The Intuitive Investor was a Book of the Year finalist as named by the folks at ForeWord Reviews in the Business and Economics category! The book was chosen from amongst 350 publishers submitting 1400 entries. - 5-Star Amazon.com review by Philip Etienne (an alias), an experienced hedge fund manager: A Must Read For All Investors, Whether Brand-New Or Experienced. Let me just begin by saying that I have read many many books on investing and this is the first that has inspired me to write a review...Every now and then a book arrives that forever shifts the way we think about the world, potentially changing the way we analyze the accelerated influences that effect valuation. Taken to heart and put into practice, this is just such a rare piece of work. Timely and thought-provoking, The Intuitive Investor captivates the reader looking to improve his analytic process. I dont want to muddy Jason's writing and process by summarizing because it would not do justice to his overall message. That said, I have worked on Wall Street for almost 20 years and this book has blazed a new trail. It will help money managers of today and tomorrow better understand stock market dynamics through creative decision matrices. A huge improvement when compared to the dated valuation metrics/mean reversion models that were easily used by Buffett/Lynch/Vinick during the secular bull market...Voss has assembled a stunning wealth of new information and emerging ideas to help us visualize different and imaginative pathways to utilize right brain thought to capitalize on equity investing in the new market paradigm. He provides a concise and profound framework for making sense of the blizzard of catalysts that effect investment decisions on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis. Hyperbole aside, Voss has accomplished an extraordinary achievement. Simply put, read this! - 5-Star Amazon.com review by Patricia Aburdene, world renowned futurist: The Last Frontier. Intuitive Investing is the last frontier, the final skill set you need to invest with heart and head, knowledge and intuition -- that is, with both sides of your brain. Voss is a fine writer, a great teacher and an even better storyteller! You'll learn and have fun with this good read. Oh yeah, do you want to make money, too? Perfect. By the way, if you think this book is all about feeling and not about facts and figures, too, you're wrong. It's about mastering both. AND addressing investment's worst bugaboo: FEAR. After reading Intuitive Investing I found the courage to follow my intuition and press the buy button while the bears were growling away. I am very happy I did. - 5-Star Amazon.com review by Travis J. Ahlstrom, Junior Partner of Tri-Gen Investments, LLP: An original exploration of important yet under-emphasized aspects of successful investing. I finished The Intuitive Investor last week (at least the first read). There were many aspects of the book that I really enjoyed. Overall, I found the writing, reasoning and organization of the book to be exceptional and convincing. It was an inspiring journey, and a lot of the content has been on my mind on a daily basis since starting and finishing the book... The frameworks Jason Voss provides and the nuanced distinctions that he points out do a great job of outlining the material's application to the investment process. In addition, so much of the content is also relevant beyond investment decisions, for me namely intuition (fear vs. anxiety, truth, using the right brain) and meditation. So, there were many dimensions to the book's impact on me, and I look forward to exploring the content more fully.

what my intuition tells me now: update on economic data

Posted by on Dec 23, 2009 in Blog | Comments Off



Several economic data points have been rolling in over the last several days…

New Home Sales:

Sales of new single-family homes fell 11.3% in November; the lowest figure since April. Economists had expected a drop of 1.2%. Uh, clearly that’s a lot worse than expected. New home sales are for brand new residences and not used home sales.

Analysis: This is clearly not a good figure. In fact, the number of sales, 355 thousand, is so low that it basically has wiped out the gains of the entire year. This figure however, is tempered by the fact that there is soooo much inventory on the market of existing homes. However, for the construction industry in particular, this is a grim figure.

Personal Income:

The income of your average U.S. citizen rose 0.4% in November vs. October. This figure was slightly less than the 0.5% increase economists had been expecting.

Analysis: This is a somewhat encouraging number especially when coupled with the fact that the employment situation is slowly improving. This figure will likely be interpreted positively by the financial markets because more income = the possibility for more spending. In fact…

Consumer Spending:

Consumer spending rose 0.5% last month vs. October.

Analysis: The financial markets will doubtless love this number. Despite the fact that the other two economic data points were weaker than expected, it’s likely this is the figure that will catch investors’ attention. For me though, this is not an encouraging statistic. Why? Because spending rose more than incomes. That means that roughly 70% of the economy spent more than it earned. As I have written about extensively on the blog, one of the reasons that the world has been in a deep recession for the last two years is because of consumers’ proclivity for debt. That debt has to be financed somehow and if that lending is made to low credit-worthy individuals then we are right back where we started in terms of economic meltdown ingredients. I will continue to track the spending vs. income number going forward as this deserves our attention.

Be well everyone!

Jason

Related posts:

  1. what my intuition tells me now: economic data coming in nicely
  2. what my intuition tells me now: let the economic data flow
  3. what my intuition tells me now: various economic data mostly positive
  4. what my intuition tells me now: recent economic data
  5. what my intuition tells me now: waffling economic data


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