Moods and Markets: A New Way to Invest in Good Times and in Bad, Rough Cuts

Description

This is the Rough Cut version of the printed book.

Leading consultant and Minyanville contributor Peter Atwater has helped institutional investors, corporations and policymakers map changing social moods to emerging market shifts, and use that knowledge to identify huge new market opportunities.  Now, Atwater shows you how to use the same powerful Horizon PreferenceTM approach to select your own high-performance investments.   Utilizing what is often in plain sight, but overlooked and underestimated, Horizon Preference helps you understand how we narrow our physical, time and relationship horizons to the "local" in bad times, and widen them to the "global" in better times – and then translate that knowledge into better investment decisions.  Atwater’s Moods and Markets offers powerful new insights into everything from market bubbles to the real challenges of making mergers work… why "farm to table" and "locavore" movements are booming now, and what’s likely to happen next… why Americans now want to rent homes even though it’s become far more affordable to buy them… why the "Arab Spring" is bullish, and higher education is in deep trouble… which businesses prosper in a downturn, which prosper most in an upturn – and why. This book will be an invaluable resource for every serious investor, trader, and money manager.

Sample Content

Table of Contents

Foreword     xix

Introduction     1

Chapter 1 Understanding Social Mood     11

Mood Defined     12

Mood Versus Emotion     14

Confidence and Our Perceptions of Certainty     15

The Continuum of Social Mood     20

Individual Versus Social Mood     24

Measuring Mood     25

Social Mood and the Media     28

Mood Groups     31

Final Thoughts     32

Chapter 2 Horizon Preference: How Mood Affects Our Decision Making     33

The Horizon Preference Continuum     35

Logical Decision Making in Periods of Rising Social Mood     39

Logical Decision Making in Periods of Falling Social Mood     45

Opportunities During Declining Social Mood     50

Final Thoughts     52

Chapter 3 Market Peaks and All the Red Flags They Wave     55

The Concept Stock Bubble     56

Big Truths     58

Abdication of Risk Management     59

Organizational Complexity     61

Novice and Naïve Entrants     62

Credit, Architecture, and Other Signs of the Top     63

Why Investment Peaks Are Different     68

After the Peak     70

Final Thoughts     71

Chapter 4 A Social Mood Journey Back Through the Housing Bubble    73

Modern Housing Finance     75

A Big Truth     78

Abdication of Risk Management     78

Organizational Complexity     80

Novice and Naïve Entrants     82

Excessive Credit and Architecture     83

Final Thoughts     84

Chapter 5 Is Higher Education a Bubble?     85

A Big Truth     85

Abdication of Risk Management     88

Organizational Complexity     91

Naïve and Novice Participants     91

Excessive Credit     92

Architecture     93

Final Thoughts     95

Chapter 6 Signs of a Bottom in Social Mood     99

Extreme “Me, Here, Now” Be

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