Thursday, November 12, 2009

Best-est Books so far

Just to share the top 5 books, which are I plan to get my Ariel to read in sequence, and my reasoning:
1. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
These 7 habits form the basis of a good life - in financial, health, spiritual and relationship.
Bottomline: Continuous improvement

2. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T Harv Eker
The secret is in the thinking or BEING a millionaire, then DOING what a millionaire does with his time & money and GETTING a millionaire's results
Bottomline: Money management + thinking like or being a millonaire = more important than just doing what a millionaire does (business, investing, taxation).

3. Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki
The differences in cash flow for employees, specialists/professionals (self employed), business owners & investors.
Bottomline: It's better to be on the business owners and investors quadrant - even if I'm currently an employee, I can have a few fingers or a foot in these two quadrants.

4. How to Make $1,000,000 in the Stock Market Automatically by Robert Lichello
This book has 2 main formulas, TwinVest and AIM, which uses fluctuations of the market to make money, logically. These formula are based mostly on consistency and Value Averaging to win more and lose less.
Bottomline: Don't fight the fluctuations of the market, use them as we do not know how high is high and how low is low - unless you've a crystal ball (may I borrow for awhile? ;P)

5. The TRENDadvisor Guide to Breakthrough Profits: A Proven System for Building Wealth in the Financial Markets (Wiley Trading) by Chuck Dukas, T. Parker Gallagher, and Ralph Acampora
Since investing and trading is a "human" activity, one can use Trend analysis to gauge the general market, sector, stock, mutual funds, etc.
Bottomline: The book sells you the idea that trend analysis, in and by itself, is a "killer application" but trend analysis as part of a two or three factor trigger works best - eg. Sell Rules: Trailing Stop Loss & Trend, Target Profit taking % & Trend, etc.

Read any good books lately? By the way, I deem the first two books as soooooo OMPH! that I buy several copies of them during book sales and give them to my team members and close friends. Wait lar - when I'm a multi-millionaire in POUND STERLING terms, then I'll buy and give them away to all friends & acquaintances ;P

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Big Picture / Map Revisited - without which, we get lost in day-to-day details

Sorry for being off-line for awhile - big reorganization & additional areas to handle in my working life.

Hehheh - thanks for your kind feedback. A lot of friends & readers said: "Holy cow! Can you like SIMPLIFY all these? Lots of things to digest and it's everywhere."

Being an IS engineer by training, I think the problem is solved with the picture below. This big picture / roadmap is my own personal approach - the gist of which is:
1. Must have money management
2. Must have some overall strategy / approach for all investments
3. Must have specific buy & sell rules (methodologies) to achieve overall strategy.
4. Track track track. If you do not track your net worth +  investment transactions, you will not know how you are doing, what works, what doesn't & adjust your heading accordingly to reach your goals.

Please do advise if the below is useful yar.