Title: The Myth of the Rational Market
Author: Justin Fox
Published: June 2009

From Publisher: Chronicling the rise and fall of the efficient market theory and the century-long making of the modern financial industry, Justin Fox’s The Myth of the Rational Market is as much an intellectual whodunit as a cultural history of the perils and possibilities of risk. The book brings to life the people and ideas that forged modern finance and investing, from the formative days of Wall Street through the Great Depression and into the financial calamity of today. It’s a tale that features professors who made and lost fortunes, battled fiercely over ideas, beat the house in blackjack, wrote bestselling books, and played major roles on the world stage. It’s also a tale of Wall Street’s evolution, the power of the market to generate wealth and wreak havoc, and free market capitalism’s war with itself.

The efficient market hypothesis—long part of academic folklore but codified in the 1960s at the University of Chicago—has evolved into a powerful myth. It has been the maker and loser of fortunes, the driver of trillions of dollars, the inspiration for index funds and vast new derivatives markets, and the guidepost for thousands of careers. The theory holds that the market is always right, and that the decisions of millions of rational investors, all acting on information to outsmart one another, always provide the best judge of a stock’s value. That myth is crumbling.

Celebrated journalist and columnist Fox introduces a new wave of economists and scholars who no longer teach that investors are rational or that the markets are always right. Many of them now agree with Yale professor Robert Shiller that the efficient markets theory “represents one of the most remarkable errors in the history of economic thought.” Today the theory has given way to counterintuitive hypotheses about human behavior, psychological models of decision making, and the irrationality of the markets. Investors overreact, underreact, and make irrational decisions based on imperfect data. In his landmark treatment of the history of the world’s markets, Fox uncovers the new ideas that may come to drive the market in the century ahead.

Title: The Heretics of Finance: Conversations with Leading Practitioners of Technical Analysis
Author: Andrew W. Lo and Jasmina Hasanhodzic
Published: January 2009

From Publisher:
The Heretics of Finance provides extraordinary insight into both the art of technical analysis and the character of the successful trader. Distinguished MIT professor Andrew W. Lo and researcher Jasmina Hasahodzic interviewed thirteen highly successful, award-winning market professionals who credit their substantial achievements to technical analysis. The result is the story of technical analysis in the words of the people who know it best; the lively and candid interviews with these gurus of technical analysis.

The first half of the book focuses on the technicians’ careers:
–How and why they learned technical analysis
–What market conditions increase their chances of making mistakes
–What their average workday is like
–To what extent trading controls their lives
–Whether they work on their own or with a team
–How their style of technical analysis is unique

The second half concentrates on technical analysis and addresses questions such as these:
–Did the lack of validation by academics ever cause you to doubt technical analysis?
–Can technical analysis be applied to other disciplines?
–How do you prove the validity of the method?
–How has computer software influenced the craft?
–What is the role of luck in technical analysis?
–Are there laws that underlie market action?
–What traits characterize a highly successful trader?
–How do you test patterns before you start using them with real money?

Interviewees include:
Ralph J. Acampora, Laszlo Birinyi, Walter Deemer, Paul Desmond, Gail Dudack, Robert J. Farrell, Ian McAvity, John Murphy, Robert Prechter, Linda Raschke, Alan R. Shaw, Anthony Tabell, Stan Weinstein

Title: Foundation and Endowment Investing: Philosophies and Strategies of Top Investors and Institutions
Author: Lawrence E. Kochard, Cathleen M. Rittereiser
Published: December 2007

From Publisher: In Foundation and Endowment Investing, authors Lawrence Kochard and Cathleen Rittereiser offer you a detailed look at this fascinating world and the strategies used to achieve success within it. Filled with in-depth insights and expert advice, this reliable resource profiles twelve of the most accomplished Chief Investment Officers within today’s foundation and endowment community—chronicling their experiences, investment philosophies, and the challenges they face—and shares important lessons that can be used as you go about your own investment endeavors.

