Streetsmart Guide to Managing Your Portfolio

Book Description

Ready-to-use portfolio management tools from top-line investment pros

More and more investors are seizing control of their investment portfolios; however, far too few have the knowledge necessary to effectively manage those portfolios. Streetsmart Guide to Managing Your Portfolio shows investors how to use tools, including asset allocation and portfolio analysis, to determine where to invest, what to invest in, and how to maintain the right mix to weather all market environments. Grounded in modern portfolio theory, yet straightforward and understandable enough for virtually any investor, this book provides a comprehensive approach to personal portfolio management. This latest addition to the popular Streetsmart series will help investors:

* Establish flexible financial goals * Effectively plan and implement long-term investment portfolios * Monitor and analyze investments

Customer Reviews:

GREAT BOOK.......2003-04-28

I was trying to get a book that includes a great deal of modern portfolio theories and some practical examples to show me how to allocate my asset in a more scientific and knowledgeable way. This book has cached my eyes and I was very satisfied by the amount of knowledge I learned from it in a relative short period time. Here are some pro and con I want to mention about this book:

Pro
. Great amount of financial knowledge covered (asset allocation, risk analysis, etc)
. Easy to understand (practical examples present)
. Do not need to spend too much time on it, everything was concisely written (only 250+ pages)
. CHEAP comparing to other financial books

Con,
. Though ideas were clearly crossed inside the book, but some parts are poorly written.(Not a big deal, but still)

Conclusion: a MUST BUY for those entry level or intermediate level investors who want to learn modern portfolio theories in a relative short period of time.

A must read for today's investor.......2003-03-15

This is an excellent intro to the concepts of modern portfolio management. It is vital for today's investor to understand that he needs to take a portfolio view when making investment decisions and understand how the portfolio's assets are inter-related to each other. He must also realize that understanding how much you can lose is as important as understanding how much you can gain. This book clearly and effectively illustrates these and many more fundamental concepts that every successful investor should know. It's a great read.

great resource.......2002-07-26

In the current market environment, risk management is crucial. This is one of the only books I've read that explains to investors in plain English what "diversification" really means. A great resource for any market, this book is particularly helpful in managing money in the post-tech bubble.

Practical, good tools for investing.......2002-06-28

Frank Yao and team have done a good job giving individual investors clear simple tools to make better investment decisions. The authors demonstrate a strong grasp of financial theory and practical experience investing. I thought the book was user-friendly without oversimplifying what investors should know to make better investment decisions about their entire portfolio. A timely and well-written book.

Streetsmart Guide to Managing Your Portfolio

Average customer rating:

Streetsmart Guide to Managing Your Portfolio
Bret Xu, Patrick Adams, Kenneth Doucet Frank Yao
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Companies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OG3PO8

Book Description

Now translated into 11 languages! This reader-friendly, icon-rich series is must reading for all managers at every level

All managers, whether brand new to their positions or well established in the corporate heirarchy, can use a little "brushing up" now and then. The skills-based Briefcase Books series is filled with ideas and strategies to help managers become more capable, efficient, effective, and valuable to their corporations.

A workplace environment should be upbeat and inspire superior employee commitment, morale, and performance. Building a High Morale Workplace provides dozens of techniques and examples for making any workplace a community, instead of a corporation. It shows managers how to help employees foster a genuine bond with an employer, turn around a negative workplace, create and sustain a positive attitude, and more.

Download Description

Building a High Morale Workplace provides dozens of techniques and examples for making any workplace a community, instead of a corporation.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding!.......2002-12-10

Anne Bruce has her thumb on the heartbeat of human nature. Her latest book "Building A High Morale Workplace" transcends corporate walls and infiltrates any business environment that demands human interaction, which in today's society is all of them.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants an instant surge of energy and posses the desire to implement techniques that will engage and inspire your team.

Thank you Anne Bruce, you have helped me to see the limitless opportunity, for the first time all over again!

A must read for all modern managers!!.......2002-12-10

Anne Bruce is a great author who has written a book that has a message that is both easy to digest and also easy to apply to the modern workplace. Her style is smooth and all of her chapters build towards helping the reader understand the importance of improving morale in the workplace. Her examples are interesting, her teachings meaningful and her conclusions insightful. Morale building made easy .... what a great thought. I heartily recommend this well-written book to all Managers!!

A must read for all modern managers!!.......2002-12-10

Building A High Morale Workplace.......2002-12-06

Anne Bruce's "Building A High Morale Workplace" is a must read for anyone truly interested in making their work environment a happy and productive place. Her use of the Management experiences of others together with specific steps for implementing morale building procedures will prove to be an invaluable resource.

