Fool's Gold

The good news is that people today expect to live longer, healthier lives. The bad news is that many of us will not have enough money to retire comfortably. The solution to this problem is wise investment of the wealth we accumulate during our working lives, but the unfortunate truth is that when it comes to investment, many of us don't know where to start.Daniel Goldie and Gordon Murray aim to change the way we think about investing and influence the way we select financial advisors, invest our money and assess the results.In THE INVESTMENT ANSWER they provide readers with the necessary background to make the five key decisions that have a significant impact on the overall investment experience so that they will never again be afraid of financial markets or uncertain about what to do with their money.

Drought has forced farmers around the small town of Bountiful in the Hope region of Oregon to mortgage their property. Then word comes of plans for a spur line to run through the area and join the railroad in nearby Milton. Folks with money see an opportunity to fill their coffers by buying farmland cheap then selling to the railroad for a profit. The Bank of Bountiful, owned by Eli Whitman, appears to be doing that, as well.Widowed two years earlier, Eli, with a son and daughter to raise, sought a hard-working, educated Christian woman to care for them and his home. Olivia Moore filled the bill, and as soon as Eli recognized her as an excellent investment, he offered her first employment then a marriage of convenience.While Olivia is an excellent choice, her large family gives Eli pause. He knows about the problems posed by in-laws, so he will do whatever it takes to avoid a repeat of his earlier experiences.When Papa tells Olivia the Moore family must move according to Eli's terms for the new railroad line, she fears for their safety, since they'll be homeless during winter. Where will they go? How will they survive?It is up to Olivia to convince her husband to renege on his demands, though she swore before their marriage she would stay out of his business.

Goldman Sachs, the premier investment bank in the world, was until recently Wall Street's last major private partnership, and significantly more profitable than any of its publicly owned competitors. How it sustained this success for most of its 129 years has for decades mystified financial players and pundits. Now, in this fascinating and authoritative study, the Goldman Sachs history and mystique are examined in unprecedented depth. Endlich, a former Goldman Sachs vice president with access to all levels of management, traces the rise and development of the firm in the context of its prevailing concept, 'People and Culture.' She documents how close client-contact, teamwork, and focus on long-term profitability over short-term goals brought the firm to a pinnacle of $3 billion pretax profits in 1997. In June 1998 the partners of Goldman Sachs voted to go public, and it made international front-page news. The story of the transformation will continue to attract extensive coverage.

The story begins the day after Labour Day, 2008, when the bottom is about to drop out of the economy. Hedge fund owner John Cutter is freshly divorced and nearly in financial ruin. When he concocts a scheme to redeem himself, he enlists Lehman Brothers investment banker Blake Somerset as an accomplice. Blake is ripe for recruitment given that he too is on the verge of being in dire financial straits given Lehman's decline and imminent bankruptcy. Blake's socialite wife Grigsby is barely aware of her changing world to begin with, and has no idea of what a perilous situation her husband is about to enter into. As autumn unfolds, Grigsby's fairytale life begins to unwind. Meanwhile, John and Blake's scheme comes to light when no-nonsense, street-smart Renee Parker begins her new position as John's executive assistant. Convinced that something is amiss, she enlists her friend Sasha Silver, who is well-connected in the financial world, to help her to decipher what is happening. This story of expulsion from a modern-day Garden of Eden captures what happens when lives that were only designed to acquire more suddenly face the prospect of a great deal less.

In Khartoum the trumpeters, layers of red sand glittering on their faces, are posted at each corner of the palace roof. Trapped between the desert and the Jihad, oblivious to the heat and the impending dust storm, General Gordon is waiting, hopelessly, for Wolseley's camel corps to cross the shimmering land and rescue him. He begins to hallucinate betrayals and beheadings; unwittingly he is about to touch and change lives far beyond his own including those of a London doctor, John Clark and his wife Mary, and especially the young boy from the English dockyard slums who now stands beside him, his reluctant last ally.

Far more than an anthology, FOR KING AND COUNTRY is Brian MacArthur's attempt to write a history of the First World War by drawing on the writings of those who were present at the events they describe. Those writings will be drawn from a broad range of sources: from, most obviously, the officers and men who served on the western front at the Somme and elsewhere, accounts of fear and tedium, horror and occasional joy; also from those were left behind on the home front to wait for news of their loved ones.As well as letters, diary entries and memoir extracts, the book will also include the songs sung in the trenches by the men at the front; there are poems too, the less well known alongside the familiar. The material reproduced will be linked by Brian MacArthur's commentary and notes to create a seamless and movingly immediate narrative of the First World War.

In 2001, a stranger from Texas descended upon the high-stakes poker room at the world famous Bellagio in Las Vegas and challenged some of the best poker players in the world. At the start, the stranger and one opponent each brought $1 million to the table, betting $10,000 and $20,000 per hand. But after warming up at those stakes, the Stranger, a self made millionaire by the name of Andy Beal, wanted to play even higher....And so began what would become the richest poker game in history. In order to play at such high stakes, the top ten poker professionals in the world had to form "The Corporation" to pool their money and keep playing against Andy Beal and his seemingly limitless bank account. The result was a series of seven games, culminating in October 2003 with a jackpot of over $20 million dollars.But THE PROFESSOR, THE BANKER, AND THE SUICIDE KING is more than just about a few hands of poker. It is a story of outsize egos, appetites, and ambitions; it is a story about the highest echelons of poker playing that very few are able to see; it is a story about one man, twenty million dollars, and one of the most exciting poker games in history.

Whether you're a professional investor or just want to trade like one, Buy High, Sell Higher will show you how to pick winners, maximize gains and minimize losses...In this book, you'll learn how a stock's price is just the beginning of the story, and that other indicators like moving averages and volume can help you to spot stocks that have momentum. You'll also learn how to determine the optimal moment to buy a stock, when to sell it, how to protect yourself against sudden reversals in the market, and how to capitalize on moments when other investors are retreating.What's the best month to buy tech stocks? To sell an energy asset? And what is the one-day of the year that you should never, ever trade on? Answers to these and other questions are just some of the insights that Joe Terranova shares in Buy High, Sell Higher. Terranova is a series regular on CNBC's Fast Money and the Chief Market Strategist for Virtus Investment Partners, a firm with over $25 billion in assets under management. Prior to joining Virtus, he spent 18 years at MBF Clearing Corp., where he was the director of trading and managed more than 300 traders. And as viewers of CNBC's Fast Money know, Joe is a master at demystifying the forces that drive today's markets. So why not let him show you how to use telltale signs to spot investments that are poised for lift-off.