Biggs frets that the potential for making big money in hedge funds distorts young guys’ minds. “There is a whole legion of young hedge-fund wannabes who drift from one big hedge fund to another as analysts or traders, always waiting for the break that will get them a spot where they can actually pull the trigger and run some capital.”

What they want is to run their own fund, but first they would need to raise capital, he reminds.

The author cautions eager investors that e-mails can become ‘huge distractions and time wasters’. Also, “Staring at Bloomberg screens is not productive for thinking.” Instead, you can go through an incredible amount of research in an hour, without interruptions, says Biggs. This is how: “We have a reading room, almost a library, in our office. Good light, reasonably comfortable chairs, no phones, no chatting of any kind allowed… Nevertheless, the most productive reading time in my day is the 85 minutes on the commuter train.”

As an investor, you have to dominate your intellectual intake environment and not let the outside world control you, he counsels. “You have to be adamant that you make the choice of who accesses you and not be at the mercy of others.”

Enlightening read.

To attract money, you must focus on wealth, says Rhonda Byrne in ‘The Secret’ ( www.crosswordbookstores.com). You must focus, not on the lack of money, but its abundance, she instructs.

“You have to emit a new signal with your thoughts, and those thoughts should be that you currently have more than enough. You really do need to call your imagination into play and make believe you already have the money you want.”

Strange it may sound, but thoughts can help wealth to flow into your life, Byrne assures. “The only reason any person does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their thoughts. Every negative thought, feeling, or emotion is blocking your good from coming to you, and that includes money.”

If you harbour thoughts such as ‘I have to work really hard and struggle to have money’, get rid of them fast, urges the author. Follow the wisdom of financial strategist Loral Langemeier, she says: replace the thoughts with ‘Money comes easily and frequently’. In the beginning it feels like a lie, concedes Langemeier. “There is a part of your brain that will say, ‘Oh you liar, it’s hard.’ So you have to know it’s this little tennis match that will go on for a while.’”

Tactics worth trying out!

Unreliable measure

Shareholder return is the right measure of performance, right? Wrong, says Jeffrey Pfeffer in ‘What Were They Thinking?’ ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com ).

“Companies and their leaders are obsessed with pleasing the financial markets and delivering, over increasingly brief time periods, the holy grail of corporate performance: total shareholder return (TSR),” he laments. “This is true even if the companies don’t need to raise money from the capital markets, so in theory their short-run stock price should not matter.”

The author is of the view that TSR doesn’t measure up ‘by the criteria by which measures of anything are conventionally evaluated’. For instance, the reliability criterion, that when you measure the same thing repeatedly, the measures should be consistent over time.

“Shareholder returns are incredibly uncorrelated from one period to the next,” notes Pfeffer. “Moreover, over the short term, too many exogenous factors, ranging from investor sentiment to general industry trends, affect stock prices for them to provide much insight into the quality of a company’s management.”

Wealth of wisdom.

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