Essential to Management Success.......2002-10-11

This book flows great. I've read all of Anne's books and, just as I am with her others, I'm very impressed with this one. It flows great. I really feel like, as the author, Anne is sitting across the table from me talking me through each step. It's practical, real-world (just like all her work)and completely relevant for any manager who is committed to making "high morale a high priority".

Average customer rating:

Building a High Morale Workplace
Anne Bruce
Manufacturer: MCGRAW-HILL BOOK COM
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Workplace | Organizational Behavior | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000K2TBH6

Book Description

This volume contains the revisions up to August 15, 1999 to Parts One and Two, often referred to as the `General Part', of the Russian Civil Code. William E. Butler's expert translation presents a clear interpretation of this vital text for all involved in Russian legal and commercial matters. As the Russian Civil Code is often the standard model for the other CIS states, amendments to this legislation are important to monitor.

Customer Reviews:

A Piece of the Picture- Narrow and Misleading.......2003-01-15

Part 1 of Mr Bauer's book- 'The Story of the Velikovsky Affair'- is presented and reads like a fair summary of the whole controversy. On the face there presides reason, fairness; the impartiality of a judge's summary. But the unwary reader is not prepared for the true motives of this book, the subtle but quite blatant intention of the author to deliver not a judge's deliberation but a prosecutor's summing up.....
Part 2 is called, 'Velikovsky, Right or Wrong?', throughout which the reader is presented more than once with an awkward feeling; an awkward question- 'Is this book REALLY fair... or could I be the victim of some barrister's rhetoric?' It becomes increasingly clear that this book is an ATTACK upon it's subject disguised as an even-handed and fair account, which leads to the book's negative conclusion about Velikovsky.
To see Bauer's true position- not the moderator but the persecutor- there's no need to delve within the specifics. The gift of this book to the fair minded reader is that, really, it's all so plain.
Just stand back and observe, for instance, that NO analysis is made of ANY of V's historical work in any way and already it is clear. References to V's science are only in the form of selective criticisms, and these deliberately limited to the broadest and most speculatory of V's theories. To say as well that these references are ALL that Bauer uses to successfully brand V a 'pseudo-scientist' and we are left with a work of the most simple character. No space is devoted to V's scientific application of history or the areas in orthodox science (carbon dating, archaeology, astronomy) which undoubtedly bare out his theories- as well as those that don't. Although the positive aspects of V's work are never denied by Bauer, he consistently underplays these while referring in detail to the negative. In overview we see the prosecutor exposed. He has to tread between the lines and limit his case to that which is easily muddied and confused.
Beyond Velikovsky is weighted; it is unfair and biased. NO discussion is held on any of V's actual theories- only a pedantic and misleading analysis of SOME of his scientific references and approaches.
Bauer deals with such a narrow spectrum of V's work that the book itself suffers from bad structure- the first two parts concluded and the main conclusions reached before it is half through. The reader is left only to peruse a series of space filling chapters in part 3- 'Beyond the Velikovsky Affair'- with such offerings as 'Motives for Believing' and 'Means of Persuasion' and 'Realities About Science'.
Thus, by showing us a corner of the picture; a piece of the puzzle, Bauer reveals to us the smallness and the entirety of his ambitions. This book could never have been conceived as a fair, impartial analysis. The book I read was a pedantic, narrow and deceptive piece of scholarship.

BEYOND VELIKOVSKY: THE HISTORY OF A PUBLIC CONTROVERSY

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BEYOND VELIKOVSKY: THE HISTORY OF A PUBLIC CONTROVERSY
Henry H. Bauer
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press Urbana and Chicago
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000M8UC2G

Average customer rating:

Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy
Henry H. Bauer
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQITVM

Amazon.com

Why is it that among all the primates, only humans have language? According to Professor Robin Dunbar's new book, Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language, humans gossip because we don't groom each other. Dunbar builds his argument in a lively discussion that touches on such varied topics as the behavior of gelada baboons, Darwin's theory of evolution, computer-generated poetry, and the significance of brain size. He begins with the social organization of the great apes. These animals live in small groups and maintain social cohesion through almost constant grooming activities. Grooming is a way to forge alliances, establish hierarchy, offer comfort, or make apology. Once a population expands beyond a certain number, however, it becomes impossible for each member to maintain constant physical contact with every other member of the group. Considering the large groups in which human beings have found it necessary to live, Dunbar posits that we developed language as a substitute for physical intimacy.

Whether or not you accept Dunbar's premise, his book is worth reading, if only for its animated prose and wealth of scientific information. An obvious choice for science buffs, Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language is a wonderful book for anyone with an inquiring mind and an interest in what makes the world go round.

