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By: jiang he

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we are an investment concern in china and look for equity investment opp in the states. we are currently have about $100 million to invest into 2-3 usa based food and beverage companies for more than 50% of the total equity.

thanks for anyone caring to point out 2 or 3 quality boutique investment banks in the states, which have a good,deep and broad reaching of usa small, public or private food and beverage companies ?


By: Maulik

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@Will Brown…… I am sry did you say you were looking for a trader or were you inquiring about trading programs.

Thanks

Maulik

By: Bradley Ramsey

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Hello jiang he,

I have a new food company with a full business proposal. If you are interested in takign a look at our venture I wiould be more than happy to discuss it further with you and provide details. This opportunity presents us a potential monopoly in a certain food industry. I hope to hear from you. ramsey_bradley@yahoo.com

By: Bradley Ramsey

By: mike strong

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I purchase oil producing assets in USA. I am looking for investment banks specializing in oil assets.

Mike Strong
402-598-9737

By: Atul Agarawal

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Hi All,

I am Atul Agarawal working as Financial Analyst at Bank of New York Mellon in India for past 2yrs in Asset Management Domain. I am looking forward for Job in IB, Botique bank of London. Can any one guide me what is the procedure for NRI’s.

Thanks in Advance, Help and guidance is much appreciated.

Atul Agarawal
M: +91-8007861182

By: Nick

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Clark,

Thanks for the response… Didn’t know that you did until now (Almost two months later).

Not looking for a job or trying to hit you up for a connection, but would you be willing to talk to me about what you do and throw some pointers at me?

By: Melissa Mihelich

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Update to listing – Regional/Boutique Investment Banks:
Allegiance (not Allegiant) Capital Corp.
Offices: Dallas, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis
Contact: 214-217-7750
http://www.allcapcorp.com

Thanks for the mention!


By: Michael

By: Significance of Equity Research in Todays Equity Markets | North East India Newsline - Free Press Releases Submission & Current Affairs Portal

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[...] more info, visit equity-research along with boutique | | | | | [...]

By: Franky Q

By: Rohit

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Can anyone give me a list down or put any link where I can find all the boutique banks currently working in India.Currently I am pursuing my MBA in Financial Markets.

Thanks,
Rohit

By: Gutfeel888

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Anyone can tell me what the foreign investment banks are? Tks!

By: Amanda Dudley

By: Ying Ying S.

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Thank you so much for sharing this information. It is so useful!


By: Bank Of America Secured Credit Card Supports Your Financial Future

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[...] AccidentsThe Law Offices of Schneider & Stone Reduces BOA Mortgage to Unsecured Claim in Chapter 13List of top 200 investment banks and boutiques window.google_analytics_uacct = "UA-12212624-21"; var _gaq = _gaq || []; [...]

Research at main investment banks vs independent shops

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There is a lot of misunderstanding out there regarding the equity research experience at the bulge bracket investment banks in comparison to that at boutiques or smaller independent shops, with some people claiming that the one and only thing to take into account is how your lead analyst is ranked on the ii or Extel rankings. This is far away from the truth, and here I am going to explain why:

1) Working at a main investment bank will get you better exposure to better clients. Your team head will decide when you are ready to start speaking to clients, but once you do, you get to interact and debate with PM’s and analysts from the likes of Blackrock, Fidelity, Alliance… as well as top hedge funds. This not only offers you the points of view of the top houses in the industry but also greatly expands your network if you are looking into making a jump into the buyside.

2) The size and quality of the sales and trading department at a bulge bracket will help you to get your name out there. If the sales people like you they will ask you loads of questions and try to grab you over to their desk when you visit the floor. This translates into more client exposure as they’ll want to bring you along with them. Sales don’t really care about hierarchy and will respect you if you know your stuff even though you might be a junior. Also interacting with traders allows you to be in the flow. When a client calls asking “why they hell is this stock up 3% if there’s been no news” you will be able to answer “oh, let me call my trader”.

3) Resources. Big banks have the capital to actually invest in department resources. I can’t tell you how awesome it is to not having to update company models every earnings because we have a guy in India who does it. You might have to proofread through it but that is so much easier then actually manually updating each model for the 15 companies you may have under coverage.

4) Management exposure. More often than not you will get more exposure to management teams outside the traditional analyst day, since they usually schedule their roadshows in liason with an investment bank. It’s pretty nice when you are 23 and you are on a first name basis with a CEO who who runs a company that is $8bn in mkt cap. If you want to jump into industry you know who to call.

5) IPO experience. If your sector is hot or you work for a top ranked analyst you will get a lot of IPO’s in your space simply because the company wants the top analyst to market them. This translates into you (aka the junior analyst) to be the guy who has to build the vetting model and write a substantial part of the initiation and marketing report. This is great experience to draw from when you are interviewing.

So all things considered, if you are in a position to choose between a junior role at a main investment bank or a smaller independent shop, take the bulge bracket offer and never look back.

The post Research at main investment banks vs independent shops appeared first on Equity-Research.com.

