Singapore Entrepreneurs Network & Startup Organization

Seeing how quiet this forum has been lately, let me just add on to some of the wonderful titles that were suggested earlier.

For investment:

1. The nature of risk by Justin Mamis

Excellent book on market psychology, and what risk means as far as the stock market is concerned. Talks a lot about how dealing with the market actually mirrors life. He also gave some examples on how psychology affects pricing, and reading it gives me a whole new perspective on how this leads to chart patterns which i previously never thought much of, such as "head and shoulders", "cup and handle" and such. Stories on how people affect price and vice versa makes this book such a great read. It's due to 'sentiments cycle' as he termed it that gives a measure of predictability in the supposedly 'random' market. There are two more books by Justin Mamis which i heard are very good which i'm intending to get. Do check it out:

"When to sell: inside strategies for stock market profits" and "How to buy: An insider guide to making money in the stock market."

His strategy mainly involves the crucial element of market timing. Contrary to popular beliefs, market timing doesn't mean short term or speculating. It's just as applicable to long term investing, which highly complements fundamental analysis.

2. Irrational Exuberance by Robert Shiller

"Irrational Exuberance" was famously coined by Alan Greenspan, US Fed Reserve Chairman, on how the mass crowd behavior can move market, up or down. Boom and burst. The visous cycle continues. Never ends as human behavior never changes. Also touches on Efficient Market Hypothesis and others. So interesting to read, as it allow us to understand we as emotional humans better.

For business and management:

3. Winning by Jack Welch

There is no better person to talk about managing then the legendary CEO of General Electric. Lots of insightful information to survive and strive in the corporate world.

4. Blue Ocean Strategy by W.Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne

Why compete with rivals when you can make them irrelevant? Create your own blue ocean of opportunity instead of competing in this cut-throat over-populated red ocean. Creating value and your own unique brand. The books tell you how. Value investors should be on the look out for such companies. Quite applicable to new start upswho want to have an edge in the harsh business world.

For personal relationship

5. How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie

Classic book. Another great read. Guess i need to read this book more often, over and over again, to be able to do so.

There you go. Some reccomendations from me. More to come when i have the time. Reading is just such a pleasure, but i can never find enough time to read all the books i want.

Sorry only just realised the ebook is just a review but still a good read anyway. Do get the original copy. It's worth it.

Sorry for digging out this old discussion. Missed out on this point the last time round, so i think i shall just give my thoughts on this. There is a reason why sometimes, what may work for you may not work for others. Firstly, we have to recognise that each of us are unique individual, therefore we have different personality, style, risk appetite and risk management. For example, one may find trading in stocks his game, whereas others may prefer forex, or futures, commodities, gold, options etc etc. Looking at an individual speciality, say stocks for example, one may prefer to long stocks, whereas there are others who specialised sorely in shorting stocks.

Touching on risk management, one may have low risk tolerance, so he may opt to stop loss at 5%, whereas others who have longer timeline outlook may still be comfortable even with sitting on a down of 25%.

Different people also may have different methodology, such as opting for fundamentals, technicals, or both. Alternatively, we also have people who trade using a certain system, or going on trading through a mathematical and statistical approach.

To further highlight my point on "what may work for you may not work for others", lets take a look at stocks again as an example. One may opt to go contrarian and move against the crowd by looking at only low P/E stocks which are currently not popular, whereas there will be people who prefer the hot stock and hitching on the strong momentum. Others may just focus on those giving high dividends yield, etc etc.

Ultimately, whether is it trading or investing, the plan should be suited to your personality and traits. If anyone had read Market Wizards by Jack Schwager, you will see why all the top traders have a strategy tailored specifically to his or her style. There is no 1 size fits all. If you found yours, that's great. I'm still in the midst of finding mine.

As Soltari (Samuel) been out of town and will be back only in February, I was thinking if you might be interested in helping to facilitate the Book Sharing IG for these couple of months? The basic library of books is already up, all that is needed now is a co-ord who will arrange the weekly get-togethers, the group members tracking (for book loans) and the enforcement of book reviews from IG members (they loan a book for free, in return they give a review on it on Senso). Keep me posted.

jag82,

No worries, we are all just volunteers here. As long as we do our part, other positive and like-minded people in the IG will gather. Many hands make less work!

What I have spoken with a few volunteers is the setup of a forum section SPECIFICALLY for the book IG for book requests, reviews, sales, special offers, mass orders and what have you. There would probably also be audio books sharing (I can contribute an original Tony Robbins audio set) and so on. The more people that share, the more others benefit.

ZHUANG and I are arranging for the various IG heads and volunteers to meet up and work out our plan of action for 2006 in Singapore and Malaysia. I will keep you posted.

Just finished one of the books recommended here, which is Liar's Poker.

What an excellent read! Hilarious storytelling which exposes the coporate greed that characterised the investment banking world. The behemoth of a merchant bank and most powerful firm in Wall Street during the 80s as portrayed in the book, Salomon Brothers, is no longer a single entity and instead part of Citigroup now. Would not have been this way if not for all the political backbiting. Really an eye opener for me with regards to this industry.

P.S I wonder where has all the contributors to this forum gone to? I would dearly love to see more exchanges.

What about the moderators of this forum? I used to see quite a few postings by them. It's kinda strange posting alone by myself.

Ah ok, i do understand businessmen are busy people. Just that there is really a dearth of postings these days. Feels like i'm talking to myself sometimes.

A newsletter is a good idea. Look forward to reading them. Meanwhile, i will continue to contribute whenever i can. Makes me realise how much this place misses contributors such as tommyshi. We need more alternatives views from people like him. They are what makes the place vibrant.