Book Description

What a big brain we have for all the small talk we make. It's an evolutionary riddle that at long last makes sense in this intriguing book about what gossip has done for our talkative species. Psychologist Robin Dunbar looks at gossip as an instrument of social order and cohesion--much like the endless grooming with which our primate cousins tend to their social relationships.

Apes and monkeys, humanity's closest kin, differ from other animals in the intensity of these relationships. All their grooming is not so much about hygiene as it is about cementing bonds, making friends, and influencing fellow primates. But for early humans, grooming as a way to social success posed a problem: given their large social groups of 150 or so, our earliest ancestors would have had to spend almost half their time grooming one another--an impossible burden. What Dunbar suggests--and his research, whether in the realm of primatology or in that of gossip, confirms--is that humans developed language to serve the same purpose, but far more efficiently. It seems there is nothing idle about chatter, which holds together a diverse, dynamic group--whether of hunter-gatherers, soldiers, or workmates.

Anthropologists have long assumed that language developed in relationships among males during activities such as hunting. Dunbar's original and extremely interesting studies suggest otherwise: that language in fact evolved in response to our need to keep up to date with friends and family. We needed conversation to stay in touch, and we still need it in ways that will not be satisfied by teleconferencing, email, or any other communication technology. As Dunbar shows, the impersonal world of cyberspace will not fulfill our primordial need for face-to-face contact.

From the nit-picking of chimpanzees to our chats at coffee break, from neuroscience to paleoanthropology, Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language offers a provocative view of what makes us human, what holds us together, and what sets us apart.

Customer Reviews:

a fresh "opening mind " tool.......2005-09-16

exiting but rigorous different approach to the human evolution.
It gives scientific context, opens new doors, stimulates, gives new meaning to our social habbits

A Seminal Book, A Theory that Explains A Lot.......2005-08-16

This book belongs on the shelf along with "The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", "The Moral Animal", "Non Zero", "The Third Chimpanzee" and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea". It is a brilliant theory of the origins of language, supported by statistical analysis of physiological data (relative cortex size of primates, including humans), sociological data (the size of human groups across societies ranging from hunter gatherers to modern armies) and current social psychology experiments by his grad students (spot checks of random conversations in malls and pubs). Well supported, and startling, you will look at your society and your use of language differently.

Good on monkeys, smug and ignorant on people.......2003-06-30

A classic example of the contemporary smug scientist who assumes that anyone with any belief contrary to their own is a fool. Most obviously in his blithe assertion that if there weren't any theists in the world we'd live in a paradise: every ill in the world can be traced back to religion. While on his own professional ground discussing monkey behaviours, and a helpful summary of 'Theory of Mind' (how aware beings are of a) their own identity 'I believe'; and that of others b) 'I believe that you think'; and how deeply you understand their consciousness c) 'I believe that you think that I believe...- these are levels of 'intensionality') there's some interesting reading.

But once he diverts into anything outside of that: sociology, linguistics, history - he's a total crackpot theorist - of exactly the ilk of some of the 18th century smug theist scientists he'd pillory. For example, as proof that different languages developed as conscious schemes to identify with one group against another, he tells the biblical story of the shibboleth. This would be OK as an example of what he's talking about, but he invests the story with the notion, 'That's what they did back then,' type generality.

There are worse howlers, as when he says that language could never have come from gesture, as gesture is only mime and can never be used symbolically - as if deaf people don't use sign language. To such an objection he says, 'Oh, you couldn't use it at night, so it couldn't be significant.' Whether it is or it isn't, he can be so smug because he's talking about pre-history and will never have to fear disproof. He bandies around millennia as if he really knows, yet avoids rigorous rebuttal because nobody can really know.

From scratching to speaking.......2003-06-12

Many theories on the origin of language have been offered in recent years. They range from divine gift to something derived from hunting gestures. With no fossil evidence available, all are speculative and defensible only by logical derivation. Dunbar has offered the most likely scenario for human language. Using persuasive evolutionary roots, tied securely to observed practices of our primate cousins, he builds a coherent picture. While the foundation rests on primate grooming practices, Dunbar shows how this activity led humans developing social interactions to become language. Because we, alone among the primates, also evolved the necessary physical equipment for speech, we are the ones who produced complex languages. Dunbar's account is presented in lively style, showing his own language skills to the full.

It may seem a twisted path from scratching in your neighbour's fur to the complexities of human speech, but Dunbar clearly shows us how evolution traversed it. Part of the story lies in our adapting an upright stance and bipedal locomotion. The enlarged human brain, already given a boost by primates having a proportionally larger brain than other animals, also contributed. Our needs drove us to greater mobility leaving less time for interactive grooming. The brain's demand for resources turned grooming into a waste of valuable food gathering time. Speech was the means of retaining contact and the grooming habit was lost. The most important food gathering wasn't the hunt for meat, but the gathering of vegetables. Meat supplied only a small portion of the nutritional bulk compared to the vegetables garnered by the community's females. From this reality, Dunbar proposes speech developed more rapidly in females than in males.

