The Reason for God - Timothy Keller

Got this book as a gift, from a friend who felt that I could benefit from reading and clarifying some of my thoughts and beliefs about the Christian God. I'm rather thankful for the friend's kind thoughts, and am slightly surprised by the number of people and friends who had been gently nudging me in this direction lately. Of course, the me right now interprets this as serendipity while my friends would disagree :)

In any case, it is both refreshing and challenging to read this book after having read Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion". The arguments in both books, hailing from opposing camps, are strong in their own ways. And as much as it is a leap of faith to believe that there is a God, I think that it is also an equally big leap of faith to conclusively believe that God does not exist (it is not really possible to "prove" that something doesn't exist, only that it is very unlikely).

At a very personal level, I find the idea of a higher spiritual being very comforting and "right" in a way. This book has addressed many of the issues that I have encountered, thought through and digested over the years pertaining to God, and they are quite well written. However, on the other hand, there's this part of me that finds it hard to accept some aspects, and unfortunately these issues have not been fully resolved. (Not sure whether they can be resolved through sheer logic ultimately - although some of my friends feel that they can.)

But it is nice that I'm thinking about such issues again after all these while. Chapter 1 needs to be revisited!

Jim Rohn video

Dunno why it took me so long to realise this, until I watched this youtube video by Jim Rohn.
"To become more valuable and succeed in life, work harder on yourself than at your own job."

Active Value Investing - Making money in range-bound markets, Vitaliy N. Katsenelson

For the same reasons that I read my first technical analysis book, I read this book on active value investing to build up my knowledge about the tools that investors use to, well, invest. The reviews for this book were wide ranging, with many feeling that this book does not add much value to the reader.

I personally think that this may not be the best book on investing, as it does not highlight in great detail how to actually ascertain say the growth potential of a company, but only say that it is an important aspect that we need to take note off. However, it has given me some good insights nonetheless that I will incorporate into my meager well of knowledge on investing.

One of the key themes at the start of the book is that we are currently in a range-bound market, which often occurs right after a long and steady bull run. In fact, the market generally alternates between a range-bound and a bull market, having done so for much of the last hundred years. In a range-bound market, stock prices are not significantly higher at the end of the period (which can be more than 10 yrs) than at the start. As such, a buy and hold strategy doesn't work. One will have to actively manage one's portfolio, hence the name. The learning point here is that we will need to know when to sell, as the market will just keep yo-yoing between the upper and lower bounds.

The book recommends that we use traditional value investing strategies to evaluate the right company (e.g. using DCF) invest in. However, another point of departure is that the P/E for the entire stock market will be overpriced at the end of a bull run (and we are now at one of the most overpriced points in history) and the range-bound market corrects this by slowly eroding away the P/Es until it reaches a reasonable level for the next bull run to start. As such, it is all the more critical that we focus on companies with low P/Es. This is the second learning point.

I think that there is some truth to these analysis. Ever since I entered the stock market 1-2 years ago, it has been yo-yoing quite a bit, and there were multiple entry and exit points, which if I had capitalised on, would have earned me much more. However, the book made me realise that there is actually still much that I do not know and I need to learn. (Mainly cos the book mentions many terms but does not really explain how to use them.)