We are all investors. We invest our time, our energy, our money. We invest every single day, as citizens, as consumers, as businesspeople. At its core, investing involves connection, exchange, and mutual benefit. Lately, however, the primary, beneficial function of investing has been overshadowed by ever-more mechanized iterations of finance. We have created funds of funds, securitizations of securitizations, and entire firms whose business is based on harvesting the advantage of microseconds of trading speed.
"The Nature of Investing" calls for a transformation of the investment process from the roots up. Drawing on the author's twenty-plus years of leadership experience in top investment firms, the book connects real-world finance with the field of biomimicry. Citing real-life examples and discussing principles from the natural world, "The Nature of Investing" shows how we can create an investment framework that is different from the mechanized one currently employed.
Readers will discover an approach that re-aligns investing with the world it was originally meant to serve. An approach that values resiliency over rigidity and elegant simplicity over synthetic complexity. This is the true nature of investing.

In Conceptions of Professionalism, Ken Bruce and Abdullahi Ahmed present the results of research into understanding what professionalism means to individuals who are CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERa"c professionals and how they conceive of acting professionally. Financial planning is establishing itself as a relatively new, emerging profession and an understanding of how its members experience professionalism provides insights that will help those responsible across the international financial planning community to establish relevant, accurate and meaningful professional standards for financial planners. The authors employ the relatively new research methodology of phenomenography, which enables them to describe the qualitatively different ways in which people understand or experience a phenomenon. This particularly lends itself to the study of a concept such as professionalism. This study gives voice to the financial planners represented in the research and will inform standard setting bodies seeking to understand professionalism through the eyes of the professionals themselves. What the research reveals about the concept of professionalism itself will be of value to those whose interests lie beyond the world of financial planning, and the application of the methodology used in the study will inform researchers contemplating phenomenographical studies elsewhere.

Go inside the trend that spawned a multi-billion dollar industry for the top five percent Sweat Equity goes inside the multibillion dollar trend toward endurance sports and fitness to discover who's driving it, who's paying for it, and who's profiting. Bloomberg's Jason Kelly, author of The New Tycoons, profiles the participants, entrepreneurs, and investors at the center of this movement, exploring this phenomenon in which a surge of people led by the most affluent are becoming increasingly obsessed with looking and feeling better. Through in-depth looks inside companies and events from New York Road Runners to Tough Mudder and Ironman, Kelly profiles the companies and people aiming to meet the demands of these consumers, and the traits and strategies that made them so successful. In a modern world filled with anxiety, pressure, and competition, people are spending more time and money than ever before to soothe their minds and tone their bodies, sometimes pushing themselves to the most extreme limits. Even as obesity rates hit an all-time high, the most financially successful among us are collectively spending billions each year on apparel, gear, and entry fees. Sweat Equity charts the rise of the movement, through the eyes of competitors and the companies that serve them. Through conversations with businesspeople, many driven by their own fitness obsessions, and first-hand accounts of the sports themselves, Kelly delves into how the movement is taking shape. * Understand the social science, physics, and economics of our desire to pursue activities like endurance sports and yoga * Get to know the endurance business's target demographics * Learn how distance running once a fringe hobby became a multibillion dollar enterprise fueled by private equity * Understand how different generations pursue fitness and how fast-growing companies sell to them The opportunity to run, swim, and crawl in the mud is resonating with more and more of us, as sports once considered extreme become mainstream. As Baby Boomers seek to stay fit and Millennials search for meaning in a hyperconnected world, the demand for the race bib is outstripping supply, even as the cost to participate escalates. Sweat Equity, through the stories of men and women inside the most influential races and companies, goes to the heart of the movement where mind, body, and big money collide.

