Risk Intelligence - How to Live with Uncertainty

The financial industry's invention of complex products such as credit default swaps and other derivatives has been widely blamed for triggering the global financial crisis of 2008. Codes of Finance takes readers behind the scenes of the equity derivatives business at one of the world's leading investment banks before the crisis, providing a detailed firsthand account of the creation, marketing, selling, accounting, and management of these financial instruments--and of how they ultimately created havoc inside and outside the bank.

Vincent Antonin Lépinay, a former employee of the bank, investigates the journey of a derivative through the bank's front, middle, and back offices. In the process, he provides a rare look at the strange world of quants, traders, salespeople, accountants, and others involved in a self-annihilating form of life in which securities designed by the bank eventually threaten its infrastructure. Throughout, he tries to understand the baffling languages of engineered financial products and the often-conflicting bodies of expertise that are mobilized to create them.

Codes of Finance highlights the massive costs of investment banking's hubristic dream of manufacturing global financial services that derive their value from multiple economies across the world. Yet the book challenges simplistic condemnations of financial engineering by showing that derivation is the central operator of economic life--stretching far beyond the phenomenon of financial derivatives themselves.

Essential reading for economic sociologists and financial economists, as well as for readers curious to decipher modern finance, this is the first serious study of the intellectual and organizational puzzles raised by the controversial products of contemporary financial engineering.

In this controversial book a noted adherent of Austrian School of Economics theories advances the thesis that the United States is fast approaching the end stage of the biggest asset bubble in history. He describes how the bursting of the bubble will cause a massive interest rate shock that will send the US consumer economy and the US government—pumped up by massive Treasury debt—into bankruptcy, an event that will send shockwaves throughout the global economy. Michael Pento examines how policies followed by both the Federal Reserve and private industry have contributed to the impending interest rate disaster and highlights the similarities between the US and European debt crisis. But the book isn't all doom and gloom. Pento also provides well-reasoned solutions that, government, industry and individuals can take to insulate themselves against the coming crisis.

• Paints an alarmingly vivid picture of the massive interest rate shock which soon will send consumers and the government into bankruptcy
• Backed by a wealth of historical and economic data, Pento explains how the bubble was created and what the U.S. can do to mitigate the impending crisis
• Provides investors with sound strategies for protecting themselves and their assets against the coming financial apocalypse
• Explains why retirees, in particular, will be at risk as real estate prices decline, pensions weaken, and the bond bubble bursts

Winning at Risk is a primer for senior executives and directors struggling to interpret the growing demands and implications in this field. It includes valuable perspectives on how to address key issues that are pressing in the boardroom. It is the first book to lay out the basic frameworks of risk management, how to navigate new regulation, how to build a sound risk management capability, and how to translate that capability into strategic success.

• A must-have management aid and reference tool for the financial services professional
• Expert coverage of measuring risk, managing risk, integrating risk management into business, and leveraging business excellence through risk
• Written by a respected thought leader in risk management

A major sovereign default crisis is looming for the so-called developed economies of the world. The result will be a major redistribution of economic wealth and an overhaul of the international financial system on an epic scale. Investing in the Age of Sovereign Defaults: How to Preserve your Wealth in the Coming Crisis explains what lies ahead, and offers invaluable suggestions to help investors avoid massive losses.

• Explains why the West is headed for a major default crisis and how investors can protect themselves
• Contends that the value of gold will continue to rise and that sooner or later government debt, including that of the U.S. and Japan, will be shunned
• Written by investment experts Peter Treadway and Michael Wong

The days of the economic status quo are coming to an end. Investing in the Age of Sovereign Defaults shows investors what's coming and what investors must do if they want to escape unscathed.

The financial world is changing; this book shows you how to update your ideas about investing and keep pace

Investing successfully means figuring out where economic value is being created, and then identifying the investment opportunities that result. MoneyShift: How to Prosper From What You Can't Control helps readers do just that. In addition to explaining the epic shifts in global economic momentum that have created a new financial reality for investors in recent years, the book offers readers a guide through new investment opportunities available in both emerging and developed markets.

This book also points out the potential risks and then puts opportunities and risks together in outlining a sensible approach all readers can follow to develop their own investment strategy. Describing the transformation in global economic momentum and explaining why and where the centers of growth have moved, the book explores the new opportunity this change represents and sets realistic expectations for creating wealth through investment.

• Presents a new kind of investment strategy, including investing in your own human capital, while not neglecting advice on how to identify, assess, and manage risk
• Provides navigational tools for financial planning and for making money in a new environment we cannot simply wish or vote away
• Explains how domestic economic problems, the damage done to the financial system, government debt crises around the world, and even changing birth rates and aging populations have wrought a fundamental transformation in how wealth is and is not now created, and that these changes, while challenging, present great investment opportunities for those prepared to seize them

By demonstrating the seismic changes in the economic topography, MoneyShift teaches you how these changes can be turned into an exceptional opportunity for increasing wealth through investing. To put it simply, there is money to be made in what you can't change about the world's economy. This book shows you how.

Everybody knows that a strong dollar equals a strong economy, bonds are safer than stocks, gold is a safe investment and that high PEs signal high risk...right? While such "common-sense" rules of thumb may work for a time as investment strategies, as New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, Ken Fisher, vividly demonstrates in this wise, informative, wholly entertaining new book, they'll always let you down in the long run. Ken exposes some of the most common—and deadly—myths investors swear by, and he demonstrates why the rules-of-thumb approach to investing may be robbing you of the kinds returns you hope for.

• Dubbed by Investment Advisor magazine one of the 30 most influential individuals of the last three decades, Fisher is Chairman, and CEO of a global money management firm with over $32 billion under management
• Fisher's Forbes column, "Portfolio Strategy," has been an extremely popular fixture in Forbes for more than a quarter century thanks to his many high-profile calls
• Brings together the best "bunks" by Wall Street's Master Debunker in a fun, easy-to-digest, bite-size format
• More than just a list of myths, Fisher meticulously explains of why each commonly held belief or strategy is dead wrong and how damaging it can be to your financial health
• Armed with this book, investors can immediately identify major errors they may be committing and adjust their strategies for greater investing success

The Leaderless Economy reveals why international financial cooperation is the only solution to today's global economic crisis. In this timely and important book, Peter Temin and David Vines argue that our current predicament is a catastrophe rivaled only by the Great Depression. Taking an in-depth look at the history of both, they explain what went wrong and why, and demonstrate why international leadership is needed to restore prosperity and prevent future crises.

Temin and Vines argue that the financial collapse of the 1930s was an "end-of-regime crisis" in which the economic leader of the nineteenth century, Great Britain, found itself unable to stem international panic as countries abandoned the gold standard. They trace how John Maynard Keynes struggled for years to identify the causes of the Great Depression, and draw valuable lessons from his intellectual journey. Today we are in the midst of a similar crisis, one in which the regime that led the world economy in the twentieth century--that of the United States--is ending. Temin and Vines show how America emerged from World War II as an economic and military powerhouse, but how deregulation and a lax attitude toward international monetary flows left the nation incapable of reining in an overleveraged financial sector and powerless to contain the 2008 financial panic. Fixed exchange rates in Europe and Asia have exacerbated the problem.

The Leaderless Economy provides a blueprint for how renewed international leadership can bring today's industrial nations back into financial balance--domestically and between each other.

Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into intricate and aesthetically attractive shapes. As such, it is the perfect metaphor for the Wall Street financial engineering model, which ultimately proved to be the underlying cause of the 2008 financial crisis.

In Financial Origami, Brendan Moynihan describes how the Wall Street business model evolved from a method to transfer risk into a method for manufacturing risk. Along the way, this timely book skillfully dissects financial engineering and addresses how it's often a mechanism to evade regulatory constraints, provide institutional investors with customized products, and, of course, generate revenue for financial engineers.

• Reveals how Wall Street's financial engineering business model morphed into something destructive
• Highlights how the origami model worked well in the comparatively stable years of the early 2000s, when there was less risk to transfer
• Discusses how Wall Street began manufacturing risk by creating products that multiplied risk exposures and encouraged subprime lending

Capture stunning macro floral images with this gorgeous guide by acclaimed photographer Harold Davis. You'll learn about different types of flowers, macro equipment basics, and the intricacies of shooting different floral varieties in the field and in the studio.

Harold also shows you techniques in the Photoshop darkroom that can be applied to flower photography to help you get the most out of your images.

Beautiful and authoritative, this guide to photographing flowers is a must-read for every photographer interested in flower photography. Photographing Flowers will also win a place in the hearts of those who simply love striking floral imagery.