Trading in the Zone or Essentials of Corporate Finance

Trading in the Zone: Master the Market with Confidence, Discipline and a Winning Attitude

Author: Mark Douglas

Maximizing the trader's state of mind is the key to successful results.

Conflicts, contradictions and paradoxes in thinking can spell disaster for even a highly motivated, astute and well grounded trader. Mark Douglas, a commodities trader and one who has been around traders for over fifteen years, sends the message that thinking strategy will profoundly influence a trader's success rate. Douglas addresses five very specific issues to give traders the insight and understanding about themselves that will make them consistent winners in the market.

Trading In The Zone offers specific solutions to the "people factor" of commodity price movement. It uncovers the true culprit for lack of consistency when it comes to stock picking: lack of focus and self-confidence. Through simple exercises, traders will learn how to think in terms of probabilities, and adopt the specific beliefs necessary to developing a winner's mindset. Along the way, they'll gain keen insights into their own entrenched misconceptions about the market.

Backed by compelling examples, Trading In The Zone adds a new dimension to getting an edge on the market. Through a better understanding of themselves, as well as of Wall Street's realities, traders will come to leverage the power of their psyche for unprecedented profitability.

Publishers Weekly

Douglas, president of the seminar firm Trading Behavior Dynamics, focuses on the psychology of successful traders. Instead of offering specific strategies, he advises readers, "The first step on the road...is to understand and completely accept the psychological realities of trading." It may be too abstract for some, but given trading's risks, this book could assist experienced investors willing to engage in self-reflection. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Go to: Hair and Fashion or Encyclopedia of Sports Nutrition

Essentials of Corporate Finance

Author: Stephen A Ross

Essentials of Corporate Finance, 5/e by Ross, Westerfield, and Jordan is written to convey the most important concepts and principles of corporate finance at a level that is approachable for a wide audience. The authors retain their modern approach to finance, but have distilled the subject down to the essential topics in 18 chapters. They believe that understanding the “why” is just as important, if not more so, than understanding the “how,” especially in an introductory course. Three basic themes emerge as their central focus:1.
An emphasis on intuition—separate and explain the principles at work on a common sense, intuitive level before launching into specifics. Underlying ideas are discussed first in general terms, then followed by specific examples that illustrate in more concrete terms how a financial manager might proceed in a given situation.2.
A unified valuation approach—Net Present Value is treated as the basic concept underlying corporate finance. Every subject the authors cover is firmly rooted in valuation, and care is taken to explain how decisions have valuation effects.3.
A managerial focus—Students learn that financial management concerns management. The role of financial manager as decision maker is emphasized and they stress the need for managerial input and judgment.

The Worldly Philosophers or Hug Your Customers

The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers

Author: Robert L Heilbroner

The Worldly Philosophers is a bestselling classic that not only enables us to see more deeply into our history but helps us better understand our own times. In this seventh edition, Robert L. Heilbroner provides a new theme that connects thinkers as diverse as Adam Smith and Karl Marx. The theme is the common focus of their highly varied ideas -- namely, the search to understand how a capitalist society works. It is a focus never more needed than in this age of confusing economic headlines.

In a bold new concluding chapter entitled "The End of the Worldly Philosophy?" Heilbroner reminds us that the word "end" refers to both the purpose and limits of economics. This chapter conveys a concern that today's increasingly "scientific" economics may overlook fundamental social and political issues that are central to economics. Thus, unlike its predecessors, this new edition provides not just an indispensable illumination of our past but a call to action for our future.