Title: Alternative Beta Strategies and Hedge Fund Replication
Author: Lars Jaeger
Published: October 2008

From Publisher: Serving as a handbook for replicating the returns of hedge funds at considerably lower cost, Alternative Beta Strategies and Hedge Fund Replication provides a unique focus on replication, explaining along the way the return sources of hedge funds, and their systematic risks, that make replication possible. It explains the background to the new discussion on hedge fund replication and how to derive the returns of many hedge fund strategies at much lower cost, it differentiates the various underlying approaches and explains how hedge fund replication can improve your own investment process into hedge funds.

Title: Active 130/30 Extensions
Author: Martin L. Leibowitz, Simon Emrich, Anthony Bova
Published: January 2009

From Publisher: Active 130/30 Extensions is the newest wave of disciplined investment strategies that involves asymmetric decision-making on long/short portfolio decisions, concentrated investment risk-taking in contrast to diversification, systematic portfolio risk management, and flexibility in portfolio design. This strategy is the building block for a number of 130/30 and 120/20 investment strategies offered to institutional and sophisticated high net worth individual investors who want to manage their portfolios actively and aggressively to outperform the market.

Title: Hedge Funds: An Analytic Perspective
Author: Andrew Lo
Published: April 2008

From Publisher: The hedge fund industry has grown dramatically over the last two decades, with more than eight thousand funds now controlling close to two trillion dollars. Originally intended for the wealthy, these private investments have now attracted a much broader following that includes pension funds and retail investors. Because hedge funds are largely unregulated and shrouded in secrecy, they have developed a mystique and allure that can beguile even the most experienced investor. In Hedge Funds, Andrew Lo–one of the world’s most respected financial economists–addresses the pressing need for a systematic framework for managing hedge fund investments.  Arguing that hedge funds have very different risk and return characteristics than traditional investments, Lo constructs new tools for analyzing their dynamics, including measures of illiquidity exposure and performance smoothing, linear and nonlinear risk models that capture alternative betas, econometric models of hedge fund failure rates, and integrated investment processes for alternative investments. He concludes with a case study of quantitative equity strategies in August 2007, and presents a sobering outlook regarding the systemic risks posed by this industry.

Title: Portable Alpha Theory and Practice
Author: Sabrina Callin
Published: February 2008

From Publisher: While the interest in portable alpha has grown exponentially, few investors have a true appreciation for the risks and operational complexities associated with this investment application. By first mapping out the key components and evolution of portable alpha, this book aims to give investors a solid foundation in this discipline. From there, it ties in investment theory and asset allocation, then addresses the relevance and common misuse of the alpha and beta terms, inherent leverage, derivatives-based “beta,” and global sources of (portable) alpha and risk, including equity, bonds, and hedge fund strategies. Implementation is covered in a dedicated chapter, as is risk management and the increasingly interrelated topic of LDI. Overall, this reliable resource will allow investors, consultants, practitioners, and academics to gain a better understanding of the potential benefits, applications, costs, and risks associated with portable alpha implementation.

Title: The Euromoney Portable Alpha Handbook 2008
Publisher: EUROMONEY INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR PLC
Published: January 2008

The phenomenon of portable alpha continues to go from strength to strength and is a hugely debated investment strategy in today’s financial world. This is why it has never been so important to keep up with the very latest portable alpha innovations, trends and debates that are changing on an ever-frequent basis. The Euromoney Portable Alpha Handbook will fulfil this mission on an annual basis, providing a round-up of the year’s most thought-provoking issues and looking towards the future of this exciting concept. Growing on the success of last year’s first edition, this edition continues to offer incisive perspectives from a carefully selected editorial board of excellence, each presenting their own take on portable alpha, including articles on an alternative route for active portfolio management, the challenges of portable alpha implementation, plus many more exclusive contributions.

Title: Capital Ideas Evolving
Author: Peter Bernstein
Published: May 2007

From Publisher: Follow-up to Bernstein’s landmark work, Capital Ideas (1992), which described the breakthrough financial theories of a small group of academics, including Paul Samuelson, Harry Markowitz, Bill Sharpe, Jack Treynor, Eugene Fama, Robert C. Merton, Fischer Black, and Myron Scholes. Their pioneering insights laid the intellectual groundwork for many of the innovations, new products, and strategies that are revolutionizing today’s world of finance. Based on personal interviews with leading academics and pioneering investment practitioners, Capital Ideas Evolving demonstrates how these financial theories now shape the underlying structure of portfolio management and market behavior, sparking important innovations such as portable alpha and fresh insights into the risk/return trade-off.