Investment and Trading Books

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If you read all of the investment books below, you will probably have a broader knowledge of investments than any financial planner you will ever meet. They are only roughly sorted by subject, but at the bottom of the list there is a selection of the very best ones, and the order in which you should probably read them.

Getting started

The Millionaire Next Door – Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
The Millionaire Next Door is one of those rare investment books which happens to be both very good and a best seller to the general public. This is uncommon because investment books that sell well are usually get-rich-quick rubbish. The Millionaire Next Door talks about good old fashioned frugal spending, hard work and long term investment. If you are looking for a book on wealth to give you a kick off, this is a good start.

Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes – and how to correct them – G. Belsky & T. Gilovich
Exceptional book on investor’s psychology. If you want to start investing, first you will need to understand that the biggest obstacle you will face is yourself, and not dodgy auditors, greedy company directors, or market manipulators. The book picks on the investor’s psyche in a way that will have you squirming with embarrassment when you realize just how much that sounds like you. After you have read The Millionaire Next Door and Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes you will be set to start reading books on actual investing.

Books on asset allocation, returns, market efficiency (or lack thereof), index funds and actively managed funds

The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing – Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, John C. Bogle (foreword)
Mainly aimed at novice investors, it puts up a good case for investors to use a simple, low cost indexed strategy with their portfolios.

Common Sense on Mutual Funds – Jack Bogle
One of the best, and most sensible books ever written on investment. The book recommends investors use index funds as much as possible, minimise turnover and general commissions, and take a long term view.  Armed with a huge volume of statistics to back up his points, Jack argues that index funds are a superior choice, but if you prefer to buy an actively managed fund, you should avoid conservative index hugging ones and go for very active managers with unusual portfolios and low fees.

The Intelligent Asset Allocator – William Bernstein
This is a very neat book that will change your perspective on portfolio construction. It takes modern portfolio theory and strips it down to a simple and very useful form. It doesn’t refer to beta and the capital asset pricing model isn’t used, thankfully, but instead shows a very practical way of putting together portfolios to minimise risk. It answers the age old question – should you invest in property, shares, bonds, cash or hedge funds? The answer is all of them, but rebalance the portfolio regularly. This is a surprisingly sensible book and it has none of the silly assumptions or overcomplicated mathematics that are so annoying about most Modern Portfolio Theory books. Definitely on the required reading list, it presents only a mild technical challenge because the author seems to be one of those guys that believes an ounce of common sense is worth more than a tonne of computer power. Some have complained that this book has too much math in it, but it is written in a format where the mathematical details are locked up in tiny boxes that can be bypassed by the uninterested reader without harming the narrative.

The Four Pillars of Investing – William Bernstein
Four pillars is the least technical of William Bernstein’s books. It covers a number of subjects from portfolio construction to behavioural finance and is pitched at investors who don’t like maths very much. It is something like a version of The Intelligent Asset Allocator which you can read on the bus on the way to work, whereas The Intelligent Asset Allocator is more technical and the best value can be had from it with a pen and notebook in one hand.

Value Averaging: The Safe and Easy Strategy for Higher Investment Returns – Michael Edleson
Value averaging is a modified form of dollar cost averaging where you calculate a “value path”, i.e. a theoretical target for your portfolio based on an assumed long term return, and compare your portfolio’s value to the projected value to see how much you need to invest (or withdraw from the portfolio).  Unlike dollar cost averaging, value averaging makes you invest more money when markets are down and less money when they are up.  According to Edleson this has resulted in higher long term returns than ordinary dollar cost averaging.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street – Burton G. Malkiel
A 500 page doorstop, but hard to put down since it is so fun. Malkiel slays a variety of Wall Street sacred cows from head-and-shoulders topping patterns through to the hallowed Capital Asset Pricing Model. He gives lurid accounts of manias from the South Seas Bubble to the biotech boom and how even well known fund managers and brokers always seem to get it just as wrong as the most incorrigible punters. He is generally critical of almost all Wall Street lore, systematically bashing practically everything and everyone, so no wonder it is a fun book. Giving even fundamental analysis a thumping (though O’Shaughnessy has a few words to say about this in What Works on Wall Street), he does come out on the side of the blindfolded-baboon-throwing-darts-at-the-quotes-section-of-the-paper method for stock selection and seems to regard Buffett’s success with some scepticism, but this is a must-read book anyway. His criticism of fundamental analysis only really deals with growth stocks, pointing out how unreliable earnings forecasts can be, especially when they optimistically run into the future. He is less critical of value investment, since although he spends the bulk of the book advocating random stock picks, he suddenly changes his tune at the end with a moderate endorsement of value investing. On the other hand he gives technical analysis in all its forms a hiding. You’ll get a lot out of this book, even if it is just to put you off growth/momentum or technical investing.

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and in Life – Nassim Taleb
This is a very interesting book that explores randomness and in particular discusses how traders often mistake dumb luck for skill. He’s a bit pompous, but occasionally amusing. He has some interesting ideas on risk and return, and his views on option trading are a little different to most.

