The Widow of Wall Street: A Novel

Historically tested long-term strategies that always outperform the market “O’Shaughnessy’s conclusion that some strategies do produce consistently strong results while others underperform could shake up the investment business.”―Barron’s “What Works on Wall Street is indisputably a major contribution to empirical research on the behavior of common stocks in the United States. . . . Conceivably, the influence of What Works on Wall Street will prove immense.”―The Financial Analysts’ Journal “O’Shaughnessy’s latest, What Works on Wall Street, is a serious inquiry into the investment strategies that stand up under long-term scrutiny and is refreshing research for every investor.”―Stocks and Commodities “A bible for investment strategies. . .”―Seeking Alpha About the Book: Recent history has witnessed one of the worst stock market beatings ever. As a result, abysmal returns are being called “the new normal,” financial “experts” are ringing the death knell of buy-and-hold, and investors’ faith in equities has hit an all-time low. You have two choices. You can abandon the stock market based on what is happening today. Or you can invest today based on what will happen in the future. Containing all new data, What Works on Wall Street, Fourth Edition, is the only investing guide that lets you see today’s market in its proper context― as part of the historical ebb and flow of the stock market. And when you see the data, you’ll see there is no argument: Stocks work. Now in its second decade of helping investors succeed with stocks, What Works on Wall Street continues to provide the most effective investing strategies, presenting incontrovertible data on what works and what doesn’t. Updated with current statistics and brand-new features, What Works on Wall Street offers data on almost 90 years of market performance, including: Stocks ranked by market capitalization Price-to-earnings ratios EBITDA to enterprise value Price-to-cash flow, -sales, and -book ratios Dividend, buyback, and shareholder yields One-year earnings-per-share percentage changes Providing you with unparalleled insights into stock performance going back to 1926, What Works on Wall Street is a refreshingly calming, objective view of a subject that is usually wrapped in drama, hyperbole, and opinions that are plain wrong. This comprehensive guide provides the objective facts and winning strategies you need; all you have to do is make the decision to ignore the so-called market experts and rely on the long-proven approach that has made What Works on Wall Street an investing classic.

Financial collapses—whether of the junk bond market, the Internet bubble, or the highly leveraged housing market—are often explained as the inevitable result of market cycles: What goes up must come down. In Liquidated, Karen Ho punctures the aura of the abstract, all-powerful market to show how financial markets, and particularly booms and busts, are constructed. Through an in-depth investigation into the everyday experiences and ideologies of Wall Street investment bankers, Ho describes how a financially dominant but highly unstable market system is understood, justified, and produced through the restructuring of corporations and the larger economy. Ho, who worked at an investment bank herself, argues that bankers’ approaches to financial markets and corporate America are inseparable from the structures and strategies of their workplaces. Her ethnographic analysis of those workplaces is filled with the voices of stressed first-year associates, overworked and alienated analysts, undergraduates eager to be hired, and seasoned managing directors. Recruited from elite universities as “the best and the brightest,” investment bankers are socialized into a world of high risk and high reward. They are paid handsomely, with the understanding that they may be let go at any time. Their workplace culture and networks of privilege create the perception that job insecurity builds character, and employee liquidity results in smart, efficient business. Based on this culture of liquidity and compensation practices tied to profligate deal-making, Wall Street investment bankers reshape corporate America in their own image. Their mission is the creation of shareholder value, but Ho demonstrates that their practices and assumptions often produce crises instead. By connecting the values and actions of investment bankers to the construction of markets and the restructuring of U.S. corporations, Liquidated reveals the particular culture of Wall Street often obscured by triumphalist readings of capitalist globalization.