The title, Invest Like a Fox… Not Like a Hedgehog, actually comes from a book analyzing politicians and experts, Expert Political Judgment by Philip Tetlock. It labels hedgehogs as those who memorize rules and strategies but do not adapt them to changing circumstances. A hedgehog can be very successful if he happens to be investing in a period when the rules he memorized are consistent with the market environment. But the hedgehog will be unsuccessful at other times. Foxes are more flexible and dynamic, always looking for new ideas. A fox is more likely to be successful, since he always is adapting to changing circumstances. This book will also discuss the Bayesian Theory of Thomas Bayes and how it makes one a better investor. This book will analyze popular investment strategies. Then, it will explain the better approach that Carlson has used successfully in his newsletter. This title will appeal to the many people who have realized that the investment theories of the 1980s and 1990s do not work any more.
Book Details:
- Author: Robert C. Carlson
- ISBN: 9780470126332
- Year Published: 2007
- Pages: 256
- BISAC: BUS036000, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS/Investments & Securities / General
About the Book and Topic:
The title, Invest Like a Fox… Not Like a Hedgehog, actually comes from a book analyzing politicians and experts, Expert Political Judgment by Philip Tetlock. It labels hedgehogs as those who memorize rules and strategies but do not adapt them to changing circumstances. A hedgehog can be very successful if he happens to be investing in a period when the rules he memorized are consistent with the market environment. But the hedgehog will be unsuccessful at other times. Foxes are more flexible and dynamic, always looking for new ideas. A fox is more likely to be successful, since he always is adapting to changing circumstances. This book will also discuss the Bayesian Theory of Thomas Bayes and how it makes one a better investor. This book will analyze popular investment strategies. Then, it will explain the better approach that Carlson has used successfully in his newsletter. This title will appeal to the many people who have realized that the investment theories of the 1980s and 1990s do not work any more.
Decision makers have been classified as foxes or hedgehogs at least as far back as ancient Greece. Philosopher Isaiah Berlin used the labels, and more recently Philip Tetlock revived them in his study of forecasters. Hedgehogs have single, unified views of the world. Foxes use eclectic sources for their decisions and accept ambiguity and contradiction as inevitable. Hedgehogs are wrong more often, and often badly wrong. Investors need to be foxes, because they cannot afford major losses. Investors need to adapt to changing circumstances. Foxes can do that; hedgehogs cannot. Most investment strategies are developed by hedgehogs. That is why most investors are in what author Bob Carlson calls the 7% club and earn much lower investment returns than they should while taking more risk than they realize.
SOLID AUTHOR PLATFORM: Carlsons newsletter will have more than 10,000 paying print subscribers and 1,500 email subscribers. AUTHOR BLOG: Carlson maintains a blog (BobCarlson.net) which generally gets a few hundred hits each day. WELL-RESPECTED BY MEDIA: Carlsons opinions are frequently sought by the media and he has been interviewed and quoted in many publications including The Wall Street Journal, Readers Digest, Barrons, AARP Bulletin, Money, Worth, Kiplingers Personal Finance, The Washington Post and many more. Carlson has also been booked on a number of radio shows, many of them nationally syndicated.
About the Author
Robert C. Carlson (Fairfax, VA) is editor of the monthly newsletter, Retirement Watch. He also is the managing member of Carlson Wealth Advisors, L.L.C. Carlson is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Fairfax County Employees’ Retirement System, which has over $2.4 billion in assets, and was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Virginia Retirement System, which oversees $42 billion in assets, from 2001-2005. Carlson has strong ties with the media from the previous books and reports that he has written in the past few years. He also has been interviewed by or quoted in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Reader’s Digest, Barron’s, AARP Bulletin, Money, Worth, Kiplingers Personal Finance, The Washington Post, and many others. He has appeared on national television and on a number of radio programs. He is past editor of Tax Wise Money.