Global Bargain Hunting – Burton Malkiel, J.P. Mei
From the author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, this book talks about the opportunities available in Emerging Markets. Focusing on both the risks and returns, with as much backup data and research as you might expect from a Malkiel book, this lays out a compelling case for considering allocating a portion of your portfolio into investments in the Pacific Rim, Eastern Europe, South America and Africa. It documents the fundamental shift in the world over the last 20 years, the cold war ended and democracy is blooming, globalisation is opening up new opportunities socialism is wilting. As a result, economic growth in many economies is significantly higher than that in more developed markets. At the same time, they argue that valuations tend to be much lower and as a result returns of stocks in emerging markets can be much higher. The book not only discusses high profits, it also discusses risks, including lawlessness, nationalisation, bubbles and busts and bad debts. It also goes into some detail talking about active vs passive investing, market timing, buying closed end funds at discounts to net asset backing or selling at a premium and a fair bit of information about value investing.

Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment – David Swensen
David Swensen has been the Chief Investment Officer at Yale University since 1985. He is responsible for managing and investing the University’s endowment assets and investment funds, which total about $22 billion, realizing an average annual return of 17.8 percent on his investments over the last ten years. He’s scathing of Wall Street and the conflicts of interest it suffers from. His book focuses on alternative asset classes, and discusses their good and (mostly) bad side, concluding that most people are better off with a core portfolio of index funds from the major asset classes. He also spends quite a lot of time talking about rebalancing portfolios, and why this step is one of the most important parts of asset allocation and portfolio management.

Market history

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk – Peter Bernstein
This is a fascinating historical exploration of the development of the mathematics of economics and risk management, discussing the origins of statistics and probability theory, game theory, regression to the mean and modern economics. It won’t teach you how to value a company or recognise an “oversold” stock, but if you read it from cover to cover you will become a more sophisticated investor with a deeper understanding of the way markets and risk function. The mathematics discussed are sophisticated, but the book doesn’t go into these concepts in any great depth, it is more a narrative on how we arrived at modern theories and thus you can read it without needing a background in economics or maths (instead, this book is supposed to give you that background).

The Birth of Plenty – How the Prosperity of the Modern World Was Created – William Bernstein
William Bernstein, author of The Intelligent Asset Allocator and The Four Pillars of Investing turned his eye to the subject of why it is that some countries are wealthy but others poor, and why for most of the world’s history economic growth has been almost negligible but yet, about 200 years ago, it suddenly picked up pace enormously.  He came up with a 4 factor model explaining that protection of property rights (so people have an incentive to look after and improve their property, build businesses and make money), scientific rationalism (so scientists, engineers and inventors are not persecuted), a good transport and communications network (so goods can be efficiently transported and ideas shared) and good financial markets (so capital can be raised to commercialise inventions, like building an electrical grid from scratch so Thomas Edison’s company could sell its new wonder invention, the light bulb) are all essential.  With a long view of history going back to ancient times, he applies his four factor model to explain the very different paths taken by the western world and other nations, why some countries have everything (including natural resources) yet are poor, whereas others with seemingly nothing can grow rich through commerce.

The Crowd/Extraordinary Popular Delusions – Gustave le Bon and Charles Mackay
A classic double volume, originally written more than a century ago.  This is not an investment how-to book as such, but is one of the classic books about manias and booms. From the South Seas Bubble to the French equivalent, Dutch Tulipomania and more recent busts. It talks about how crowd psychology works on prices and feeds an extraordinary lust for ever higher gains, forcing up prices to levels far higher than could ever be sustained. Original editions appeared in the 19th century, but updates have been made in recent editions.  Part of the reason why this book still sells after all this time is that the authors just got it right.  If the language was a little more modern you’d think it was written just recently with lessons supposedly learnt the hard way from the .com boom and bust.

Global Investing: The Professional’s Guide to the World Capital Markets – R. Ibbotson, G. Brinson
This is a book for data junkies. If you are looking for the definitive book on market returns, covering many countries going back many years, with data on taxes, returns, risk, correlations etc, then this is for you.

Books on stock picking

Sensible Share Investing – Austin Donnelly
How the Stock Market Really Works – Martin Roth
Understanding a Prospectus – Des Luplau
Basic information on the stock market. Easy to read but detailed enough not to offend advanced readers. Read these BEFORE you open a brokerage account.

The Intelligent Investor – a book of practical counsel – Benjamin Graham.
An advanced book, definitely not the sort of thing you would plough into straight away, but rightly called “the best investment book ever written”. It isn’t so much that the material is difficult, on the contrary his approaches are fairly intuitive if you “get” value analysis, but it is dry and pretty foreboding, the sort of book you may have to force yourself to keep reading. Every couple of pages he makes a statement that is so profound and quote worthy that you’ll want to take notes. Warren Buffett learned investment from this man, and in the later editions an appendix and introduction by Buffett make interesting reading.

