Warning! This is a sales pitch for my latest and last book, Investing with the Trend. Instead of hearing from me, I have included a few actual reviews from readers. I basically tell people that I dumped 40+ years of experience in this book. There are many things in this book that others would never say – I did not hold back as I think some things in modern finance and technical analysis needed to be said.
Personally, I would not recommend the electronic (Kindle) version since there are hundreds of charts and tables in the book. Enjoy!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Note from Greg: Dr. Holder used to Chair the Financial Engineering department at Kent State.
Honest, Accurate, Useful - Perfect for most every Investor
By Mark Holder, PhD on June 13, 2015
Format: Hardcover
As both a practitioner and an academic, I highly recommend this book for everyone who trades, or has even thought about trading, including those investors that stick with just funds. I have read a significant number of books on markets, investing and trading, but none have ever combined the accuracy that meets the best fiduciary standards with practical know-how and information.
This book is not a get-rich quick scheme. There are no gimmicks, no shortcuts and no free lunches. This book is exactly what one would expect from a highly successful market practitioner. Morris has spent many years perfecting his knowledge. When you have a working methodology for investing, the last thing you do is give that information to others, unless of course you are no longer using it actively. It is clear that Morris has taken all those years of experience and channeled it into this book and is now helping others because he is now somewhere on a golf course and enjoying the fruits of his research.
In addition, this book elucidates some difficult concepts in as clear a fashion as I have ever seen; even better than that in many supposedly well-written academic texts. I am certain you will find the book easy to approach yet provide you with some powerful information that you will most certainly find immediately useful. Despite having spent many years in the markets and studied many methods, there were new twists and concepts that I have found quite useful.
Why you should own this book:
- It delivers, while other provide simple non-functional information
- It is clear and relatively easy to get through while still delivering things you can use
- It is accurate
- The advice is honest and based on 40 years of market experience
- It will make you a better investor
- There are some great stories
I highly recommend this book. Go here and avoid all the get-rich crap that is out there.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must-Read for Today's Market Environment
By Doug Short on May 8, 2014
Format: Hardcover
Gregory L. Morris's latest book was published on December 31 of last year, the same day the Dow and S&P 500 set new all-time highs. The Dow was up 153.2% from its March 2009 low and the S&P 500 had risen an even more impressive 173.2%. These massive rallies were the reversal of devastating drawdowns during the Great Financial Crisis. The Dow and S&P 500 had declined 53.8% and 56.8%, respectively, since their pre-crisis all-time highs in October 2007.
How do we invest to minimize the losses and maximize gains in this sort of environment? Buy-and-hold strategies, regardless of diversification techniques, would have produced modest results over this six-plus year timeframe, and the emotional stresses of the savage bear selloff were excruciating for the buy-and-hold mindset. Investors with a longer history will recall similar emotions during the irrational exuberance of the dot-com bubble and subsequent crash.
Unless you were one of the few who sold near the tops and bought near the bottoms, the 21st century has been a manic-depressive nightmare for investing.
If any of these comments resonate with you, then make Greg's Investing with the Trend your next book purchase … and in light of the current market action, the sooner the better.
The book is divided into three parts, each containing several chapters. In the bullets below, I've provide a 50,000-foot overview of the topics covered in each part.
Part I: Market Fiction, Flaws, and Facts
Fictions Told to Investors: Greg examines the marketing spin and underlying reality of several familiar concepts: Buy and Hold, Protection with Diversification, Dollar Cost Averaging, etc.
Flaws in Modern Financial Theory: Over the past several decades many academic theories of investing have dominated the world of finance: Efficient Markets, Modern Portfolio Theory, Volatility Risk, etc. Greg uses his analytical skills to deconstruct the underlying assumptions of these theories in the context of market reality.
Misuse of Statistics and Other Controversial Practices: How does the "World of Finance" achieve its sell-side goals? Greg takes a close look at "The Deception of Average" in the routine parlance of the professional financial community.
The Illusion of Forecasting: Greg's opening remark captures the essence of this chapter: "I adamantly believe there is no one who knows what the market will do tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or at any time in the future -- period."
The Enemy in the Mirror: The title of this chapter is self-explanatory. It offers an excellent and succinct overview of the many behavioral biases that profoundly influence and ultimately compromise our investment decisions.
Market Facts: Bull and Bear Markets and Market Facts: Valuations, Returns, and Distributions: These two chapters round out the first part of the book with a compendium of fact, figures and graphs to illustrate historical realities of the market. Without a reasonable grasp of this material, it is impossible to make intelligent decisions about investing.
