Book summaries
The models, without the anecdotes
Each summary states the book's central mechanism, what it implies for a portfolio, where the argument is weak, and whether it is worth the full read.
When Genius Failed
Roger Lowenstein
Roger Lowenstein on leverage, correlation and humility
LTCM had the models, the Nobel laureates and the funding lines. What it did not have was a scenario where every uncorrelated trade became one trade. A permanent lesson on position sizing.
Expectations Investing
Alfred Rappaport & Michael Mauboussin
Rappaport & Mauboussin on reading the price backwards
Instead of forecasting a company and comparing to price, start from price and solve for the expectations it embeds. It turns valuation from a prediction exercise into a falsifiable question.
The Price of Time
Edward Chancellor
Edward Chancellor on what interest rates actually do
Interest is not a policy dial, it is the price that allocates capital across time. Chancellor traces what breaks when that price is suppressed: zombie firms, asset inflation, and a savings class quietly expropriated.
The Changing World Order
Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio on the long debt cycle and the rise and fall of empires
Dalio compresses 500 years of financial history into one mechanical model: productivity grows slowly, debt grows fast, and the gap between them is settled by inflation, default or war. A framework for positioning across decades, not quarters.