When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change | 
| Author: Mohamed El-erian
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
List Price: $27.95
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Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 1361
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0071592814
Dewey Decimal Number: 381.101
EAN: 9780071592819
ASIN: 0071592814
Publication Date: May 23, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
SELECTED AS A 2008 BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST. "ONE OF THE SMARTEST INVESTORS ON THE PLANET."--MONEY MAGAZINE. . �This book is an essential read for those who. wish to understand the modern world of investing.�.
�Alan Greenspan . . . Winner of the 2008 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award When Markets Collide is a timely alert to the fundamental changes taking place in today's global economic and financial systems--and a call to action for investors who may fall victim to misinterpreting important signals. While some have tended to view asset class mispricings as mere �noise,� this compelling book shows why they are important signals of opportunities and risks that will shape the market for years to come. One of today's most respected names in finance, Mohamed El-Erian puts recent events in their proper context, giving you the tools that can help you interpret the markets, benefit from global economic change, and navigate the risks. . . The world economy is in the midst of a series of hand-offs. Global growth is now being heavily influenced by nations that previously had little or no systemic influence. Former debtor nations are building unforeseen wealth and, thus, enjoying unprecedented influence and facing unusual challenges. And new derivative products have changed the behavior of many market segments and players. Yet, despite all these changes, the system's infrastructure is yet to be upgraded to reflect the realities of today's and tomorrow's world. El-Erian investigates the underlying drivers of global change to shed light on how you should: . . . . - Think about the new opportunities and risks.
- Construct an appropriately diversified and internationalized portfolio.
- Protect your portfolio against new sources of systemic risk.
- Best think about the impact of central banks and financial policies around the world
. . Offering up predictions of future developments, El-Erian directs his focus to help you capitalize on the new financial landscape, while limiting exposure to new risk configurations. . . When Markets Collide is a unique collection of books for investors and policy makers around the world. In addition to providing a thorough analysis and clear perspective of recent events, it lays down a detailed map for navigating your way through an otherwise perplexing new economic landscape. .
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| Customer Reviews: Read 37 more reviews...
 Timely Book on The Impact of Global Economic Change on Investing June 15, 2008
S. F. Woit (Lexington, MA USA)
104 out of 123 found this review helpful
If you find the present global economic situation to be confusing and filled with conflicting signals and noise, this excellent book by Mohamed El-Erian, the CEO of PIMCO and the former President of the Harvard Management Company where he managed Harvard's $35 billion endowment, should be on your reading list.
El-Erian brings a unique perspective to the task of separating the signal from the noise in today's volatile global markets. Having spent 15 years at the International Monetary Fund and the rest of his career in the trenches in emerging market research and investment at leading investment banks, he has a deep understanding of both the public policy side and the realities of global investing.
His premise could not be more timely: Global markets are undergoing profound changes and the present turmoil is neither the beginning nor the end of the transformation that is shaking up investors around the world. This bumpy process is nothing less than the collision of markets in which the markets of yesterday collide with those of tomorrow
The book offers analytical anchors for identifying the key elements of what, for some, have become key drivers in an unusually fluid environment. In addition to offering targeted, well written, explanations of some of the key sources of confusion and dislocation (U.S. national debt, new sovereign wealth funds and emerging, developing countries now funding the debt of the developed nations), El-Erian also provides some invaluable advice for personal investors.
Given his contention that most U.S. investors have not fully grasped the impact of the changes going on in global markets and the impact of higher commodity prices and shift to accelerating inflationary trends around the world, he provides a new sample asset allocation model for correcting some of the imbalances in most U.S. investors' portfolios.
His asset allocation table on pg. 198 provides an illustrative neutral asset mix for long term investors that is well worth the cover price of this book and was featured recently in an excellent article and interview in Barron's in the June 2, 2008 issue.
His writing style is fluid and command of the material impressive. Like most great authors and thinkers, he will have you challenging your present views and investment positions. This book is an outstanding companion to Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment by David Swensen on the personal investment front and The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan on the public policy front.
In addition to raising the big issues, El-Erian provides a clear action plan for both investors and policy makers, a truly outstanding achievement in a field where leaders are too often focused on selling investment products rather than educating the investment public on the changes in global economic conditions.
 My Worst Investment in a Long Time August 23, 2008
T. Bojko (New York/ Tokyo)
97 out of 110 found this review helpful
This book was awful. Part of the problem is that the author couldn't decide who his audience was and, as such, probably bored the pants off finance people and left regular folk scratching their heads at his absurdly opaque writing "style".
A couple quick points if you are considering buying this book:
1. It you read the newspaper most days, are reasonably intelligent and realize there is a big world with lotsa money beyond America's shores, this book will give you no new information on "when markets collide".
2. If you have some (I mean A MINIMAL AMOUNT) of investment knowledge, you will be painfully disappointed by the lame chapter on how to profit from future "collisions". Really, the author just lays out a pretty mundane asset allocation plan (which is available for free on any number of websites) and then fills a couple dozen pages with worthless blather. Seriously, that's it.
