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Clash of the Financial Pundits: How the Media Influences Your Investment Decisions for Better or Worse
There is no shortage of financial advice these days. From cocky cable pundits to nattering news columnists to off-grid online bloggers, there are more so-called experts than ever before--and the noise can be downright deafening. This no-bull, bottom-line guide from "The Reformed Broker" Josh Brown and Yahoo Finance's Jeff Macke will help you cut through the cacophony and make the most of today's media news. It's an eye-opening crash course in separating financial facts from fiction―featuring interviews with some of the world’s most influential investors, JIM CRAMER ( Mad Money ) takes you behind the scenes of his polarizing TV program--and talks about his clash with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. HENRY BLODGET (Business Insider) shares anecdotes about tangling with Eliot Spitzer, covering the Martha Stewart trial, and launching his Business Insider site as a "marked man." BEN STEIN ( Win Ben Stein's Money ) reveals how he really feels about Bernanke, Bogle, Buffett, and bailouts. KAREN FINERMAN (CNBC's Fast Money ) exposes the hype behind the headlines―and the "show biz" demands on television news pundits. HERB GREENBERG (TheStreet.com) explains why investors need to follow social media, where the "real" news is disseminated. BARRY RITHOLTZ ( Bailout Nation ) reveals his secret for "watching" financial TV. You'll also find invaluable insights from the original father of financial TV, Jim Rogers, and from James Altucher, the most shockingly honest commentator in the history of the medium. And you'll get a front-row seat for the processing and packaging of the news and learn everything you need to know about the talking heads who shape each day's narrative. Up-close. In-depth. All-true. Clash of the Financial Pundits is the one guide that will change the way you look at markets and investing forever. PRAISE FOR JOSH BROWN'S BACKSTAGE WALL STREET "Much like Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker captured the essence of 1980s institutional Wall Street, Brown's Backstage Wall Street re-creates the boiler room retail brokerage culture of the 1990s and early 2000s in vivid color." -- FORBES "Joshua Brown may be the funniest writer on finance today, but Backstage Wall Street could make you cry more than laugh. The buffoons, manipulators, and incompetents Brown parades before us are the stewards of our retirement accounts." -- BARRON'S "Run don't walk to read Brown's chronicles of deception [perpetrated by] those wonderful folks on Wall Street, who nearly bankrupted the world's financial system a few short years ago." -- DOUGLAS A. KASS, Seabreeze Partners Management, Inc.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published February 14, 2014
16 people are currently reading
147 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 12, 2015
Unfocused, no central conceit, no nothing. Just a random mish-mash of stuff thrown together. That a third of it is interesting keeps this from one-star land.
Overall, this book was so bad that it made me wonder why I liked Josh's first book so much.
Overall, this book was so bad that it made me wonder why I liked Josh's first book so much.
August 3, 2014
Pathetic. Avoid the book. I read it after i saw fellow readers giving nearly 4 stars. Dumped the book after 100 pages.
There is no knowledge to be gained after reading this.
There is no knowledge to be gained after reading this.
September 22, 2022
It's a nice book, for sure. The biggest pro is that it is a conglomeration of multiple personalities, all falling under the banner of "pundit" (or at least the latter part; the first few ones are those who have opinions about pundits). Forecasters, journalists, hedge fund types, media types. The book even ends with the personal account of the author himself - and his seminal moment. With all the chapters being compelling, the strongest section is probably the author's own chapter.
Having said that, I felt throughout reading the book that I wasn't reading a book, but rather a series of blogs. Good blogs, mind, but blogs nonetheless. What I mean is that I didn't feel a narrative forming throughout the book. Sure, they were all pundits, and their individual stories were interesting, but each chapter didn't necessarily tie in with the next. It was funny to read about a pundit describing his life story in one chapter, then another lambasting the same pundit a few chapters later. But I had to gain pleasure doing that - rather than the book naturally leading me to each chapter.
Still a book I would recommend for its compendium-like quality. Maybe even worth reading a chapter randomly.
Having said that, I felt throughout reading the book that I wasn't reading a book, but rather a series of blogs. Good blogs, mind, but blogs nonetheless. What I mean is that I didn't feel a narrative forming throughout the book. Sure, they were all pundits, and their individual stories were interesting, but each chapter didn't necessarily tie in with the next. It was funny to read about a pundit describing his life story in one chapter, then another lambasting the same pundit a few chapters later. But I had to gain pleasure doing that - rather than the book naturally leading me to each chapter.
Still a book I would recommend for its compendium-like quality. Maybe even worth reading a chapter randomly.
April 10, 2018
If you’re a viewer of CNBC, you’ll recognize the cast of characters interviewed in this book and you’ll recognize the intelligence of Josh Brown in the interleaved essays between the interviews. Insightful. More so than what is portrayed on air sometimes.
December 4, 2014
There are a great many investors who hang on every word and utterance of financial pundits who seem to never be off our television screens. If that is not enough, they are filling our newspapers and social media feeds with their insightful pearls of wisdom.
No doubt this plays on the relative insecurity of investors too, utilising the herd mentality to the full. If a pundit on a certain channel says something it must be true, mustn't it? Then the echo starts to be amplified and there is safety in numbers. How to sort the wheat from the chaff is a very good question yet something you might not necessarily succeed in doing. The authors set out to help you achieve this nirvana but it is possible that they have got caught up along the way and started to believe their own hype.
