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| The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets: How to Keep Your Portfolio Up When the Market is Down (Little Books. Big Profits) | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter D. Schiff
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $10.38
You Save: $9.57 (48%)
New (46) Used (11) from $10.38
Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 35
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 264
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 047038378X
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.6
EAN: 9780470383780
ASIN: 047038378X
Publication Date: October 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The Little Book that helps investors avoid big losses in an economic downturn In the wake of falling stock and real estate prices, the American economy is poised for a decade-long bear market, so says Peter Schiff. After he accurately predicted the current market turmoil, savvy investors should pay attention--and start protecting their assets now, before the markets take their toll. The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets shows investors how to stay safe and stay liquid during economic downturns. Using economic history as a guide, Schiff looks at the bear markets that followed the bull markets of the 1920s and 1960s to predict what the American economy will look like after it corrects for the tech and real estate bubbles of the 1990s and early 2000s. Combining financial, economic, and political perspectives, Schiff looks at what worked in those earlier bear markets and predicts what strategies are most likely to work over the next ten years. In the end, Schiff argues that the next decade will most closely resemble the 1970s, complete with inflation, rising interest rates, and soaring commodity prices. This reversal of trends will make past investment strategies obsolete and pose a challenge for investors trying to build and protect their wealth. Smart investing will always pay off; the key lies in using the best strategies for the market at hand. For investors who see the writing on the wall but don't know what to do about it, The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets offers a timely, critical answer.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Not exactly timely, and not exactly right October 22, 2008
105 out of 121 found this review helpful
I was intrigued by Mr. Schiff's little book purports to pull back the curtain on the invisible erosion of the value of your money, your investments, the U.S. economy and our financial system in general. Let me say first and foremost that Mr. Schiff has a lot of smart things to say. Yes, the Federal Reserve is culpable and careless about its monetarist policy of inflationary increases to the money supply, especially as it helps put more air into asset bubbles (think the housing market). Yes, Americans borrow too much money for consumption that they don't really need. Yes, fiat currency is beholden to the whim of the market.
Schiff also makes some good and useful points that do not often appear in books about investing. First, he tells you how to actually invest in the things he recommends. Granted, he is often hawking his own wares (his company does many of the things he says investors must have, like stocks bought on foreign exchanges and custodial services for precious metals), but he also presents some things I'd never heard of (like GoldMoney.com) that could have some utility, even if you don't buy his argument whole. Second, he gives some guidance for potential career and business choices that stand to benefit from the disasters he sees befalling the U.S. economy. Though I disagree with him on numerous points, I think his efforts here are an important part of any plan that relates to investing--that is, how you get the money you plan to invest--but are generally ignored in most books on the subject.
However, I have some serious problems with this book. Six of them. First, it looks like it was rushed to press to capitalize on the recent market turmoil. I don't think they pushed it to market in the wake of the disastrous first few weeks in October, but when everything was going to hell back in July it looked like Schiff's predictions (ever-higher commodity prices and perpetual dollar weakness) were prescient. There are numerous typographical errors, and the title doesn't really seem to fit with Schiff's premise. These aren't bear-market strategies: this what Schiff thinks everyone should have been doing back when things were swell, and he even says that he said this very thing in a previous book. So while this book has a timely title, I don't think it is as useful as it wants to be.
Second, since July, commodities have been largely in freefall and the U.S. dollar has been the strongest performing developed-market currency, undermining most of Schiff's major points. Now he would say--as I do when my own strategies meet an extended bout of resistance--that this is merely a cyclical change and does not run counter to the secular pattern of surging prices of hard assets and the concomitant decline of the greenback. Still, it is hard to find his claims credible when he trumpets the early-July status as proof that his strategies work--including investing in developed foreign stock markets, whose performance has been in many cases worse than that of the U.S. and has been further savaged by weakness relative to the dollar.
Third, he underestimates or misrepresents exchange-traded funds (ETFs). At one point, Schiff lumps in ETFs with actively managed mutual funds as a bad idea because their sole purpose is to beat the market. Not so, and he even says so later on. Why the inconsistency? At another, he describes how he talked a prospective client out of investing in ETFs (admittedly in favor of paying Schiff to build and manage a custom portfolio) because he couldn't find any to invest in that didn't have large allocations to financial-services companies. True, financial serivces are often large chunks of broad-market ETFs for any country, but writing the entire product line off for that alone is short-sighted at best and self-serving at worst.
Fourth, he really skimps on his foreign-market preferences. Yes, he gives a long list that includes Australia, Singapore, Norway and Switzerland, but the information he offers to buttress his preference is apparently gleaned from the CIA Factbook, which anyone can access for free on the Internet. Why do I need him to regurgitate that? If I'm going to pay for his book, he needs to give me something more than information I can acquire at less cost elsewhere.