Security Analysis – Benjamin Graham and David Dodd
Graham’s other book, another milestone in investment writing. This one leans more toward being a textbook than a book. The Intelligent Investor should be read cover to cover, but this one will remind you of your old economics textbooks from school. There is also a new version out called Graham and Dodd’s Security Analysis by Sidney Cottle, Roger Murray and Frank Block. It is supposedly just a new edition but is in fact a radical rewrite. If you feel up to it you can read both, they are similar books, but they aren’t quite the same book. Like the bible, not many people attempt to read Security Analysis from cover to cover, as even professional financial analysts prefer to take this book in small doses. It is a heavy technical book on how to appraise equities and bonds, though if you take the time necessary to get through it, you will be as qualified a securities analyst as you’ll find anywhere. If you liked Securities Analysis, you’ll probably also like The Interpretation of Financial Statements, which is similar.

The Zulu Principle and Beyond the Zulu Principle – Jim Slater
Two excellent and thorough book on fundamental analysis and how small investors can do very well investing in small growth companies. Beyond- is the newer book, and is essentially a rewrite of the first. You will benefit from both books because they don’t completely overlap but the newer one is the better book if you only want to buy one. There are chapters in the first book that aren’t repeated in the second, maybe you should buy Beyond- and look for the other one in the library. Another book by the same author, Investment Made Easy is more of a beginner’s primer, covering a variety of investment topics but not in such fine detail. The Zulu books are only an intermediate challenge and will not be too difficult for anyone that knows what a price earnings ratio is.

One up on Wall Street and Beating the Street – Peter Lynch
Peter Lynch ran the Fidelity Magellan Fund for many years, and though now retired will be remembered as one of the greats. Some very good general stock investment advice on a number of different types of stocks and the strategies that work with them. His approach to investing is surprisingly simple, and basically revolves around the idea that “if you like the product, you’ll probably love the stock, so it is best to buy shares in a company you know is doing well rather than take a flier on some biotech startup”. He himself was a fund manager, but generally doesn’t have very complementary things to say about the analysis skills of most of his colleagues, in fact he urges investors to think like an “amateur”.

How to Pick Stocks Like Warren Buffett – Timothy Vick
The Midas Touch – John Train
Buffett Step-By-Step: an Investor’s Workbook – Richard Simmons
The Warren Buffett WayThe Warren Buffett Portfolio and The Essential Buffett- R. Hagstrom
The Essays of Warren Buffett – Lawrence A. Cunningham
Buffettology – Mary Buffett (his former daughter-in-law)
Buffett – The Making of an American Capitalist – John Lowenstein
How to Think Like Benjamin Graham and Invest Like Warren Buffett – Lawrence A. Cunningham
Of Permanent Value : The Story of Warren Buffett – Andrew Kilpatrick
Wall Street on Sale – Timothy P. Vick
A Wonderful Company at a Fair Price – Brian McNiven
Some very good books about Warren Buffett and his methods. You can’t call yourself an investor until you can write an off-the-cuff two page essay on Warren Buffett and his methods! How to Pick Stocks Like Warren Buffett and The Essential Buffett are probably the best of the bunch.

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits – Philip A. Fisher
You can save yourself a lot of reading on Warren Buffett simply by going through this volume. The “other writings” alluded to in the title are several short works that are bundled into the one cover with Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. These other works are “Conservative Investors Sleep Well”, which deals with the subject of how to identify a safe company with powerful competitive advantages, as opposed to a speculative company, and “Developing an Investment Philosophy”, which goes at length into such things as being a contrarian, focusing on businesses instead of stock markets, market timing (and why you shouldn’t do it) and an argument against the Efficient Markets Hypothesis. All of Buffett’s talk of “margin of safety” and “value” comes from Graham, but Fisher is the one that promotes the idea of the super business franchise, the buy and hold forever doctrine for quality companies and all of that stuff about competitive advantages. If you study your Ben Graham and Phil Fisher you’ll have virtually the entire foundation that Buffett drew on, in fact after a good read of Fisher I came to the conclusion that most books on Buffett are simply Fisher ripoffs with a bit of value investing thrown in.

Dean LeBaron’s Treasury of Investment Wisdom: 30 Great Investing Minds – Bean LeBaron
Another book in the “Money Masters” genre, this is an excellent book reviewing a wide range of successful approaches to investment and the investors who use them with a bit of discussion about the pros and cons of each method. This is definitely one of the books you ought to read if you are still trying to find your “niche” as an investor, as it will give you exposure to some of the possibilities that are out there.

What Works on Wall Street – James P. O’Shaughnessy
O’Shaughnessy was the first outsider ever to gain access to the Standard and Poors Compustat database, the ultimate resource for investment researchers containing an overwhelming amount of price and fundamental data for many thousands of securities over many decades. Using computer simulations he backtested a variety of trading and investment strategies and made some interesting discoveries on which strategies work the best. This book contains the results of his findings and though many people have criticised the book as just another exercise in mindless data mining, mutual funds based on his strategies have emerged, and although they underperformed at first, they’ve done very well since inception.

