the Sharks?
October 16th, 2006 · 5 Comments
Subtitled “An unconventional guide to early retirement”, the book promises to “let anyone thinking about early retirement follow their dreams ten years sooner”. The book largely succeeds in showing that early retirement might be possible for many Canadians even if they haven’t amassed a huge nest egg.
It is easy to agree with a lot of [...]
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Book Review: When Genius Failed
October 3rd, 2006 · 7 Comments
The recent collapse of the hedge fund Amaranth Advisors seemed to be a good time to read about the meteoritic rise and spectacular fall of Long-Term Capital Management, a hedge fund run by some really smart people that imploded in a matter of weeks and threatened to take down the world capital markets that the [...]
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Book Review: Conspiracy of Fools
June 20th, 2006 · 1 Comment
Many books are still being written about Enron’s implosion but it would be difficult to find a better one than Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald, a reporter for The New York Times. Mr. Eichenwald takes an interesting approach, using a slightly fictionalized version of events and conversations, in telling the story behind America’s biggest [...]
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Book Review: The Little Book That Beats the Market
May 1st, 2006 · 9 Comments
Joel Greenblatt, a very successful hedge fund manager who also teaches investing at the Columbia University, promises to teach investors (including his children) how to produce market-beating returns with less risk with the help of a “magic formula”. He is not kidding with the “little” in the title: at slightly more than half the size [...]
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Book Review: The Smith Manoeuvre
April 3rd, 2006 · 80 Comments
The author, Fraser Smith, is a Vancouver-based financial planner, who devised the eponymous strategy to take advantage of the fact that while the interest paid on a mortgage for a personal residence is not tax-deductible, any interest on a loan taken out to make investments (in mutual funds or stocks or a private business) is [...]
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Book Review: The Number
March 31st, 2006 · No Comments
Though many of my fellow bloggers have already reviewed this hot new book by Lee Eisenberg (check out these reviews by The Wealthy Boomer, All Financial Matters, Money and Investing, Consumerism Commentary, MyMoneyBlog and Free Money Finance), I will add my two cents and explore if some of the insights can be applied to [...]
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Book Review: Dollars From Change
March 9th, 2006 · 2 Comments
Canadians hate taxes not just because the Canada Revenue Agency collects a big chunk of our incomes. Taxes are complicated, the rules change constantly and quite frankly it is a boring and dreary topic. But a basic knowledge of our tax system is critical not only to avoid overpaying but also to arrange our affairs [...]
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Book Review: The Investment Zoo
December 13th, 2005 · No Comments
Stephen Jarislowsky, the octogenarian co-founder of the money management firm Jarislowsky Fraser and one of Canada’s most respected investors, talks about a wide range of investing topics in a book that is conversational in style and is only 152 pages long.
Mr. Jarislowsky starts out with a short personal history and then launches into [...]
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Book Review: Stop Working
April 30th, 2005 · 6 Comments
I finally managed to borrow the book, Stop Working: Here’s How You Can!, from our local public library. It is self-published by Derek Foster, who retired at the ripe old age of 34 and promises to teach how anyone can do it.
The book reveals that Derek was able to retire early by saving regularly and [...]
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