Dunbar's analysis doesn't stop at the edge of the African forest, but probes into parties, pub conversations and business meetings. No facet of human verbal communication has been overlooked in this survey of our speech habits. One element of our social structure lies in the size of our personal "communities". Research shows that primate communities share a viable group size of about 150 individuals. Whatever your living circumstances, a careful count will show you probably interact closely with no more than that many other people. Dunbar shows that even in the urban environment, this figure holds. It isn't the number of neighbours we have, but how many people we communicate with personally. This figure derives from deep primate evolutionary conditions in which 150 was the likely group size in which we could develop effective social skills. "Gossip", in Dunbar's view is simply a synonym for social communication. We talk more about people than we do about philosophy - or anthropology.

In conclusion, Dunbar views the current communication environment with some caution. He notes that the rise of electronic communication hasn't replaced the practices we developed on the African savanna. All the promises of closer ties with distant people don't seem to have brought us together. He notes that e-mail and "chat rooms" are rife with rage and hate messages. People insult one another with the impunity of distance. Our verbal communication is still limited to that 150 member-sized group. Dunbar vividly shows how old ideas of human evolution must be seriously reconsidered. We can't reconstruct the steps of evolution, but we can investigate the possible scenarios to draw the most logical conclusions. Dunbar does this with wit and fine scholarship. It's a thorough and effective analysis deserving close attention. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Some Interesting Tidbits Along the Way.......2002-09-25

Besides the general argument that we needed to develop language to make more friends than we could make grooming, Dunbar has some interesting observations that illustrate the breadth of his work. Here are a few:

1. Monkeys developed the ability to eat unripe fruit, dooming the ancestors of apes, chimps, and humans to starvation unless we came up with a response, since we depended on ripe fruit for survival.

Our ancestors' response was to move out of the central forest and into the forest fringe, which made us more vulnerable to predators. We responded to THAT in three ways: selecting for a larger size, forming larger groups, and standing up (which allows better scanning for predators and less exposure to the heat of the sun).

2. There are lots of social species, but to truly form small-group alliances, a species must be able to imagine what other members are thinking--and thus whether a particular other is a reliable friend or likely foe in the intragroup competition for food, safety, ..., etc. Dunbar calls this a Theory of Mind, and says that only primates seem to display it regularly.

Only a Theory of Mind allows for deception ("he thinks that I think, but actually I..."), and possible deception means that there must be a reliable way to build alliances.

3. Females of many species look for an expensive commitment from prospective mates--an elaborate nest, for example, that takes a long time to build. Their implied reasoning is that even if he's tempted to stray, he won't want to go through the hassle of building another big nest. Having to groom your closest friends and allies is the same kind of commitment.

4. Dunbar's grad students have done studies of overheard conversations and newspaper contents, and generally discover that approximately 2/3 of a human communication is gossip about oneself or others.

5. His theory was inspired by the correlation across primate species of group size, clique size, brain size relative to body size, and neocortex size relative to brain size. According to the graphs, the natural human group size is 150 people. (His arguments attempting to prove this hypothesis are interesting, but not among his most convincing.)

This is a fun book, the kind of scientific speculation that lays out a broad theory and invites others to disprove it or come up with something better...

Average customer rating:

We flirt ,therefore we speak

Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language
R.I.M. Dunbar
Manufacturer: Faber and Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Logic & Language | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Linguistics | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0571173977

Customer Reviews:

We flirt ,therefore we speak.......2006-07-30

Who knew we learned to speak so we could flirt with one another and foil each others romantic schemes!? A fascinating read for non-scientists and genuine evolutionary psycologists alike.Robin Dunbar supports the idea with thoroughness that prompts other sciences to site the work.

Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language

Average customer rating:

Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language
Robin Dunbar
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HZ9Z90

Average customer rating:

Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language
Robin Dunbar
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LNGHOO

Book Description

A collection of the best and the worst excuses given by those stopped by our nations peace officers. Complete with editorial comment, these excuses are rated for optimum use by the reader.

Customer Reviews:

A good friend and funny as hell !.......2006-07-03

i have not read the book yet but ive known mark for many years on the PD and he is one of the sharpest and funniest peoples i have ever known. I will be ordering this book soon and im sure i wont be disappointed. thanks mark for all the laughs and hard work throughout the years ! write me sometime at rbd171 at hotmail dot com... so we can catch up.

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