This was an interesting book but did it manage to keep the reviewer's interest? This is debatable thanks to the overlong use of directly quoted interviews between the authors and pundits. The chats tended to be less focussed and rather hard-going, the reward not being necessarily worth the investment and sacrifice. Yet the authors manage to weave in a lot of great historical background facts and nuggets of information, leaving the extended interviews to feel a bit like unnecessary filling material.
We live in exciting, changing times. It is easier than ever to access investment-grade information and a lot cheaper too. Is this a double-headed serpent, however, since there is a lot more information available to a much wider audience, all of whom are fighting towards the same goal. For every winner there must be a loser or two to balance things up. The authors and their interview subjects take no prisoners and are quite offensive towards business schools, the media, the markets and the key players. Everyone gets a coating. Of course, a lot of this is deserved: it might just be a question of how much ire should be directed to what outlet and why.
It was difficult to come to a final conclusion about this book. In one way it feels a bit overpriced for a range of fine anecdotes and observations, yet on the other hand it is not exactly that expensive and it is already being heavily discounted by various online vendors. It won't make you necessarily a better, more informed investor but it might make a more reactive, cynical investor. Maybe that is the same in any case, it is just a matter of labelling. However this book is interesting to more than just the investment community and it could ba an interesting read genrally if you fancy something a little different. Unless you are particularly turned to the individual interview subjects you mind find yourself skipping large chunks of them. The main, edited text is more better and in greater focus anyway.
A tough call. For this reviewer the book has sufficiently different, interesting material to make it a worthwhile read. Your mileage may vary so you may end up either very pleased or very disappointed with it. There is no real middle ground.
Clash of the Financial Pundits, written by Joshua M. Brown & Jeff Macke and published by McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 9780071817929, 256 pages. YYYY.
No doubt this plays on the relative insecurity of investors too, utilising the herd mentality to the full. If a pundit on a certain channel says something it must be true, mustn't it? Then the echo starts to be amplified and there is safety in numbers. How to sort the wheat from the chaff is a very good question yet something you might not necessarily succeed in doing. The authors set out to help you achieve this nirvana but it is possible that they have got caught up along the way and started to believe their own hype.
This was an interesting book but did it manage to keep the reviewer's interest? This is debatable thanks to the overlong use of directly quoted interviews between the authors and pundits. The chats tended to be less focussed and rather hard-going, the reward not being necessarily worth the investment and sacrifice. Yet the authors manage to weave in a lot of great historical background facts and nuggets of information, leaving the extended interviews to feel a bit like unnecessary filling material.
We live in exciting, changing times. It is easier than ever to access investment-grade information and a lot cheaper too. Is this a double-headed serpent, however, since there is a lot more information available to a much wider audience, all of whom are fighting towards the same goal. For every winner there must be a loser or two to balance things up. The authors and their interview subjects take no prisoners and are quite offensive towards business schools, the media, the markets and the key players. Everyone gets a coating. Of course, a lot of this is deserved: it might just be a question of how much ire should be directed to what outlet and why.
It was difficult to come to a final conclusion about this book. In one way it feels a bit overpriced for a range of fine anecdotes and observations, yet on the other hand it is not exactly that expensive and it is already being heavily discounted by various online vendors. It won't make you necessarily a better, more informed investor but it might make a more reactive, cynical investor. Maybe that is the same in any case, it is just a matter of labelling. However this book is interesting to more than just the investment community and it could ba an interesting read genrally if you fancy something a little different. Unless you are particularly turned to the individual interview subjects you mind find yourself skipping large chunks of them. The main, edited text is more better and in greater focus anyway.
A tough call. For this reviewer the book has sufficiently different, interesting material to make it a worthwhile read. Your mileage may vary so you may end up either very pleased or very disappointed with it. There is no real middle ground.
Clash of the Financial Pundits, written by Joshua M. Brown & Jeff Macke and published by McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 9780071817929, 256 pages. YYYY.
May 21, 2014
This was a book that took a while to hook me. The confusion at the beginning of the book may have been a device to draw you into the turmoil Armand experiences when he feels like he is in the middle of a play but no one gave him the script. He has partial amnesia thanks to being shot. How this injury fits into the mysteries he is trying to unwind only becomes clear much later in the book.
Armand has returned home to help with the settling of his recently deceased grandfather's estate. To say there are skeletons in this closet would be an understatement. It's a virtual cemetary of skeletons. Interwoven into the mystery is Armand's first love and his family. No one, except perhaps one character is all black or white. Law enforcement, organized crime, sexual slavery, murders and mayhem are swirl around the story.
By the final quarter of the book, it was hard to put it down. It had a very exciting finish and a fitting denouement. I would recommend this book and happily would read other stories about these characters.
Armand has returned home to help with the settling of his recently deceased grandfather's estate. To say there are skeletons in this closet would be an understatement. It's a virtual cemetary of skeletons. Interwoven into the mystery is Armand's first love and his family. No one, except perhaps one character is all black or white. Law enforcement, organized crime, sexual slavery, murders and mayhem are swirl around the story.
By the final quarter of the book, it was hard to put it down. It had a very exciting finish and a fitting denouement. I would recommend this book and happily would read other stories about these characters.
February 14, 2018
I was extremely disappointed in the content of this book. Josh Brown is an amazing analyst and his blog so insightful. What he provided in this book was nothing short of useless. It was a lot of recall that I didn’t find educational or entertaining at all to read. Jeff Macke provided interviews that disclosed nothing of relevance. There were a lot of boring and ridiculous questions. I’m not sure why he was even included on the cover of the book. I hope Josh Brown remains an analyst and not a writer.
August 4, 2015
Ok-ish...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews