What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars by Jim PaulMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book was actually much better than I thought it would be. To tell the truth, I knew nothing about it except the title. I can't remember why it was even in my wishlist. I thought it would deal with entrepreneurship/business, but it deals with investing. This suits me, since I'm starting to get more into that (recently bought The Intelligent Investor, which I should probably tackle soon).
It was also written in the early 90's, so it is interesting to compare with today (and see how timeless many of these lessons are).
The book starts with a general run-down of the author's life, which is quite interesting, although I was afraid that would be all, but right after that, it lists all the contradictory advice that great investors have given over the years. This section alone is probably worth the price of the book. The only one I remember off the top of my head is how Warren Buffett said Diversification is for idiots, while John Templeton said to always diversify.
The final section deals how, if there is no real way to make money, what all the great investors have in common is they don't lose money, and it discusses the details as to how to go about that.
Some of my notes:
Need to decide: Will I be an investor or speculator?
Will I invest in stocks, bonds, currencies, futures (crypto)? (must be compatible with time horizon)
Pick the loss side first (pick where (price), when (time), or why (new information) you will get out of the position).
Pick stop, entry, then price objective.
Gambling is usually over one event (one race, one fight, one spin at the wheel, etc.). What if they stopped a horse race mid-way and you could decide to bet more, take your money out, etc.? This happens continuously with stocks.
Most investments are trades that didn't work (started as a trade, lost money, suddenly the time horizon stretched out since no one likes to take money out at a loss).
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