Contrarian Investment Strategies: The Next Generation – David Dreman
A cross between What Works on Wall Street and A Random Walk Down Wall Street. He attacks conventional wisdom just like Malkiel does and gives detailed arguments to show Wall Street analysts in a rather ridiculous light but also runs an equity fund and shows a variety of strategies that have worked in the past. His backtesting, based on Compustat just like O’Shaughnessey comes to similar conclusions but does not reveal anything you didn’t know after reading O’Shaughnessey’s book. He argues just like Malkiel does that a blindfolded monkey, lubricated with sufficient alcoholic beverages could pick stocks as well as any analyst, but takes an interesting approach in that he actually regards this as an exploitable phenomenon to make money! Dreman’s systems, which are basically just value investing techniques work on the idea that analysts are far too bullish on growth stocks and far too pessimistic on “dogs”, therefore you can do very well by buying stocks that analysts are exceedingly bearish about and have sold down to the point that they trade very cheaply. When earnings recover, as they usually do, the stock will “surprise” Wall Street and rally nicely. Dreman’s own investment record is excellent, which indicates that he may be onto something. He advises people to buy very oversold stocks, provided that the company is still in one piece and not likely to die completely, so unlike both Malkiel and O’Shaughnessey he does value qualitative factors like management and business prospects.

John Neff on Investing – John Neff
This guy is considered to be one of the greatest fund managers of all time, right up there with Buffett, Templeton and Lynch. His Windsor fund beat the market in most of the 30 years of his tenure and his final score was more than 3% higher than the market. This book has three sections. The first is autobiographical, talking about Neff’s early life and how he came to be running a fund. The second section, which I more-or-less summarise in the “Great Investors” FAQ (“Neff’s Methods”) deals with Neff’s value approach and “Measured Participation” portfolio construction strategy. The third section is something of a historical account of what it was like to run Windsor.

Global Investing the Templeton Way – Norman Berryessa and Eric Kirzner
This book is based around a series of interviews with Sir John Marks Templeton. The two authors, a financial writer and a finance academic wrote this book obviously with a profound reverence for the efficient markets hypothesis and modern portfolio theory, and as a result many pages are expended extolling the virtues of these techniques. Interestingly though, in their interviews with Templeton they keep putting forward MPT ideas and Templeton rejects them. Repeatedly Templeton says he doesn’t have much use for MPT, ranking it along side technical analysis as something they take a look at from time to time but otherwise have found little use for. This book, which contains plenty of sage advice relating to value investment by Templeton would mainly suit investors wanting to learn more about global investing, as it devotes much space to the peculiarities of having to invest across borders and live with foreign investment restrictions, exotic tax systems and the challenges of digging up good financial information in poorly regulated and informed foreign markets.

Books on speculative trading

How to Make Money in Stocks – William J. O’Neil.
A highly regarded book on growth stock trading, the CANSLIM approach explained. This book will be more suited to medium term traders/investors that like to combine technical analysis with fundamental analysis. He advocates stop-loss techniques such as “always sell a stock if it falls 10%” and has chapter after chapter devoted to charting. His methods are typical of the high-turnover approach used by stock brokers, and he is more concerned with trying to find the next big thing and make 100 times your money than long term steady accumulation of profits. If you like Warren Buffett you’ll probably hate William O’Neil.

Trading For A Living – Dr. Alexander Elder
This is one of the best trading books, Elder is a trained psychiatrist and professional futures trader. The book stresses that the answer to trading success is not in finding a technical buy or sell signal as such, but in recognising your own psychological pitfalls and mastering money management. He gives black box software a thrashing, and compares Gann, Elliott Wave, various other gurus and systems with astrology.

Technical Analysis Explained – Martin Pring
Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets – John J Murphy
Technical Analysis of Stock Trends – Robert Edwards
The Complete Day Trader: trading systems, strategies, timing indicators, and analytical methods – Jake Bernstein
A Complete Guide to the Futures Markets – Jack D. Schwager
Some of the most interesting books about trading with technical analysis.

Futures: Fundamental Analysis – Jack D. Schwager
A really dry book on fundamental analysis of the futures market. Kind of like Securities Analysis except this one talks about commodities.

Market Wizards and The New Market Wizards – Jack D. Schwage
These books are from the transcripts of a series of interviews with some of the world’s top traders. These guys aren’t amateurs doing a bit of trading from home, but mostly guys that run huge trading accounts for institutional clients. They don’t tell you a whole lot about the actual techniques used because of commercial secrecy, but if nothing else they will bang into you the importance of money management, discipline, intelligence and an enormous amount of hard work. Shattering the “easy money” illusion that people get about trading, these books will either put you off trading for good or prompt you to assess your own professionalism in trading.

How I Trade for a Living – Gary Smith
Smith is one of those very rare trading book writers who is able to back up what he says with genuine, authenticated trading statements signed by his broker that show he is in fact a highly profitable trader. He talks about how he trades for a living, using divergence, momentum and contrarian sentiment studies. He seems to be on some kind of crusade against trading system vendors, and he openly challenges vendors who announce their systems over the Internet and through trading magazines to actually put forth some trading statements to show profitability. He is sceptical of firm mathematical indicators and he advises against leveraged trading (like futures and options) and short selling. He mainly trades stock funds, and almost always takes long positions. If you do want to start trading you could certainly do a lot worse than reading this book first, he gives a quite good insight into the sort of lifestyle and the amount of work you have to do in order to become a professional trader. His method is geared more for the continuous, reliable, unspectacular profits style of trading, as opposed to the crash test dummy method (going for broke trying to triple your money every two weeks).

