Digital Floors and Ceilings

"Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman introduced two fictitious characters in this book, the intuitive system 1, which does the fast thinking, and the effortful and slower system 2, which does the slow thinking, monitors system 1, and maintains control as best it can within its limited resources. Kahneman presented the use and limitations of each system thru research and experiments. System 1 reminds us of the Gladwell's "Blink" and their limitations touches by Taleb's "The Black Swan". It took me long time to finish this book to absorb the essence of each chapter especially in economics, risk management, and investments.

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is about understanding the events, positive or negative that is deemed improbable yet causes massive consequences. If Malcolm Gladwell studied outliers and the power of snap judgements, Dan Ariely is master of irrationality, Taleb is the guru of randomness. He explained that although the world is full of mediocristan or gradual and steady changes, it is shaped by extremistan or surprises like discoveries, inventions, wars, stock market crashes, terrorist attacks, etc. The negative part of the book is the heavy words used. My nose bled several times to the rescue of my mobile merriam webster dictionary.

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham as my first read book for 2013 is a fusion of my interests in non fiction books and stocks. For the past 8 years of monitoring PSE, valuations were never been as high as the past year and early this year which should trigger better research and understanding "Mr. Market".Graham teaches strategies for both aggressive and defensive investors, balancing portfolio thru common stocks and bonds, cost averaging, reading and comparing financial statements which proves the comment of Warren Buffet "This is by far the best book on investing ever written."