Barton Biggs' "Hedge Hogging"

I liked the book.

The main points I got were that performance really is most important over the long term and that institutions place too much emphasis on volatility over compound annual return.

I thought he did an especially good job of stating the facts on private wealth managers and others who aren't creating (or sometimes even maintaining) wealth in real terms. I also liked his suggested wealth preservation allocations and his suggestion that 500M is the ideal level of net worth. All in all, a very entertaining book.
 
I am about 1/3 into the book right now. It is a very entertaining read, but I surprised that no one mentioned one thing that he described in the beginning.

When talking about Jessie Livermore, he talks about Livermore being short during first ½ of 1929, then abandoning his short positions and going long, and as a result being wiped out during the crash. Even new people to trading know that Livermore actually made a killing during crash of 29, something in the order of $100mil.

This puts the whole book in perspective. If he missed this one, what else is screwed up in the book. The whole book could be just fairy tales with no realism behind.

But like I said, it is an entertaining read so far.

Regards,
redduke
 
Read it, everything said by the reviewer is correct. The funniest part is Biggs elaborate fundamentalist justification of his oil short back in 2003 or early 2004. Lost them a bundle.
 
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