Table of Contents:

I	Introduction	13
II	The Economic Revolution	18
III	The Wonderful World of Adam Smith	42
IV	The Gloomy Presentiments of Parson Malthus and David Ricardo	75
V	The Dreams of the Utopian Socialists	105
VI	The Inexorable System of Karl Marx	136
VII	The Victorian World and the Underworld of Economics	170
VIII	The Savage Society of Thorstein Veblen	213
IX	The Heresies of John Maynard Keynes	248
X	The Contradictions of Joseph Schumpeter	288
XI	The End of the Worldly Philosophy?	311
	A Guide to Further Reading	323
	Notes	331
	Index	345

Book review: Mangoes or From Seed To Salad

Hug Your Customers: The Proven Way to Personalize Sales and Achieve Astounding Results

Author: Jack Mitchell

A master of customer service reveals his proven secrets to developing long-lasting relationships and customer loyalty -- by making business personal.

Once a customer, always a friend -- that is the simple philosophy behind Mitchells/Richards, two of the most successful clothing stores in the nation -- and that is why Jack Mitchell, his family, and associates inspire the enduring loyalty and admiration of his customers, including today's top CEOs. Jack's two stores, Richards in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Mitchells in Westport, Connecticut, suit up discerning customers from across the country.

Now for the first time, Jack Mitchell shares the secrets of his family's innovative merchandising and management approach in his book Hug Your Customers.

It's a deceptively simple but winning approach to customer service -- that a relationship is at the heart of every transaction. Jack Mitchells' business philosophy is based on "hugs"-- personal touches such as knowing every customer's name and clothing preferences or handing out free coffee and newspapers on the commuter train platform.

Complete with anecdotes that exemplify outstanding customer service, Hug Your Customers shows how any business can adapt this hugging philosophy to attract great staff, lower marketing costs, and maintain higher gross margins and long-term revenues. At a time when customer service has become the difference between success and failure, Hug Your Customers shows how Jack's one-of-a-kind philosophy brings winning results.

Esquire

Simple but winning approach to customer service.

Matt Lauer

It's all about service! What pleasure buying clothing from people who make you feel like family.

David Komansky

They have been a beacon — and a leader — in developing sincere and deep relationships with clients.

Publishers Weekly

If you work at a Fortune 500 company and live in southern Connecticut or New York's Westchester County (two of Manhattan's most affluent suburbs), chances are you buy your suits at Mitchells (in Westport, Conn.) or Richards (in Greenwich, Conn.). These two independent clothing stores are some of the most successful in the business and outfit CEOs from Chase, GE, IBM, Merrill Lynch and Pepsi. Mitchell, whose father started the business, shares the secret of his success in this unoriginal but cheerful guide to keeping customers happy. Hugging your customers, he says, has nothing to do with being touchy-feely around them and everything to do with offering them over-the-top service. For Mitchell, that means literally offering a customer the coat off your back, if that's the only one left in the store in the customer's size and preferred style and color. It means going to customers' homes to tie their bow ties for big events. It means serving coffee and bagels in the store and giving away hot dogs in the parking lot on summer Saturdays. Some might view this as fawning, but for Mitchell, it's the best way to keep customers coming back. His advice-know your customer, think outside the box, have a "no problem" attitude-is hardly groundbreaking. But those who work with customers daily have much to gain from this chipper, inspiring handbook. Agent, Jacques de Spoelberch. (June) Forecast: Blurbs from media and business high rollers, including Today cohost Matt Lauer, former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt and Merrill Lynch CEO David Komansky, will increase awareness, as will ads in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The CEO of Mitchells/Richards, two of the country's most successful independent clothing stores, here outlines his innovative and successful approach to merchandising and management: hugging, a mind-set that personalizes and saturates every aspect of one's business. Mitchell divides his text into eight sections of four to 11 chapters and concludes each section with a "Hugging Study Guide" that summarizes the highlights one should remember and put into practice. Among these are how to attract and keep great staff, lower marketing costs, maintain higher gross margins and long-term revenues, and adapt Mitchell's ideas to any business. Readers will enjoy Mitchell's numerous anecdotes, and the personable, down-to-earth style allows readers to absorb new ideas easily.-Susan C. Awe, Univ. of New Mexico Lib., Albuquerque Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Hug Your Customers
The CEO of Mitchells/Richards, two of the most successful clothing stores in the business, professes his faith in showering customers with attention while offering numerous tips and techniques for satisfying customers. His secrets for long-term business success include advice about attracting great staff, lowering marketing costs, and maintaining higher gross margins and revenues. Mitchell uses colorful anecdotes from his own experiences to highlight lessons about running a successful family business. Copyright © 2003 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Competing on Analytics or What is Lean Six Sigma

Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning

Author: Thomas H Davenport

You have more information at hand about your business environment than ever before. But are you using it to "out-think" your rivals? If not, you may be missing out on a potent competitive tool.

In Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning, Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris argue that the frontier for using data to make decisions has shifted dramatically. Certain high-performing enterprises are now building their competitive strategies around data-driven insights that in turn generate impressive business results. Their secret weapon? Analytics: sophisticated quantitative and statistical analysis and predictive modeling.

Exemplars of analytics are using new tools to identify their most profitable customers and offer them the right price, to accelerate product innovation, to optimize supply chains, and to identify the true drivers of financial performance. A wealth of examples-from organizations as diverse as Barclay's, Capital One, Harrah's, Procter & Gamble, Wachovia, and the Boston Red Sox-illuminate how to leverage the power of analytics.

Thomas Davenport - Forbes

It's all about looking behind time-honored assumptions and ideas for what makes for good people and testing them instead of going on your intuition and your gut.

The Wall Street Journal

Competing on Analytics is hardly the last word on the matter, but it is a useful primer for a business field that seems likely only to grow in importance.

The Financial Times

...the traditional ways of seeking competitive advantage are redundant and...the future lies with the ability to analyse the very considerable volumes of data it amasses about itself.

CFO.com

That insight [you are searching for] is probably lying inside data you already have or could easily obtain. That's the key premise of Competing on Analytics.

Table of Contents:

Foreword   Gary Loveman     ix
Acknowledgments     xiii
The Nature of Analytical Competition
The Nature of Analytical Competition: Using Analytics to Build a Distinctive Capability     3
What Makes an Analytical Competitor?: Defining the Common Key Attributes of Such Companies     23
Analytics and Business Performance: Transforming the Ability to Compete on Analytics into a Lasting Competitive Advantage     41
Competing on Analytics with Internal Processes: Financial, Manufacturing, R&D, and Human Resource Applications     57
Competing on Analytics with External Processes: Customer and Supplier Applications     83
Building an Analytical Capability
A Road Map to Enhanced Analytical Capabilities: Progressing Through the Five Stages of Development     107
Managing Analytical People: Cultivating the Scarce Ingredient That Makes Analytics Work     131
The Architecture of Business Intelligence: Aligning a Robust Technical Environment with Business Strategies     153
The Future of Analytical Competition: Approaches Driven by Technology, Human Factors, and Business Strategy     175
Notes     187
Index     199
About the Authors     217

Interesting textbook: Nothing to Fear or Never Eat Alone

What is Lean Six Sigma?

Author: Michael L Georg

A quick introduction on how to use Lean Six Sigma toimprove your workplace, meet your goals, andbetter serve your customers.

Lean Six Sigma combines the two most important improvement trends of our time: making work better (using Six Sigma) and making work faster (using Lean principles). In this plain-English guide, you’ll discover how this remarkable quality improvement method can give you the tools to identify and eliminate waste and quality problems in your own work area.

Packed with diagrams, cartoons, and real-life examples, What is Lean Six Sigma? reveals the “four keys” of Lean Six Sigma and how they apply to your own job:

• Delight your customers with speed and quality
• Improve your processes
• Work together for maximum gain
• Base decisions on data and facts

You’ll see the big picture of what your company hopes to gain with Lean Six Sigma, how it may affect your work area, and what it can mean to you personally.

Michael L. George is the founder and CEO of George Group, the largest Lean Six Sigma consulting practice in the United States. He is the author of Lean Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma for Service.

