Bulls Bears & Brains

The best thing I can say about this book is every subject comes by his or her investment ideas honestly, and shares them openly. Most give them away, and the ones who charge formed their ideas for themselves, and only later decided to sell them. I think half of their strategies are foolish, and I think most other readers will agree with that, but we probably wouldn't pick the same half. That's okay, because between the biographies, track records and interviews in this book; plus what you can find by going to these Internet sites, you can make up your own mind. It seems like every other investment book either wants to sell you a predigested strategy, or tells you there's nothing better than putting all your money in a low-cost index fund. Bulls, Bears and Brains is the only intelligent alternative I know of.

This book may represent the first time I actually ENJOYED reading an investing text. Most books contain hundreds of pages of one author's opinion about one way to invest. These tactics inevitably fail to pan out because the strategies are too inflexible and are based on yesterday's markets. Bulls, Bears, and Brains covers dozens of investing styles so I walk away not only entertained but with a valuable and diverse set of methods to approach the market. This book also doesn't rely on the past... I can put the book down and go follow the latest strategies of the investors covered in the book. I'm keeping this book right next to my computer for the time being... depending on the type of stock I'm researching I can browse a different chapter to remind me of the important points to consider. What can I say? I like this book.

I noticed that someone mentioned Shortboy.com in a previous review. I must say that Bill Ginsberg (aka Shortboy) was one of my favorite investors from Bulls, Bears, and Brains. Although it isn't mentioned in the book, Ginsberg finished 2001 with a return of 30.8%. The S & P 500 was down 13% in 2001! In fact, almost all of the investors in this book seem to have finished out 2001 in positive territory. In my opinion, this book was a much needed breath of fresh air about the stock market and investing. I can actually make use of the information in this book. I was impressed by Bill Ginsberg's interview, so I've been following all of his recent picks and musings. I intend to re-read a number of chapters in this book and continue to cherry-pick my favorite investors. Check this one out. It's a fun and useful read.

A great book for those interested in investing. I especially found the part on Shortboy.com to be interesting and engaging. I wanted to learn about how to play the market both ways, and not just the tradional buy and hold. Buy and hold seems to do well in a bull market. But we're not always in a bull market, so I did want to learn about short selling as well. And learning about Shortboy and his short selling methodology taught me that there's not just one way to play the market! One reviewer from 1/15 complained that the chapter on Shortboy was not useful. I disagree whole-heartedly! This book has a solid chapter on short selling (devoted to Shortboy). Most financial books don't have any chapters on this subject! And that's one of the reasons why the chapter on Shortboy was intriguing. Shortboy seems to have a great talent in an area that is not well known. Looks like these authors found a diamond in the rough! Enjoy!

An edgy book with fascinating interviews that shows there's more than one way to make money by investing. More than anything, the advice in this book really got me thinking critically about the dumbed-down analysis that most investment advisors and "pundits" spew each day on television and in the press. An example quote from Chapter 6 about Don Luskin: "Think of the market as a big information processing mechanism; figure out how it works and relieve yourself of all this claptrap of having to really understand companies and invest in what you know--as though there's something noble about marrying a company for life." This book is completely unlike any other I've ever read, and I wholeheartedly recommend it. Another unusual aspect of the book is that I can follow the up-to-date advice of these investors every day on the Internet. I've even had a chance to chat online with a number of them since reading the book.