Fifth, Schiff says the only way back for the U.S. economy is to return to a production-based economy, one where the U.S. produces goods, not services. (At the same time, he says that the entertainment industry in the U.S. is evergreen.) I think he has something there, but it won't be that we'll start again making cotton underwear and tires. We might eventually, but only once the supply of places where workers will supply labor for less money is exhausted, and we've still got big sections of Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and all of Africa to go through before we get there. We're going to have fulfill the single greatest requirement of any business in a free market: make what people want. Obama thinks that's energy technology. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. The point is that innovation and education are key, not an overpriced industrial base.
Sixth and finally, Schiff's notion of decoupling is debunked by this year's events. His analogy is that the U.S. thinks it is the engine of economic growth in the world, when really it's the caboose. If the rest of the world lets the caboose go, the rest of the train will be able to move faster. True, China and India will have their hands full of production and demand just supplying goods and services for their own populations. But for better or worse, the financial and economic fortunes of the developed and emerging worlds are married, perhaps not happily but married all the same.
In all, I am glad Schiff wrote this book, as it has allowed me to firm up my own ideas about markets and economies. I disagree, but I understand Schiff's strategies as a reaction to real problems. And in his defense, I don't think that investors would necessarily be all that bad off doing what he says. Inflation is a mostly invisible monster, but one that can be tamed. Paul Volcker did it (and Schiff credits him for it), and even feckless Ben Bernanke seems to have some newfound interest in pricking asset bubbles with interest rates and open-market actions. We'll see, but for now I'm sticking with my cheap U.S. stocks and my Treasury inflation-protected securities.
 They laughed at him with his negative outlook several years ago. October 9, 2008
53 out of 54 found this review helpful
Gold, commodities, foreign companies with little exposure to the USA. That is the gist of Peter Schiff's investing recommendations. Why? He's not unpatriotic, but rational in his thinking that the US has lost its way through outsourcing production of goods, and overwhelmingly becoming a country of service oriented personnel. We make nothing, we buy most, and are up to our ears in debt, which will take its toll now and in the future on the dollar. There are several well known "Doctor Dooms" around. Rubini, Jim Rogers, Jim Sinclair, and Peter Schiff. I never thought that I would ever be a bear on the US stock market, until I started reading not only Peter Schiffs books and the others, but books on derivatives and other financial inventions, that could bring markets down entirely, and for a while. Impossible you say? If you think so, you need to read this. The Dow was down again today nearly 700 points. Maria Bartiromo is starting to call this a market crash. I stayed up the whole night reading this book. The writing flows and points are great, except when he recommends that you buy a gun, and learn how to use it- maybe he's correct there too. He's half tongue-in-cheek. He makes one recommendation that he says will make the dot.com bubble look like "warming up", during the next decade. Curious? Ans: gold producer stocks. Great book.
Excellent book October 2, 2008
33 out of 41 found this review helpful
I really recommend this book to anyone who wants to know the truth about the financial situation of this country, and it is really scary.
Peter Schiff explains the situation in a way that it is very easy to understand. He gives possible scenarios of what we can expect to live in this economic collapse and he gives many advices about what we can do to face the new reality of the American economy.
just in time October 12, 2008
33 out of 34 found this review helpful
This book must be flying off the shelves at Amazon's warehouses, and for good reason. It is a welcome diversion to the anger-fear-nausea that has churned within me over the past few weeks and months. This hot-off-the-presses book can guide me in constructive thought and planning.
Will we have deflation or inflation? Schiff believes it will be deflation for big-ticket items typically purchased with debt (dwellings, education); for everything else there will be inflation. The reader should study this book, analyze his reasoning behind his recommendations, and evaluate how (or whether) to apply his strategy. As for me, his words sound spot-on, but I wonder if global markets are sufficiently decoupled for his advice (get out of $US) to be effective right now. On page 136 he states that decoupling is inevitable, but how long will it take to happen? No one really knows the answer to that.
This is written for people at various stages of life: students contemplating education and career choices, mid-career people looking for shelter from the storm, and retirees who want to maintain the best possible lifestyle and health care on fixed funds.
He lists pros and cons of various investment vehicles that can take you to other global markets (ETF, ETN, Mutual Funds, ADR, etc.), and how you may preserve the value of your domestic funds with precious metals and a very select few US investments. You won't find hot stock tips here. Instead Schiff shows you how to approach finding the best regional economies / countries / companies in which to invest, and provides some general directions to start your search.
Lastly, this is not an entirely pessimistic book. (Thank you Mr. Schiff!) I'm not ready to head for a bunker in Mexico with canned food and toilet paper - but he does recommend you stockpile foodstuffs and other essentials at home because inflation will erode your purchasing power. He has (cautious) hope for America, but acknowledges the next decade could get grim. You must be particularly wise now to avoid getting hit by the Destitution Bus. This book, along with much research, reflection, and planning can show you how.
A peek into the future October 10, 2008
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
Another masterpiece from one of the very few economists that get it right year after year. His first book was eye-opening and this one is no different. His ability to put truth above anything distinguishes Mr. Schiff from mainstream media counterparts. If you like to being spoon-fed lies watch Kudlow & Company...if you want the truth, this book is a good place to start.
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