Praise for Trading Price Action Trading Ranges

"Al Brooks has written a book every day trader should read. On all levels, he has kept trading simple, straightforward, and approachable. By teaching traders that there are no rules, just guidelines, he has allowed basic common sense to once again rule how real traders should approach the market. This is a must-read for any trader that wants to learn his own path to success."
--Noble DraKoln, founder, SpeculatorAcademy.com, and author of "Trade Like a Pro" and "Winning the Trading Game"

"A great trader once told me that success was a function of focused energy. This mantra is proven by Al Brooks, who left a thriving ophthalmology practice to become a day trader. Al's intense focus on daily price action has made him a successful trader. A born educator, Al also is generous with his time, providing detailed explanations on how he views daily price action and how other traders can implement his ideas with similar focus and dedication. Al's book is no quick read, but an in-depth road map on how he trades today's volatile markets, complete with detailed strategies, real-life examples, and hard-knocks advice."
--Ginger Szala, Publisher and Editorial Director, Futures magazine

Over the course of his career, author Al Brooks, a technical analysis contributor to "Futures" magazine and an independent trader for twenty-five years, has found a way to capture consistent profits regardless of market direction or economic climate. And now, with his new three-book series--which focuses on how to use price action to trade the markets--Brooks takes you step by step through the entire process.

In order to put his methodology in perspective, Brooks examined an essential array of price action basics and trends in the first book of this series, "Trading Price Action TRENDS." Now, in this second book, "Trading Price Action TRADING RANGES," he provides important insights on trading ranges, breakouts, order management, and the mathematics of trading.

Page by page, Brooks skillfully addresses how to spot and profit from trading ranges--which most markets are in, most of the time--using the technical analysis of price action. Along the way, he touches on some of the most important aspects of this approach, including trading breakouts, understanding support and resistance, and making the most informed entry and exit decisions possible. Throughout the book, Brooks focuses primarily on 5 minute candle charts--all of which are created with TradeStation--to illustrate basic principles, but also discusses daily and weekly charts. And since he trades more than just E-mini S&P 500 futures, Brooks also details how price action can be used as the basis for trading stocks, forex, Treasury Note futures, and options.

Gavin Reid presents a systematic analysis of what drives investor-investee relations in venture capital markets. In the first analytical work to use a unified framework, he draws upon a modern and general approach to contracting relations, namely principal-agent analysis. This book establishes a clear theoretical framework involving risk management, information handling and the 'trading' of risk and information. Using powerful modern theory as a general and coherent frame of reference to analyse an extensive body of new evidence, the author shows how top investors manage risk and monitor investees, and examines the best relationship between investor and investee. Exploring the principles governing high-risk/high-return investment, this is a unique insight into the turbulent world of the venture capitalist.

Traditional costing models for new systems and new buildings in industry, defence or government, have tended to focus on the costs of acquisition and implementation, with scant regard for the costs of running the system or decommissioning after use. The pressure to minimize expenditure and provide value for money from reduced resources means that complex projects have to encompass a wide range of often conflicting issues and interests. Systems Lifecycle Cost-Effectiveness shows how to manage the difficulties that can arise. Optimizing the system lifecycle cost-effectiveness is complex and influenced by many factors. Massimo Pica presents a variety of models for calculating cost, benefits and risk in projects, and explains how the human factors associated with a system's design and consequent value are as important as the technical costs associated with its construction or creation. This comprehensive text can be used by students, experienced system engineers, cost analysts and managers to improve their understanding of the wide range of issues involved in the evaluation of system life cycle cost-effectiveness.

"The authors present a novel new approach to pricing interest rate securities. (The book) is well written and is easy to follow and understand. It's a must read for those interested and involved in fixed income security valuation." — William T. Ziemba, Alumni Professor of Financial Modeling and Stochastic Optimization, University of British Columbia

"Kortanek and Medvedev's book presents an interesting approach to the individualisation of the models for the Yield Curve and for the Spot Rate by means of dynamic systems. This approach supplies an innovative calculation methodology for obtaining numeric solutions in certain important financial applications. I believe that these models can be considered a worthwhile instrument, "complementary" to the models based on stochastic equations." — Professor G. Olivieri, Luiss "Guido Carli" University, Rome

Building and Using Dynamic Interest Rate Models provides a new approach to modeling the term structure of interest rates. Based on the rich history of work in control theory and the optimization of systems under uncertainty, the authors set out to develop a new class of models of this type for the term structure of interest rates. Designed to complement the stochastic processes approach, the authors provide both the theory and the practical modeling and computer implementation needed to successfully build and use term structure models. The book presents results on serious testing using software for predicting the spot rate, the forward rate and the entire interest rate yield surface based on observations taken during an arbitrarily specified time period.