David Rowlands is Vice President of Lean Six Sigma at Xerox Corporation. He's been using Lean and Six Sigma since 1988, and has practical experience working with teams to solve improvement challenges in sales, service, and manufacturing.

Bill Kastle is a Vice President at George Group and has helped guide Lean Six Sigma initiatives at major corporations. For 15 years, he has helped teams at all levels apply these tools toimprove performance and respond to customer needs.

The Art of Possibility or Where Have All the Leaders Gone

The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life

Author: Rosamund Stone Zander

Presenting twelve breakthrough practices for bringing creativity into all human endeavors, The Art of Possibility is the dynamic product of an extraordinary partnership. The Art of Possibility combines Benjamin Zander's experience as conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and his talent as a teacher and communicator with psychotherapist Rosamund Stone Zander's genius for designing innovative paradigms for personal and professional fulfillment.

The authors' harmoniously interwoven perspectives provide a deep sense of the powerful role that the notion of possibility can play in every aspect of life. Through uplifting stories, parables, and personal anecdotes, the Zanders invite us to become passionate communicators, leaders, and performers whose lives radiate possibility into the world.

BusinessWeek

. . . those looking to rethink their lives may find that the Zanders have hit just the right note.

Publishers Weekly

In a lively, sensible manual for turning life's obstacles into possibilities, the Zanders introduce various "tools" for transformation, drawing on their extensive experiences with musicians, students and patients in therapy (Rosamund is a psychotherapist and painter; Benjamin is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic). In a chapter entitled "Giving an A," for example, Benjamin relates a classroom technique that allows students to envision their own futures: all students in his class receive an A if they write him a postdated letter relating "the story of what will have happened to you by next May that is in line with this extraordinary grade." Other chapters emphasize practices such as thinking in terms of making a personal "contribution" rather than stark "success or failure"; "lightening up" in order to see a problem from a new perspective (e.g., a patient of Rosamund's was able to have a sensual experience with her husband even though she was angry at him); and reassessing "frameworks for possibility" (e.g., a teacher shaved her head in order to "reframe the meaning" of a hairless class member who had leukemia). The authors' emphasis on "practice," the importance of "flow" and the joy in creation and expression is apt and often truly inspiring. Although not groundbreaking, the Zanders' suggestions constitute sound, practical advice that has much in common with Zen concepts of holism, balance and grace. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

What People Are Saying

Klaus Schwab
The passionate energy permeating The Art of Possibility is a true force for every reader for self-development and life fulfillment.

Doris Kearns Goodwin
This is a wise, uplifting and important work, a seamless blend of insight and inspiration, personal revelations, and stories drawn from the worlds of art, psychology, business and politices.

Warren Bennis
The Zanders' book of practices has made my life one of the infinite possibility. Each day, since reading it, has been perfect. The implications for corporate and political life are extraordinary.

Margaret J. Weatley
I truly want everyone to read this book-it opens us to the treasures of our great human capacity for creativity.

Interesting textbook: The Millionaire Next Door or Let My People Go Surfing

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Author: Lee Iacocca

The most widely recognized business executive of all time asks the tough questions that America's leaders must address:

What is each of us giving back to our country?

Do we truly love democracy?

Are we too fat and satisfied for our own good?

Why is America addicted to oil?

Do we really care about our children's futures?

Who will save the middle class?

Lee Iacocca believes that leaders are made in times of crisis—such as today. He has known more leaders than almost anybody else—including nine U.S. presidents, many heads of state, CEOs of the nation's top corporations, celebrities, and even a pope—and is uniquely suited to share his wisdom, knowledge, and wit about the leadership of America. Lee Iacocca does not mince words, and in Where Have All the Leaders Gone? he offers his no-nonsense, straight-up assessments of the American politicians most likely to run for president in 2008. He also shares his lessons learned, and issues a call to action to summon Americans back to their roots of hard work, common sense, integrity, generosity, and optimism.