3. The writing really sucks. Others have commented on this so, rather than gives examples, I'll just reinforce what others have noted: the writing sucks. Whatever happened to editors?
4. If you really want some ideas about investing internationally, try The World is Your Oyster by Jeff Opdyke (2008). Heaven forbid, he writes in plain ole' English and gives a lot of worthwhile advice. If you really want to understand where the world is headed, read Billions of Entrepreneurs, How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours, by Tarun Khanna (2008).
5. If you really want some ideas about investing in general Peter Lynch's classics are still every bit as instructive (and humorous...and nicely written) and the biography of Warren Buffett, "Buffett", is incredibly instructive. Jeremy Siegel's "Stocks for the Long Run" is also pretty handy, although el-Erian makes some snide comments about it...but never quite gets around to justifying them...hmmm...some petty Harvard - Wharton rivalry?
6. el-Erian's shout-outs to colleagues here and there get more tedious as the book goes on, particularly as he never seems to articulate how the work of these experts is relevant to creating an investment portfolio. Gee, thanks.
7. Let me say it one more time: When Markets Collide is a worthless read.
With this book, I give up my remaining trust in cover blurbs. November 9, 2008
David R. Harper (Los Angeles, CA USA)
60 out of 65 found this review helpful
I bought this book because it won the Financial Times Book of the Year Award (not a top ten winner or something, #1 mind you). Historically, a reliable guide (e.g., the masterpiece China Shakes the World, and theoretically dubious but highly provocative Friedman's World is Flat). It has dawned on me belatedly that advance praisers probably don't read their books. All these absolutely glowing endorsements by serious people...for a book that *clearly* isn't top notch.
T. Bojko's review may seem harsh, but it's spot-on. I can live with the ponderous writing style. I initially thought the big words concealed some new or profound thinking...but not at all.
The problems are: 1. there's almost nothing new or inspired about the "markets of tomorrow," and 2. there is nary a sliver of new, actionable advice about investing. The whole thing is a compendium of the superficial. Seeking to cut a swath a mile wide, it is everywhere one inch deep.
In regard to the first, the following are superficially summarized: global trade/capital flows (rightly footnoted to Martin Wolf, but Wolf's own columns are better on this); a cocktail of snippets on behavioral finance - called a "cocktail" - just read Shiller straightaway; some stuff on global trade and commodities, see latest Economist; a paraphrase of Taleb's colorful insights (just read Taleb directly); a woefully weak primer-not-really on securitization; a brief primer on asset classes that repeats everything I've got in a dozen other finance books; and too much material on IMF (e.g., not a single mention of Basel). I agree the topics per se are important, but most of them here are superficially derivative of other, better works.
Here are the four insights from Chapter 2: we are coming from a period of aberrations, many puzzles; too many dismissed them as noise; the inability to distinguish signal from noise is a bad thing; the adjustment caught people off guard. I'm not kidding. The blinding insight is: take care to distinguish signal from noise! Noise bad, signal good....
Strangest of all, in my opinion, is that the author appears to have nothing to add to the field of risk management, which stuns me given his unique vantage point. Risk management is reduced to a few catchphrases: tail risk, moral hazard, principal-agent. Say it ain't so...
Finally, T. Bojko is right about the mundane asset allocation plan: "the author just lays out a pretty mundane asset allocation plan (which is available for free on any number of websites) and then fills a couple dozen pages with worthless blather. Seriously, that's it." That's exactly right.
The book boils down to: big "structural" change is coming, try to sort signal from noise, here's pointers to a bunch of good reading material, I worked at the IMF, start with this generic plan.
I saved you a few bucks. More to the point, I wasted my time reading this book so you don't have to. Since that time is lost to me forever, the least you can do is vote my review "helpful."
 Good analysis for students July 19, 2008
V. Ghazarian (New York)
30 out of 37 found this review helpful
The style is very similar to El Erian's monthly articles, but there is nothing really new or original. If you are familiar with Bretton Woods II, have some training in economics and/or have worked in structured finance you will find this book slow at times, but if you are new to the structured finance world or you are trying to find out what went wrong with the financial system this should be an excellent overview. I agree with the other reviewers it reads like a newspaper article, but it is a good overall review of the most recent economic cycle.
Not worth reading August 5, 2008
Gentry L. Watson
29 out of 38 found this review helpful
I do not believe that this book is worth buying or reading
because of three factors:
1. It contains minimal advice for investors wishing to
change their investment strategies.
2. It is written for an audience for professional economists
with advanced degrees.
3. The editing of the text is very poor. Each chapter contained
multiple references to something "that I will deal with in
the next chapter" or "that I covered in previous chapter."
A few of these references is understandable, but the text
is so poorly written and edited that these references quickly
became a distraction and a nuisance.
I would strongly advise prospective readers to avoid this book.
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