The Indomitable Investor: Why a Few Succeed in the Stock Market When Everyone Else Fails

The Indomitable Investor: Why a Few Succeed in the Stock Market When Everyone Else Fails

by Steven M. Sears
Released April 2012
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781118110348

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Book description

A new approach to investing based on how Wall Street insiders approach the market

The Indomitable Investor deconstructs the stock market as the public has come to know it and reconstitutes it from the inside out from the perspective of the fortunate few who dominate Wall Street. By revealing how top investors and traders think and act Steven Sears shows the stock market to be an undulating ocean of money, with seasoned investors reading the waves others cannot.

Teaching readers to think about the market in radically different ways, The Indomitable Investor shows how to improve returns—and, just as importantly, avoid losses—with disciplines deployed by people who almost always do exactly the opposite of what Wall Street says to do.

Laying bare great fallacies, the book explains that non-professional investors wrongly think the stock market is a place to make money, which is what Wall Street wants them to try to do. The Indomitable Investor says otherwise and shows how Wall Street's best investors have a completely different focus.

  • Explains the critical ideas and insights of top traders and investors in language anyone can understand and implement

  • Packed with material rarely shared off Wall Street that is used every day by professional investors

  • Introduces the 17 most important words on Wall Street

  • Teaches critical skills, including: How to increase returns by focusing on risk, not potential profits; how to use the stock market's historical patterns to optimize investment decisions; understanding key relationships between stocks and the economy that predict what will happen to stocks and the broader market; how to increase mutual fund returns with an easy adjustment that redirects the bulk of profits to you—not mutual fund companies, and how to analyze information like seasoned investors to move beyond "statement of the obvious" news reports that turn ordinary investors into Dumb Money

Accessible to readers of all backgrounds, including those with a limited understanding of investing, The Indomitable Investor will change how investors view the stock market, Wall Street, and themselves.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Chapter 1: Risk
    1. A Nation of Stock Market Junkies
    2. Calm Words for Wild Times
  7. Chapter 2: Greed
    1. The Hardest Decision
    2. The Iron Man
    3. Atlas Doesn’t Shrug
    4. The Warrior Philosopher
    5. Like Monkeys at the Zoo
    6. A Context
    7. The Danger of Warren Buffett
    8. The Value of Errors
  8. Chapter 3: Fear
    1. The Theory of Contrary Opinion
    2. Exile on Wall Street
    3. The Media Is the Message
    4. Media Misreads Google
    5. Paulson’s Gamble
    6. Buffett’s Goldman Trade
    7. Fading the News
  9. Chapter 4: The Anatomy of Information
    1. The Doors of Perception
    2. Anatomy of Information
    3. The Future Is Now
    4. Show Business
    5. Words Are Weapons
    6. Trust, but Verify
  10. Chapter 5: Chaos
    1. Money Never Sleeps
    2. Perversities
    3. The Black Swan’s Calling Card
    4. Map of the Market
    5. Don’t Get Skewed
    6. Apathy and Fear Are Your Friend
    7. Fear Not Black Swans
    8. Is MPT MIA or KIA?
    9. 800 Years of Crisis
    10. Fear Gray Swans
  11. Chapter 6: Diogenes’ Lantern
    1. Performance Is Relative
    2. Death by a Thousand Fees
    3. Stockbroker Pay
    4. Hidden Fees
    5. Beware of New Products
    6. An Uncomfortable Conversation
    7. A Funny Aside
    8. Suitability Requirement
    9. Fiduciary Standard
    10. Shakespeare’s Rule
    11. Appeals to Common Sense
    12. Trust but Verify
    13. Active versus Passive Fund Management
  12. Chapter 7: Cycles
    1. The Year in Stocks
    2. Mysterious Repetitions
    3. Flash Mobs
    4. History’s Hiccups
    5. The Economy in Slow Motion
    6. The Guts of ISM
    7. Numerical Nuances
    8. Says Who? Says Goldman Sachs
    9. Action
  13. Chapter 8: Behavior
    1. One Brain: Two Minds
    2. Maps and Models
    3. This Is Your Brain Visualizing Money
    4. Compulsive Gambler
    5. B. F. Skinner Goes to Wall Street
    6. The Casino Culture
    7. Your Own Private Stock Market
    8. Often Wrong; Never in Doubt
    9. Illusion of Memory
    10. Safe Havens in the Age of Madoff
    11. Illusions
    12. Victor
    13. An Antidote for Overconfidence
    14. Go Slow to Go Fast
    15. Think Week
    16. Halos and Angels
    17. Big Brother Is Studying You
    18. Big Bank Is Watching You
    19. Ancient Lessons
  14. Chapter 9: Watchman, What of the Night?
    1. The Next Crash
    2. Misperceptions and Illusions
    3. Revolving Doors
    4. Investor Laureate
    5. A Fox in the Henhouse
    6. The Tremendous Task
    7. Sane Money, Not Mad Money
    8. Repetition and Velocity
    9. More Education
    10. Plain Speaking
    11. The Cause of Failure
    12. Virtue
    13. Ladders
    14. A Systematic Change
    15. Flash Crash
    16. Soft Spots
    17. Washington
    18. A Global Problem
    19. Present at the Creation
    20. The Illusion of Regulation
    21. Power
    22. The Balance of Power
  15. Acknowledgments
  16. About the Author
  17. Index

Product information

  • Title: The Indomitable Investor: Why a Few Succeed in the Stock Market When Everyone Else Fails
  • Author(s): Steven M. Sears
  • Release date: April 2012
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781118110348