Product Description

"Loeb tells us to put all our eggs in one basket, and watch the basket."
-John RothchildFinancial Columnist, Time magazine

"This book is very special in my life. It is the very first Wall Street book I ever read. After reading 1,200 additional finance books, The Battle for Investment Survival's principles and concepts are still valid for consistent success."
-Victor Sperandeo Author of Trader Vic on Commodities

In The Battle for Investment Survival, the turf is Wall Street, the goal is to preserve your capital at all costs, and to win is to "make a killing without being killed." This memorable classic, originally written in 1935, offers a fresh perspective on investing from times past. The Battle for Investment Survival treats investors to a straightforward account of how to profit-and how to avoid profit loss-in what Loeb would describe as the constant tug-of-war between rising and falling markets.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131490 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780470110034
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Back Cover

"Loeb tells us to put all our eggs in one basket, and watch the basket."
—John RothchildFinancial Columnist, Time magazine

"This book is very special in my life. It is the very first Wall Street book I ever read. After reading 1,200 additional finance books, The Battle for Investment Survival's principles and concepts are still valid for consistent success."
—Victor Sperandeo Author of Trader Vic on Commodities

In The Battle for Investment Survival, the turf is Wall Street, the goal is to preserve your capital at all costs, and to win is to "make a killing without being killed." This memorable classic, originally written in 1935, offers a fresh perspective on investing from times past. The Battle for Investment Survival treats investors to a straightforward account of how to profit—and how to avoid profit loss—in what Loeb would describe as the constant tug-of-war between rising and falling markets.

About the Author
Gerald M. Loeb worked on Wall Street as a stockbroker for forty years, beginning in the late 1920s. He was also a financial writer whose articles were published in Barron's, Wall Street Today, and Investor Magazine. A prolific writer throughout his career, Loeb also authored Gerald Loeb's Checklist for Buying Stocks and Your Battle for Stock Market Profits.

Customer Reviews

My cornerstone on speculation and investment
I've read many recently published books on how to profit from the financial markets. Too many of them leave me feeling like I wasted my time and money.

I decided to go back to the "classics"--Schabacker, Edwards and Magee, Graham, Hamilton, Rhea, and of course, Gerald Loeb.

The more I read these "classics" of investment literature, the more I see the market hasn't fundamentally changed at all. All of those books have taught me something important, but I will always have Loeb's "Battle for Investment Survival" close to the top of my list.

Loeb demonstrates he is fundamentally honest. Unlike most books, that get you to think becomming a millionare through daytrading is easy, Loeb teaches that there is no such thing as "easy money" in the financial markets, nor are there "safe investments" (bonds) as the value of money is constantly depreciating.

He also teaches that there are NO guarantees, and that most people WILL lose money regardless of what they do. I think this is true, but most people cannot face it--even those "efficient market" types who advocate the buy and holding of index funds. (I believe Loeb would be a big fan of Exchange Traded Funds, however)

So, what is one to do in order to preserve purchasing power? His answer: intelligent speculation and the ever-liquid account.

To speculate intelligently, Loeb advises focusing on actively traded stocks--not illiquid "penny stocks" for your SPECULATIVE activities.

Let's be clear--Gerald Loeb is no "buy and hold" advocate. Loeb could be considered an advocate of the "relative strength" approach--before the concept of "relative strength" ever existed.

The moment your stock is failing to deliver superior profits, and you have no fundamental reason to believe its uptrend will continue, he advises you sell and look for another. If you can't find anything interesting, or the market is going down--you stay in cash. For Loeb, you MUST avoid catastrophic losses like those sustained in the crash of '29. A stock that doesn't rise (or fall if you like to short) is a waste to be avoided.

Loeb is not a fan of too much diversification. He thinks it is a crutch that guarantees mediocre performance.

His most important teaching would focus on money management (what we would now call "asset allocation"). Loeb would consider it foolish to allocate a significant (more than 50%) of your capital to stocks. You always need a cushion for those inevitable losses in trading operations.

I've taken Loeb's advice to heart. His advice is even more applicable to options trading.

By keeping a small amount of money in a volatile asset, and ruthlessly cutting losses, you give yourself a chance to match the market or even outperform, but with significantly less risk (volatility), due to the large cash reserves.

