Capital Ideas Evolving

by Peter L. Bernstein

Book Overview

"A lot has happened in the financial markets since 1992, when Peter Bernstein wrote his seminal Capital Ideas. Happily, Peter has taken up his facile pen again to describe these changes, a virtual revolution in the practice of investing that relies heavily on complex mathematics, derivatives, hedging, and hyperactive trading. This fine and eminently readable book is unlikely to be surpassed as the definitive chronicle of a truly historic era." --...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471731730
• ISBN13: 9780471731733
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 282 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Capital Ideas Evolving

This was not an easy read, but it was worth it. I received my MBA in 1976. Much of this book was an explanation of the effects of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) on current investment practices. He assumes that the reader is well versed with the intricacies of CAPM. I had to go back to other sources to review CAPM, but once I did, the book was a great explanation of how CAPM and other academic innovations have had a practical effect on portfolio management. When I finished the book, I had to admit that I was not able to apply much to my personal portfolio management, but I have a much better understanding of what my pension plan administrator is thinking about as well as what certain mutual funds managers are doing. The book is more beneficial for the professional investor than the individual investor.

Accessible explanation of the foundations of finance

In the early 1950s, graduate student Harry Markowitz presented his Ph.D. dissertation to the University of Chicago economics department. The response was less than encouraging. "This isn't a dissertation in economics," Milton Friedman told Markowitz. "It's not math, it's not economics, it's not even business administration." Whatever it was, Markowitz's heterodox theory of portfolio selection changed finance forever and earned a Nobel Prize. Financial historian and investment manager Peter L. Bernstein humanizes his saga of great shifts in financial theory by organizing it around eminent thinkers (Markowitz, Myron Scholes, Franco Modigliani, Robert Merton, Bill Sharpe and others, if you ever want to look up a finance guru). Deepening his analysis with insights from "behavioral finance," Bernstein describes how these innovators generated and extended the now-orthodox "capital ideas" of portfolio selection, capital structure, the Capital Asset Pricing Model, the efficient market hypothesis and the Black-Scholes-Merton theory of option pricing. Bernstein's erudition is dazzling, his explanations pellucid and his narrative filled with scintillating characters. getAbstract doesn't need to hedge: you'll find this overview of current finance theory and practice brilliant, even if you don't know your alpha from alfalfa.

Unique and sunsurpassed.

I have recommended this and his previous book for finance graduate students at the University of Maryland.