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator – Edwin Lefèvre
This book is the thinly disguised biography of Jesse Livermore, one of the greatest traders of all time. Although he eventually shot himself dead following his umpteenth bankruptcy, his book is still regarded as a trader’s classic. This book is probably the “The Intelligent Investor” of trading books.

Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom – Van Tharp
The Mathematics of Money Management: risk analysis techniques for traders – Ralph Vince
Portfolio Management Formulas: mathematical trading methods for the futures, options and stock markets – Ralph Vince
The Irwin Guide To Trading Systems – Bruce Babcock, Jr.
Money Management Strategies for Futures Traders – Nauzer J. Balsara
The Definitive Guide to Futures Trading – Larry Williams
For the serious trader wanting a better understanding of the sort of money management techniques mentioned in the trading FAQ, these are very good reference books. They may on occasion mention technical analysis but they are significantly more advanced than that, going well beyond just being another book on drawing trend lines and watching support and resistance levels. These are hard going, advanced texts that employ a lot of mathematics, but far from being ivory tower academic stuff they are written by professional futures traders (except Tharp, who as far as I know is a psychologist or something). You can scratch around for years and never see the need to do much more than standard charting, but if you want to take your trading to the next level and get really serious these books are well worth looking up. If you trade stocks without leverage you might be able to get away with ignoring this field, but if you intend to use margin, to trade futures or options then you had really better get acquainted with this material as quickly as possible.

General

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management – Roger Lowenstein
The story of the rise and fall of one of the most famous hedge funds in history.

Asian Eclipse – Michael Backman
Considering buying Asian stocks? This book deals with corruption and financial scandals in Asia. If you have heard all this stuff about the need for banking reform in Asia, yet don’t know what it all means, read this and be shocked at the manipulation, fraud, cronyism and contempt for minority shareholders that characterise most Asian stock markets. Find out what happens when incompetent real estate speculators are allowed to buy their own banks and judges earn such low salaries that only by accepting money from the accused can they pay their bills.

Suggested books for a self-study course in investments

Level one, getting off to the best possible start:

  1. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley and William Danko
  2. Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes – and how to correct them by Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich
  3. Common Sense on Mutual Funds by Jack Bogle
  4. The Intelligent Asset Allocator by William Bernstein

Level two, learning the truth about the way markets work:

  1. A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel
  2. What Works on Wall Street by James O’Shaughnessey
  3. One Up on Wall Street and Beating the Street by Peter Lynch
  4. Contrarian Investment Strategies: The Next Generation by David Dreman

Level three, the stock picker:

  1. How to Pick Stocks Like Warren Buffett by Timothy Vick
  2. The Warren Buffett Way and The Essential Warren Buffett by Robert Hagstrom
  3. John Neff on Investment by John Neff
  4. The Zulu Principle and Beyond the Zulu Principle by Jim Slater
  5. - and anything else you can find on Warren Buffett

Level four, the hardcore guru type:

  1. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
  2. Common Stock and Uncommon Profits by Phillip Fisher
  3. Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd and the newer version Graham and Dodd’s Security Analysis by Sidney Cottle, Roger Murray and Frank Block, I count these as two different books.
  4. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter Bernstein

Something similar for a study course in trading could go along the lines of:

  1. Anything by Daryl Guppy
  2. Trading for a Living by Alexander Elder
  3. How I Trade For a Living by Gary Smith
  4. Market Wizards and the sequels by Jack Schwager
  5. Trade Your Way To Financial Freedom by Dr Van Tharp
  6. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre

Have a good read.

The post Investment and Trading Books appeared first on Equity-Research.com.

Some hedge funds are hiring

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If you’re trying to get into a hedge fund you could start by looking at Brevan Howard in Switzerland. According to Bloomberg, they want to hire around 35 people in Geneva before the middle of next year. Bloomberg doesn’t state whether these will be people traders or support staff, so unfortunately most are likely to be the latter.

If you’re not keen on moving to Switzerland but are prepared to work for a start up hedge fund in London, here you can find a list of hedge funds which have opened London during the three months.

Basically they have all said they may be hiring sometime in 2013–if things go well-, so it could be a good idea to revisit this list after all those Christmas celebrations.

1) BlueQuant Capital Management

FSA page: Click here.

What and who? Market neutral arbitrage fund investing in a portfolio of developed market equities primarily focused on Western Europe. Starting out with under $10m. Set up by former Credit Suisse prop trader Yves Bentz

What they said about hiring: Maybe in the next 12 months.

2) OVS Capital

FSA page: Click here.

What and who? Event-driven European equity-focused fund founded by Sam Morland of multi-strategy firm HBK Capital Management.

What they said about hiring: Still waiting to see how things pan out.

3) Nightscape Capital

FSA page: Click here.

What and who? A value focused credit fund taking liquid positions across the whole capital structure. Set up by the senior team who left Sandelman Partners, a multi-strategy hedge fund, last year.

What they said about hiring: Only after the second half of 2011.

4) Paris Capital

FSA page: Click here.

What and who? $50m relative value hedge fund founded by the former management team at Belgium’s KBC Alternative Investment Management arm.

What they said about hiring: They are hiring but likely to fill vacancies by word of mouth.

5) SkyLine Capital

FSA page: Click here.

What and who? Global long/short equity fund focused on emerging markets. Founded with friends’ money by former manager at Nevsky Fund and head of public sector at Barclays.

What they said about hiring: Not hiring at the moment.

6) Sorrell Capital

FSA page: Click here.

What and who? Global opportunities fund with a “long/short discretionary, global macro strategy.” Set up by Robert Sorrell, ex-Goldman banker and son of WPP chief executive Martin Sorrell.

What they said about hiring: They will start hiring by mid 2011.

7) TRG Management UK

FSA page: Click here.

What and who? EMEA office of Emerging markets asset manager The Rohatyn Group.

What they said about hiring: They have no specific hiring plans.

8) Warwick Capital Partners

FSA page: Click here.

What and who? European distressed and special situations fund set up by the global credit team at Polygon Investment Partners.

What they said about hiring: May consider hiring if capital growth happens faster than anticipated.

9) Zedd Capital

FSA page: Click here.

What and who? Long/short equity fund founded by David Staton, a former Goldman, Merrill, Tribeca and CQS employee.

What they said about hiring: Yes, they’re hiring, but you may need to use your network, as they don’t want to be deluged with telephone calls.

The post Some hedge funds are hiring appeared first on Equity-Research.com.

List of new finance companies in London

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Equity-Research – If you’re looking for a job in financial services, and are struggling to get into a big bank, or if you’re already working for a big bank and would prefer to work for a hedge fund, private equity fund or fund management boutique, this list is for you. There’s no guarantee that they’re all hiring, but their newness suggests that at least some of them might have need of extra staff.

Please note that ‘How big is it?’ refers to the size of a company’s operations in London, not its operations globally.

Affiliated Managers Group

What is it? US-based asset management company and fund of funds with investments in equity-focused boutiques.

How big is it? Large, around 1,600 employees globally.

Agave Partners

What is it? Corporate finance and asset management firm specialised in the clean water and new energy sectors.

How big is it? Tiny.

Aksia Europe

What is it? US-based hedge fund research and advisory firm.

How big is it? Tiny.

Alpstar Capital

What is it? Swiss-based hedge fund.

How big is it? Tiny.

Asperatus Capital

What is it? UK-based hedge fund.

How big is it? Tiny.

Carousel Finance

What is it? Swiss-based asset management firm.

How big is it? Tiny.

China International Capital Corporation

What is it? Large Chinese investment bank

How big is it? Tiny.

CD&R

What is it? UK office of Clayton Dubilier & Rice, a large US private equity fund.

How big is it? Tiny.

Corsair Capital

What is it? US private equity fund focused on the financial services industry.

How big is it? Tiny.

Dodge & Cox Worldwide Investments

What is it? San Francisco-based fund manager with new London subsidiary.

How big is it? Tiny.

Doran Capital Partners

What is it? Korean real estate fund.

How big is it? Tiny.

Echelon Capital Partners

What is it? Property management and investment company.

How big is it? Tiny.

Encore Ventures

What is it? Fund of private equity funds.

How big is it? Tiny.

Farema Capital

What is it? Hedge fund run by industry veteran Emanuele Antonaci.

How big is it? Tiny.

Frog Capital

What is it? Venture Capital house.

How big is it? Tiny.

Gemini Investment Management

What is it? Fund manager set up by former Close Brother MD. Distributes third party funds, plans to launch own funds.

How big is it? Tiny.

Granular Investments

What is it? Structured credit advisor.

How big is it? Tiny.

Guggenheim Investment Advisors

What is it? US-based wealth manager

How big is it? Tiny.

Ipex Capital management

What is it? UK-based venture capital fund.

How big is it? Tiny.

Kenmar Global Investment Management

What is it? US-based fund manager and hedge fund manager

How big is it? Tiny.

LD Capital

What is it? US-based fund manager manager

How big is it? Tiny.

LMR Partners

What is it? Asset manager.

How big is it? Tiny.

MSD Capital Europe

What is it? Investment firm managing the investments of Michael Dell.

How big is it? Tiny.

NewState Partners

What is it? UK-based corporate finance boutique.

How big is it? Tiny.

Oakley Capital Management

What is it? UK-based private equity fund.

How big is it? Tiny.

Orchard Global Asset Management

What is it? Singapore-based hedge fund set up by Paul Horvath, Merrill’s former global head of synthetic credit origination, structuring and distribution.

How big is it? Tiny.

Qatalyst Partners

What is it? London-office of former Credit Suisse technology bank Frank Quattrone’s technology investment banking boutique.

How big is it? Tiny.

Ragnar Capital

What is it? Corporate finance boutique focused on the resources sector.

How big is it? Tiny.

Serone Capital Management

What is it? European multi-strategy hedge fund.

How big is it? Tiny.

Signia Wealth

What is it? Multi-client family office.

How big is it? Tiny.

Stark Investments

What is it? US-based hedge fund manager.

How big is it? Tiny.

Sunningdale Capital

What is it? London-based hedge fund.

How big is it? Tiny.

Townsend Group Europe

What is it? European office of US-based real estate investor.

How big is it? Tiny.

Touchstone Capital

What is it? New Zealand-based distressed debt hedge fund.

How big is it? Tiny.

Trilogy Global Advisors

What is it? European multi-strategy hedge fund.

How big is it? Tiny.

TJ Markets

What is it? US-based asset manager.

How big is it? Small.

Upside Wealth Management

What is it? The London office of a Swiss-based wealth management firm.

How big is it? Tiny.

Vision Investment Management Europe

What is it? The London office of a Hong Kong-based hedge fund.

How big is it? Tiny – the company as a whole employs around 30 people.

Are any of these firms right for you?


Q3 2010 – UPDATE


Adams Street Partners

What is it?: UK subsidiary of global private equity firm.
Current size?: London office still comparatively small, but part of large organisation.

Akur Partners

What is it?: Corporate finance and ECM advisory firm.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Altitude Partners

What is it?: Private equity firm focused on SME investments southern England.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Aperios Partners

What is it?: Boutique investment bank with a focus on the technology sector.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Best of Breed Capital

What is it?: Independent asset management boutique.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Bluefield Partners

What is it?: A European private equity fund manager focusing on solar energy infrastructure investments.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Brookfield Financial Europe

What is it?: The European subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, which focuses on property, renewable power and infrastructure. Brookfield Financial offers advisory and investment banking services to these sectors.
Current size?: Brookfield Financial employs 45 globally.

Cairn Financial Advisers

What is it?: Generalist corporate finance advisory firm.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Caisson Investment Management Partners

What is it?: Investment manager focusing on real estate and alternative investment markets.
Current size?: Small, but also has a Dutch operation.

Dalmore Capital

What is it?: Fund manager focusing on infrastructure sector.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Europa Capital

What is it?: Fund manager focusing on real estate.
Current size?: Employs 30 key people in London.

FQS Capital Partners

What is it?: Hedge fund manager taking a quantitative approach.
Current size?: Small – operational hub in London.

Gauss Investments

What is it?: Financial advisory firm focusing on global equity cash and derivative markets.
Current size?: Very small.

HCM UK

What is it?: Alternative investment manager.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Hermes GPE

What is it?: Private equity funds of funds manager – a joint venture between Gartmore Investment Management and Hermes Fund Managers.
Current size?: 28 employees based in London.

Inventive Capital Solutions

What is it?: Private equity firm focusing on life sciences, energy and TMT sectors.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Kilriver Capital

What is it?: Corporate finance and corporate development boutique.
Current size?: Small – staffed by a “small number of highly specialised individuals”.

Medici Advisers

What is it?: “Capital raising organisation” targeted at alternative investment managers.
Current size?: Very small

Metis Energy

What is it?: Financial advisory firm focused on the energy sector.
Current size?: Very small.

Navigant Capital Markets Advisers

What is it?: Boutique corporate finance advisory firm.
Current size?: Small, but subsidiary of Navigant Consulting.

Nean Wealth Advisors

What is it?: Wealth manager.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

New River Corporate Finance

What is it?: Corporate finance boutique focusing on energy and infrastructure, media and finance.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Northleaf Capital Partners

What is it?: Private equity fund manager and advisor hailing from Canada.
Current size?: Employs 40 investment professionals globally.

Notion Capital Partners

What is it?: Investment fund targeted at internet-based services sector.
Current size?: Small – run “by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs”.

Novusmodus

What is it?: Investment adviser to ESB Novusmodus, the investment fund of Irish utilities company ESB. Focuses on energy sector.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Pantheon Private Equity

What is it?: A long-standing private equity firm recently acquired by Affiliated Managers Group. Offices in London, Hong Kong, San Francisco and New York.
Current size?: 143 employees worldwide, 25 senior professionals in London.

Prospect Capital

What is it?: Corporate finance advisory firm for UK SMEs.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Querns Asset Managers

What is it?: Asset management boutique.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Roundstone Capital

What is it?: Real estate investment adviser.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

SCIO Capital

What is it?: Asset manager with structured credit approach.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

Trader Capital

What is it?: Absolute return advisory company.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation

Vector Commodity Management

What is it?: Hedge fund manager focusing on the oil market.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation

Vigilant Financial

What is it?: Wealth manager.
Current size?: Very small.

Vine Street Capital

What is it?: UK-focused private equity firm.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

XCAP

What is it?: New investment bank covering a variety of sectors.
Current size?: Employs 42 staff in London.

White Oak Advisory

What is it?: Financial advisory firm focused on sovereign finance and sovereign debt.
Current size?: Small – boutique operation.

The post List of new finance companies in London appeared first on Equity-Research.com.

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