Part II: Market Research. Here Greg transitions from a focus on the historical context and challenges of investing to an overview of technical analysis.
Why Technical Analysis? Greg offers a convincing rationale for this analytical discipline. This chapter also includes a number of Greg's personal opinions about the limitations of some of the traditional indicators used in technical analysis.
Market Trend Analysis: Here Greg focuses on the fundamentals of market trends, trend versus mean reversion, and trend analysis as a discipline. This chapter includes several extensive tables of supporting market data.
Drawdown Analysis: An understanding of the massive risk potential of drawdowns is critical to wise investing, which Greg covers in detail. I was delighted to see his reference to my "break-even curve" in this chapter. He also uses the percent-off-high technique, one of my favorites, to illustrate the impact of drawdowns in the market.
Part III: Rules-Based Money Management. After providing a perspective on the market, modern financial theory and the rudiments of technical analysis, Greg gets to the heart of the matter - investing with the trend.
Popular Indicators and Their Uses: First off, we need a sound understanding of the relevant indicators suitable for identification and analysis.
Measuring the Market: This is a chapter that defies summary, one that I read, re-read and read again. Here Greg explains the many metrics that can be used individually and in combination to assist in trend identification.
Security Ranking, Selection, Rules, and Guidelines: The world of the markets and investing constitute an overwhelming amount of information. How do you sift through the details to determine what holding should be bought? The solution is a rules-based strategy with this goal: "to remove human input from the selection process."
Putting It All Together: The "Dancing with the Trend" Model and Putting Trend-Following to Work: Much of Greg's book reads like science, but it ultimately culminates in art -- the art of dance being his apt metaphor for successful investing. To maximize our success as investors, we must learn to dance with the trend, which requires an intimate understanding of our partner, the trend.
As I mentioned at the outset, Greg's book became available at what may in retrospect be remembered as critical period for understanding trend analysis and making investment decisions accordingly.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The bottom line is that the book is encyclopedic. This is a book that is not to be casually read but studied carefully.
By David Landry on June 25, 2014
Format: Hardcover
For me to like a book on trading I need at least one "gem" that will actually help me in the markets, fodder for additional research, or knowledge to back up what I'm already doing. Greg's book does all that and then some.
Let's break it down:
In part 1, Greg went to great length to prove that modern financial theory and conventional market wisdom are just plain wrong. I thought that this section was a little lengthy but then again, in my case he is preaching to the choir (I too have written about this). He obviously did not want to leave "no stone unturned" and went to great lengths to prove with facts and not opinions the flaws in this way of thinking. There were no holds barred. Anyone who believes in modern financial theory or has taken conventional wisdom at face value must read this section.
I do like the way he often turned things on their head. For instance, the buy on hold crowd argues that your performance will suffer if you miss the 10 best days of the year. Greg proposes just the opposite: What if you miss the 10 worst days of the year? I'm not going to spoil it but let's just say the results are very impressive.
Part II, Market Research, is the meat of the book. Greg delves deeply into technical analysis. He covers trends, popular technical indicators, drawdowns, measuring the market, sector rotation/relative strength analysis and a plethora of other topics--too many to mention in a review. Just know that it contains a ton of useful information, much of which is backed up charts, tables, and statistics. There are plenty of gems within this section and lots of fodder for further research. As a trend trader, I especially liked the way he discussed trend following vs. mean reversion and how switching from one to the other only works with 20/20 hindsight.
Towards the end of the book, Greg interviews his colleagues at Stadion Money Management, LLC, where they manage over 6 billion in assets. I wasn't sure how an interview fit into the book but soon found myself dog earring and highlighting the pages. Greg obviously wanted to show the methodology in action.
My only criticism is that some of the charts could be a little larger and easier to read (from personal experience, I suppose this is a Catch 22 because some would then complain about the large "Dr. Seuss" book size). This is only a minor criticism and does not affect the massive content that the book contains. I think anyone serious about the markets could create their own charts anyway.
Occasional anecdotes and subtle humor help to break up what can be a somewhat dry subject.
The bottom line is that the book is encyclopedic. It represents the experience that Greg has from over 40 years in the market. He obviously poured his soul into this book, leaving no topic related to the markets uncovered. This is a book that is not to be casually read but studied. My copy has so many notes, dog ears, and highlights that it looks like it is 10 years old. Kudos Greg!
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Invest with the Trend,
Greg Morris