Loeb's advice isn't easy to follow. But making money isn't easy. And by following Loeb's advice, I'm quite pleased.

The psychology of a sustained bear market
This is a book to challenge every preconception you have about investment. The world today is full of buy and hold investors (isn't that how Buffett made his billions?). And it is not hard to be a committed buy and holder when the Dow is fast approaching 7000. Buy and hold has been very profitable and almost any fool could play. But it has not always been so. Sustained bear markets do exist. And in a bear market the mugs in mutual funds become more than passingly skittish. Buy and hold was once unfashionable and it will be again. This is a book (first published in 1934) from the period where buy and hold was as deeply unfashionable as it has been any time in history. Loeb is an extreme pesimist. If the Dow ever sees 4000 again he might become popular. Loeb does not think that fundamental analysis makes any sense. He illustrates with companies which have been overvalued for years at a time and with companies where persistent undervaluation has occured. Loeb does not believe in buying good stocks and holding them. Though buying good stocks before events likely to cause revaluation might be a good idea. Loeb does not believe in diversification. A diversified portfolio will get beaten around in a bear market just as surely as an undiversified one. Moreover, a diversified portfolio will reduce the attention you can pay to individual stocks. Loeb advocates putting all your eggs in one basket and taking extra care to watch the basket. Loeb thinks that if you do not know what to do you should be in cash or near equivalents (short dated high quality paper). If you are in stocks you are in for a hiding. Loeb believes in firm (and irrevocable) stop loss rules. If you buy a good stock and it goes down sell it. Buy and holders might just be inclined to buy some more and suffer more damage at the hands of capricious bears. That these views are deeply unfashionable comes as no surprise when the buy and holders have had such a good run. I come from Australia where the index peaked at 2310 in October 1987 and has only just broken 2400. It spent years in the 1200-1500 range. New Zealand has never broken the pre-crash levels. These are markets where the general populace is scared of stocks. Mutual fund madness is unknown here. I know no Australian who invests in mutuals. I do not think that Loeb is right. But he knows a few things that very few people do know in the US market. Maybe that makes them worth knowing. This is a book about the psychology of a sustained bear market. Dow investors will not recognise it. It is more familiar to us in the Antipodes. Read it so that you will recognise it. And when everyone you know is thinking like Loeb, and the baby boomers have become 'mutual shy', pull out Graham and the other buy and hold bibles and go shopping on Wall Street.

Poorly Presented Advice on Short-Term Investing.
Gerald Loeb, stockbroker and financial writer for over 40 years, first published "The Battle for Investment Survival" in 1935 with 14 years experience in the stock market. The book has been revised 3 times since, and this edition contains the text of the 1965 revision. Loeb is distinguished by being an investor who opposed the buy-and-hold philosophy, which wasn't popular in his day anyway, but it sets him apart from many popular investment pundits today. Most of the book's contents are intended for "the average inexperienced investor", although I think a novice would be hard-pressed to make sense of Loeb's advice.

Loeb's investment philosophy can be summed up neatly: Base stock purchases on fundamentals, but keep your eye on price movement and sell when it goes down. Loeb was an investor with some of a trader's sensibility. He advocates holding onto a security only 6 months to a year and a half. The trouble is that "The Battle for Investment Survival" is poorly organized, repetitive, sometimes contradictory, and burdened by overloaded, awkward prose. Loeb is a poor writer. He makes simple concepts seem utterly labyrinthine. He has one basic philosophy and about a dozen "dos and don'ts" to offer. Instead of giving us a dozen straightforward chapters, "The Battle for Investment Survival" has 33 short, overlapping, convoluted chapters.

"The Battle for Investment Survival" is only 153 pages long. The second half of the book, chapters 34-78, is miscellaneous articles by Loeb in which he offers further investment advice, comments on a variety of financial topics, and shares his opinions on American architecture and "How an Ice-Cream Soda Should Be Made". These articles are more colorful, as well as more readable, than the main text of the book, though less essential. Chapter 64, "I Don't Sell -People Buy From Me", is an interesting account of Loeb's early days working at brokerage houses in San Francisco. In sum, I've nothing against old investment or trading books. They sometimes offer keen insight and have interesting stories to tell. There is nothing wrong with Gerald Loeb's principles. But "The Battle for Investment Survival" presents them poorly, and there are plenty of other books out there that do it better.