Building and Using Dynamic Interest Rate Models is ideal reading for those involved in the fixed income securities markets, with an expanded view towards forecasting future commodity prices and volatilities.

* Outlines a climate change adaptation framework to help organizations respond appropriately to climate change and adequately inform their investors and stakeholders* Gives a comprehensive assessment of climate change management in the corporate sectorBetween climate change mitigation and adaptation, adaptation is seen as the poor cousin of international climate change efforts. But in the absence of globally coherent mitigation activities, adaptation may one day become the main line of defense for many organizations. Organizations have a clear imperative to assess both costs and benefits of taking action to mitigate the impacts of climate change on their business. They must also adapt their behaviors where economically and practically feasible. Responding to change and managing risks are normal corporate activities, and adaptation to climate change is part of the risk management continuum. However, the main impediment to companies translating incentive into action is in knowing where to start.Mitigating and adapting to risks and changing circumstances is a natural part of doing business. But methods of mitigating and adapting can be quite different in terms of time, cost and observed impacts. The impacts of mitigation activities are more immediate while the benefits of adaptation activities may take many years to take effect. Nowhere is this difference more apparent than in the case of the corporate response to climate change.In the context of climate change, adaptation is the process of changing behavior in response to actual or expected climate change impacts. Climate change adaptation is now emerging as a critical partner to mitigation, and indeed may even become the primary protection mechanism for future generations.In this unique book, Jason West provides a comprehensive assessment of the management of climate change adaptation in the corporate sector. The book provides a formal overview of the range of approaches available along with a series of practical case studies and examples that can be used by companies and other organizations to identify, assess and manage climate change adaptation.A major focus is on the financial and investment implications of climate change adaptation. West examines how firms can evaluate the investment decisions associated with long-term climate change adaptation measures, including how such investments can be valued and funded, the appropriate accounting treatment of such measures and appropriate risk management and governance practices in relation to such measures. "The Long Hedge" will illuminate the path towards measuring vulnerability, managing climate risks, modelling financial exposure and properly disclosing the costs and benefits of such actions to investors and stakeholders. The book also considers the needs and interests of investors and other stakeholders, and considers how they can assess the adequacy and appropriateness of corporate action on climate change.

This book provides an analysis of the development of the Chinese securities market, with special reference to the information disclosure regimes in Mainland China, the UK, and Hong Kong. It examines the listed companies, stock exchanges, securities companies, financial intermediaries, financial regulators and investor protection of the system in China, the UK and Hong Kong. The book looks at the role and functions of the securities regulatory commission, and highlights the details and insights that generally reveal the past and current status of the information disclosure regime in the Chinese securities market. By identifying problems and their reasons, the book forms an approach to further develop securities regulation.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Managers involved at a senior level in the purchasing function require very particular financial skills. They need to: analyse the financial health and stability of their suppliers; model different cost and price scenarios; understand and manage budgets; and be comfortable with the financial aspects of capital purchases. Finance for Purchasing Managers is written from this perspective using buyer's language and interpretation. Richard France explores four key areas of expertise required of a buyer in today's environment: Financial analysis of suppliers - this includes understanding the financial aspects of a buyer's own organisation plus analysing key suppliers and how to use information to gain a negotiating edge. Pricing, costing and cost modelling - including costing methods and their application and how an understanding of these can give buyers a greater understanding when dealing with supplier quotations. Managing resources - including budgeting and sources of finance. This shows how budgets are drawn up and the importance of understanding the implications of the buyer's decisions on a supplier's cash flow forecast. Finally, capital and revenue purchasing decisions and techniques - covering standard investment appraisal techniques and how these can be used for deciding on the best deal from a choice of suppliers for both capital items as well as a standard long term parts supply contract. Finance for Purchasing Managers may be used to support the CIPS Level 6 Course 'Finance for Purchasers' but also offers a readable and practical guide for those at a senior level in purchasing whether in the public or private sector.