Where have all the leaders gone? Lee Iacocca has the answer.

Sarah Statz Cords - Library Journal

Business icon Lee Iacocca has cultivated a reputation as a straight talker, and he lives up to it in this engaging treatise. Using a lifetime's worth of business examples from Ford (where he was president) and Chrysler (where he was CEO), as well as his charitable endeavors, he makes his case that better leadership is needed to regain America's social and economic greatness. In 21 chapters, arranged somewhat arbitrarily into four sections questioning America's lack of leadership, fragile global relationships, capitalism, and future, Iacocca tackles such broadly ranging subjects as the prospective 2008 presidential candidates, the war in Iraq, our (lack of an) energy policy, globalization's challenges, and his own retirement. His mix of straightforward lists (e.g., nine qualities of leadership) and conversational asides makes for fast reading, although many readers may be surprised by his level of vitriol toward George W. Bush ("the President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies"). His status as an icon of commerce and a best-selling author (Iacocca) demands this book's purchase by all public and corporate libraries, but its lack of sourcing or index may make it an optional purchase for undergraduate libraries.

Library Journal

Iacocca stays upbeat in this assessment of issues like family values, job security, and the Iraq war. With a five-city tour. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments     xi
Where Have All the Leaders Gone?     1
Had enough?     3
People and priorities: It's that simple     15
Can you show me where it's working?     25
Aren't we supposed to be the good guys?     33
How much do we love democracy?     39
Where Have All Our Friends Gone?     57
Will the real leader of the free world please stand up?     59
Meet the coalition of the UNwilling     75
What will we do for oil?     89
Free trade must be fair trade     101
Don't fence me in ... or out     111
Is Capitalism Letting Us Down?     125
Where does all the money go?     127
Will we ever trust corporate America again?     137
Chrysler's lesson: Resist the urge to merge     151
Can anyone around here run a car company?     165
Who will save the middle class?     185
The blame game is killing us     195
Can America Be Great Again?     203
Are we too fat and satisfied for our own good?     205
Bring back brain power     215
Three men who taught me to lead     223
Get off the golf course and DO something     237
2008: A call to action     257
Index     265

Intelligent Investor or First Break All The Rules

Intelligent Investor

Author: Benjamin Graham

More than one million hardcovers sold
Now available for the first time in paperback!

The Classic Text Annotated to Update Graham's Timeless Wisdom for Today's Market Conditions

The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham's philosophy of "value investing" -- which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies -- has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949.

Over the years, market developments have proven the wisdom of Graham's strategies. While preserving the integrity of Graham's original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today's market, draws parallels between Graham's examples and today's financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham's principles.

Vital and indispensable, this HarperBusiness Essentials edition of The Intelligent Investor is the most important book you will ever read on how to reach your financial goals.

Read also Pilates or The Memory Advantage

First, Break All The Rules: What The World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

Author: Marcus Buckingham

In First, Break All the Rules, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman of the Gallup Organization present the remarkable findings of their massive indepth study of great managers.

In today's tight labor markets, companies compete to find and keep the best employees, using pay, benefits, promotions, and training. But no matter how generous its pay, or how renowned its training, the company that lacks great front-line managers will suffer.

Buckingham and Coffman explain how the best managers select an employee for talent rather than for skills or experience; how they set expectations', how they motivate people by building on each person's unique strengths; and, finally, how great managers find the right fit for each person, not the next rung on the ladder.

First, Break All The Rules provides vital performance and career lessons for managers at every level. This audiobook shows you how to apply them to your own situation.

Newsday

If you're a manager wracking your brain for ways to find and retain good people...this book is worth paying attention to.

Miami Herald

Finally, something definitive about what makes a great workplace.

Detroit Free Press

At last, a management book with a huge amount of statistical evidence...the results are eye-popping...this is one of the best, most practical books I've seen on managing.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Breaking All the