Book Review in July/August 2008 Financial Analysts Journal

Title: Handbook of Hedge Funds
Author: Francois-Serge L’habitant
Published: February 2007

From Publisher: Intended as a comprehensive reference for investors and fund and portfolio managers, Handbook of Hedge Funds combines new material with updated information from Francois-Serge L’habitant’s two other successful hedge fund books. This book features up-to-date regulatory and historical information, new case studies and trade examples, detailed analyses of investment strategies, discussions of hedge fund indices and databases, and tips on portfolio construction.

Title: Active Alpha - A Portfolio Approach to Selecting and Managing Alternative Investments
Author: Alan Dorsey
Published: August 2007

From Publisher: Enhance overall investment returns by using alternative investments as the centerpiece of a portfolio. Alternative investments–such as hedge funds, private equity, and real estate–are growing in both popularity and importance, with more than $1 trillion invested in them. Filled with cutting-edge material on the latest trends in the world of portfolio management, Active Alpha shows readers how to analyze the factors associated with Alpha across all alternative investments. The book then explores how today’s investment professional can build a balanced portfolio with the right mix of alternative and traditional assets and low risk exposure.

Title: Investors and Markets
Author: William Sharpe
Published: October 2006

From Publisher: William Sharpe shows that investment professionals cannot make good portfolio choices unless they understand the determinants of asset prices. But until now asset-price analysis has largely been inaccessible to everyone except PhDs in financial economics. In this book, Sharpe changes that by setting out his state-of-the-art approach to asset pricing in a nonmathematical form that will be comprehensible to a broad range of investment professionals, including investment advisors, money managers, and financial analysts. Bridging the gap between the best financial theory and investment practice, Investors and Markets will help investment professionals make better portfolio choices by being smarter about asset prices.

Title: Asymmetric Returns
Author: Alexander Ineichen
Published: October 2006

From Publisher: In Asymmetric Returns, financial expert Alexander Ineichen elevates the critical discussion about alpha versus beta and absolute returns versus relative returns. He argues that controlling downside volatility is a key element in asset management if sustainable positive compounding of capital and financial survival are major objectives. Achieving sustainable positive absolute returns are the result of taking and managing risk wisely, that is, an active risk management process where risk is defined in absolute terms and changes in the market place are accounted for. The result of an active risk management process-when successful-is an asymmetric return profile, that is, more and higher returns on the upside and fewer and lower returns on the downside. Ineichen claims that achieving Asymmetric Returns is the future of active asset management.

Title: Handbook of Alternative Assets
Author: Mark Anson
Published: September 2006 (2nd edition)

From Publisher: Since the first edition of the Handbook of Alternative Assets was published, significant events—from the popping of the technology bubble and massive accounting scandals to recessions and bear markets—have shifted the financial landscape. These changes have provided author Mark J. P. Anson with an excellent opportunity to examine alternative assets during a different part of the economic cycle than previously observed in the first edition. Fully revised and updated to reflect today’s financial realities, the Handbook of Alternative Assets, Second Edition covers the five major classes of alternative assets—hedge funds, commodity and managed futures, private equity, credit derivatives, and corporate governance—and outlines the strategies you can use to efficiently incorporate these assets into any portfolio. Throughout the book, new chapters have been added, different data sources accessed, and new conclusions reached.

Title: Evaluating Hedge Fund Performance
Author: Vinh Tran, (Forward by Thomas Schneeweis)
Published: February 2006

From Publisher: Tran gives readers the information they need to construct an efficient hedge fund portfolio based on their own level of knowledge. From evaluating hedge funds to picking the winners, Dr. Tran covers some of the most important issues related to this flexible investment vehicle. Evaluating Hedge Fund Performance takes the standard hedge fund book to a new level by detailing how to manage the risk of hedge funds and offering the best methods to evaluate and monitor hedge funds. With strategy based on interviews and data from experts in the field, this book is a must-read for any investor or manager who is investing in hedge funds.