Value aggregation to goods and services is unbelievably important to the balance of trade of modern nations, yet it receives minute attention by economists and policy-makers alike. In Competitiveness in the Real Economy, Rui Vinhas da Silva shows that the nature and dynamics of contemporary global competition requires a sharper focus on value aggregation. He provides a rounded, integrative and multi-disciplinary perspective linking national competitiveness, economics and management. The emphasis is on a transversal philosophy of value aggregation as a key driver of national competitiveness across sectors in the real economy and from production to the consumption of goods and services. The links between exports, inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) and country competitiveness are examined along with the role of exports and the attraction of FDI inflows in building national GDP. The author emphasises that culture, the notion of being cosmopolitan and understanding aspirational and discriminatory consumers with high disposable income are key drivers of success in the global economy. Acknowledging that the complexity of problems comes from diversity of global actors, the author highlights the limitations of current economics in responding to contemporary challenges. His concern about the management sciences and management learning is that solutions do not lie in the formulation and prescription of universal laws, but are contextually-laden and derive from an informed intuition that is partly taught and partly experiential. The book addresses the implications of all this for how the management skills needed for competitive advantage might best be developed.

Much has been said and written about the 'financial tsunami' and subsequent economic dislocation that occurred in the opening decade of the 21st Century. Professor Ivo Pezzuto is described by business scholars as an expert on the global financial crisis. He has lectured about it at conferences and seminars; written some of the most read and quoted papers; contributed to what is considered the most authoritative book on the subject; and to one of the best known US-based blogs dealing with it. In Predictable and Avoidable, Dr Pezzuto offers business school students; academics; and industry experts in the fields of finance, risk management, audit, corporate governance, economics, and regulation, a truly independent and unbiased analysis of the financial crises starting in 2007 and one of the first fully considered expositions of the financial, governance and regulatory reforms needed for the future. Augmented with personal interviews involving selected global thought leaders and industry experts, the author's narrative focuses on the technical issues that led to the global crisis, but also addresses the human, cultural, and ethical aspects of the events from both sociological and managerial perspectives. The book exposes the root causes and contributes significantly to the debate about the change needed in the banking and finance industries and to supervisory frameworks and regulatory mechanisms. This analysis enables readers to understand that the crisis we have seen was predictable and should have been avoidable, and that a recurrence can be avoided, if lessons are learned and the right action taken.

Merger Masters presents revealing profiles of monumentally successful merger investors based on exclusive interviews with some of the greatest minds to practice the art of arbitrage. Michael Price, John Paulson, Paul Singer, and others offer practical perspectives on how their backgrounds in the risk-conscious world of merger arbitrage helped them make their biggest deals. They share their insights on the discipline that underlies their fortunes, whether they practice the "plain vanilla" strategy of announced deals, the aggressive strategy of activist investment, or any strategy in between on the risk spectrum. Merger Masters delves into the human side of risk arbitrage, exploring how top practitioners deal with the behavioral aspects of generating consistent profits from risk arbitrage. The book also includes perspectives from the other side of the mergers and acquisitions divide in the form of interviews with a trio of iconic CEOs: Bill Stiritz, Peter McCausland, and Paul Montrone. All three took advantage of M&A opportunities to help build long-term returns but often found themselves at odds with the short-term focus of Wall Street and merger investors. Told in lively, accessible prose, with bonus facts and figures for transaction junkies, Merger Masters is an incomparable set of stories with plenty of unfiltered lessons from the best managers of our time.

The principles of value investing have resonated with savvy practitioners in the world of finance for a long time. In Creating Strategic Value, Joseph Calandro Jr. explores how the core ideas and methods of value investing can be profitably applied to corporate strategy and management. Calandro builds from an analysis of traditional value investing concepts to their strategic applications. He surveys value investing's past, present, and future, drawing on influential texts, from Graham and Dodd's time-tested works to more recent studies, to reveal potent managerial lessons. He explains the theoretical aspects of value investing-consistent approaches to corporate strategy and management and details how they can be successfully employed through practical case studies that demonstrate value realization in action. Calandro analyzes the applicability of key ideas such as the margin-of-safety principle to corporate strategy in a wide range of areas beyond stocks and bonds. He highlights the importance of an "information advantage"-knowing something that a firm's competitors either do not know or choose to ignore-and explains how corporate managers can apply this key value investing differentiator. Offering expert insight into the use of time-tested value investing principles in new fields, Creating Strategic Value is an important book for corporate strategy and management practitioners at all levels as well as for students and researchers.

Every investor needs an edge. Where better to look than the rules of the world's best investors? These are the do's and don'ts that have driven profits in the billions. They are the practical precepts, and hard-earned wisdom, of many of the best investors in the UK and the US and further afield - of the fund manager who outperformed the market by staggering percentages for three decades in a row, of the private investor who once trained the professionals in the City, of the ex-hedge fund manager who now advocates the simplest investing system in the world. And 50+ MORE of the most interesting minds in modern investing, from Wall Street to West London and back again. The legendary Harriman Book of Investing Rules is back with a gripping new volume - packed with hundreds of pages of new content, bringing you the wisdom of the very best investing minds around the globe.

This unique Handbook explores both the economics of the firm and the theory of the firm, two areas which are traditionally treated separately in the literature. On the one hand, the former refers to the structure, organization and boundaries of the firm, while the latter is devoted to the analysis of behaviors and strategies in particular market contexts. The novel concept underpinning this authoritative volume is that these two areas closely interact, and that a framework must be articulated in order to illustrate how linkages can be created. This interpretative framework is comprehensively developed in the editors' introduction, and the expert contributors - more than fifty academics of renowned authority - further elaborate on the linkages in the seven comprehensive sections that follow, encompassing: background; equilibrium and new institutional theories; the multinational firm; dynamic approaches to the firm; modern issues; firms' strategies; and economic policy and the firm. Bridging economics and theory of the firm, and providing both technical and institutional perspectives on real corporations, this path-breaking Handbook will prove an invaluable resource for academics, researchers and students in the fields of economics, heterodox economics, business and management, and industrial organization. Contributors: Z.J. Acs, M. Aglietta, C. Antonelli, M.C. Becker, M. Bellandi, M.H. Best, H. Bo, J.J. Bouma, H. Bouthinon-Dumas, T. Buchmann, R. Carter, M. Casson, C. Cezanne, M. Cloodt, A. Coad, A. Colombelli, A. Correlje, L. De Propris, M. Dietrich, C. Driver, S.P. Dunn, P.E. Earl, N.J. Foss, M. Fransman, J.-L. Gaffard, J. Groenewegen, S. Guillou, J. Hagedoorn, G. Hanappi, G.M. Hodgson, W. Holzl, G. Ietto-Gillies, A. Jolink, T. Knudsen, J. Krafft, W. Lazonick, S. Lechevalier, B.J. Loasby, F. Marty, L. Nesta, E. Niesten, B. Nooteboom, U. Pagano, P.P. Patrucco, A. Pyka, F. Quatraro, J.-L. Ravix, A. Reberioux, A. Reinstaller, E. Salies, P.P. Saviotti, N. Stieglitz, M. Teubal, S. Toms, N. Wadeson, O. Weinstein, J.F. Wilson

An accessible introduction to sustainable investing for investors Can investors do well financially and do good for the world? Should they try? A common assumption about investors is that they don't care who wins as long as they're making money. For some investors, this mindset still rings true. Yet, many investors today want to make money and do good. Sustainable investing has gained considerable momentum in the last few decades. It delivers value by balancing traditional investing with environmental, social, and governance-related (ESG) insights to improve long-term outcomes. Sustainable Investing: What Everyone Needs to Know (R) demystifies sustainable investing for investors. Using a user-friendly question-and-answer format and insights from noted investment professionals, this book explores some of sustainable investing's most critical questions in a clear and concise manner. The book explains how this approach involves investing in sustainable companies or funds and can include any investment approach that considers ESG criteria when selecting and managing investments. It demystifies sustainable investing specifically for average investors and examines whether such investments have a place in their portfolios. By covering everything from the changing investment landscape and the roles of social and religious values in finance to how to build a portfolio with purpose, H. Kent Baker, Hunter M. Holzhauer, and John R. Nofsinger provide an essential introduction to sustainable investing.

This book is about fiduciary law's influence on the financial economy's environmental performance, focusing on how the law affects responsible investing and considering possible legal reforms to shift financial markets closer towards sustainability. Fiduciary law governs how trustees, fund managers or other custodians administer the investment portfolios owned by beneficiaries. Written for a diverse audience, not just legal scholars, the book examines in a multi-jurisdictional context an array of philosophical, institutional and economic issues that have shaped the movement for responsible investing and its legal framework. Fiduciary law has acquired greater influence in the financial economy in tandem with the extraordinary recent growth of institutional funds such as pension plans and insurance company portfolios. While the fiduciary prejudice against responsible investing has somewhat waned in recent years, owing mainly to reinterpretations of fiduciary and trust law, significant barriers remain. This book advances the notion of 'nature's trust' to metaphorically signal how fiduciary responsibility should accommodate society's dependence on long-term environmental well-being. Financial institutions, managing vast investment portfolios on behalf of millions of beneficiaries, should manage those investments with regard to the broader social interest in sustaining ecological health. Even for their own financial self-interest, investors over the long-term should benefit from maintaining nature's capital. We should expect everyone to act in nature's trust, from individual funds to market regulators. The ancient public trust doctrine could be refashioned for stimulating this change, and sovereign wealth funds should take the lead in pioneering best practices for environmentally responsible investing.

With the rapid growth of China and India and the resurgence of Southeast Asia post-1997-8, emerging Asia has once again become one of the most dynamic regions in the world. This dynamism has in turn been fuelled largely by a carefully calibrated embracement of economic openness to international trade, investments and capital flows. While much has been written about international trade, there has been somewhat less work on the issue of capital flows, macroeconomic management and foreign direct investment (FDI) to and from the region, a gap that this book attempts to fill. The book is divided into two parts. The first part deals with selected issues pertaining to macroeconomic management in small and open economies, with particular focus on exchange rates. The second part of the book deals with the trends and determinants of FDI in emerging Asia, its importance as a source of finance, its impact on growth and development, and the nexus between FDI and foreign portfolio flows (FPI). Overall, the chapters in this book tackle important policy issues of contemporary relevance, but are informed by analytical frameworks, data and empirics. While each of the topic areas chosen in individual chapters is intentionally narrow, the book as a whole covers a number of areas and countries/regions within Asia (i.e. East, Southeast and South Asia). While the chapters have been written in a manner that can stand up to academic scrutiny, they are also meant to be accessible to policy makers, researchers and others who might be interested in FDI and related issues in Asia.

This innovative volume comprises a selection of original research articles offering a broad perspective on various dimensions of asset management in an international capital market environment. The topics covered include risk management and asset pricing models for portfolio management, performance evaluation and performance measurement of equity mutual funds as well as the wide range of bond portfolio management issues. Asset Management and International Capital Markets offers interesting new insights into state-of-the-art asset pricing and asset management research with a focus on international issues. Each chapter makes a valuable contribution to current research and literature, and will be of significant importance to the practice of asset management. This book is a compilation of articles originally published in The European Journal of Finance.

As the world continues to recover from one of the most dramatic financial crises in a generation, expanding corporations are increasingly, yet cautiously, seeking out international investment opportunities. At the heart of this fragile investment recovery lie trust and confidence. With an unprecedented number of investment promotion agencies and economic development organisations now competing for the attention and business of a more cautious and discerning investor audience, smart approaches to strategic differentiation, communication, engagement and investment services are becoming increasingly critical if these agencies and organisations are to succeed. At the same time, transparent and responsible approaches to investment, coupled with effective, compelling advocacy, are increasingly important to the success of companies' investment projects. Daniel Nicholls' Foreign Direct Investment offers an exploration of some of the key trends, issues and practices that are shaping the global FDI landscape. Along the way he provides insight into how economic developers and investors alike can make the most of their opportunities and mitigate reputational and communications challenges that can impede or hinder a successful investment. By presenting perspectives and priorities from both sides, Daniel Nicholls' book bridges the 'investment gap' by giving its readers an important insight into what matters to the other side. This book represents a smart investment for anyone involved.