Dimensions
135 x 203 x 17mm
Most savvy investors know that they should pay attention to economic indicators if they want to make the best possible investment decisions. However, while they're looking at conventional indicators like unemployment rate and housing starts, smart investors are looking at a range of other indicators that are helping them beat the market. In THE WALL STREET JOURNAL GUIDE TO THE 50 ECONOMIC INDICATORS THAT REALLY MATTER, Simon Constable and Robert Wright provide an entertaining guide to the indicators that you aren't following -- but should be. From the VIX index (which tracks level anxiety among investors) to the Vixen index (which tracks the number of attractive waitresses in your hometown), these sometimes curious, but always interesting, indicators can help you understand how get an unfair edge over other investors by having a better sense of where the economy is -- and where it's going.
This book -- a personal finance book probably unlike any you've ever read -- includes introductory and concluding chapters and a body comprised of 4-page descriptions of 50 economic indicators, the data that economists use to predict changes in the economy's direction, and that investors use to make savvy decisions. The entries are technically correct but presented in prose designed to entertain and train the brain, titillate and stimulate the senses, and outrage and engage the emotions. Each indicator includes an analysis of what to watch for, what to do when movement happens, the risk level involved in taking action, and the profit possibility. Just a few of these indicators are:
The Big Mac spread: An indicator that explores what different currencies, like the Japanese Yen or the British pound, would be worth if a Big Mac burger cost the same in every country.
The Crack spread: Neither about drugs nor about construction workers, this tracks refinery profitabilty.
The Baltic Dry index: This indicator tracks the cost of moving freight along 20 key shipping lanes around the globe -- something that, ironically, involves a lot of water travel.
The book appears just in time to give cautious investors the confidence to re-enter the markets as the world economy emerges from the shadows of the worst financial crisis and economic downturn since the 1930s. It will also help investors to foresee the next downturn before it hits, giving them time to move into safer investments before crisis again steals away years of gains. The title not only appeals to the self-help investor who no longer trusts stockbrokers, but also to the trivia seeker, beginning students of economics and veteran investors alike.
