Hedgehogging

BARTON BIGGS spent thirty years at Morgan Stanley. In that time, he formed the firm's number-one-ranked research department, built up its investment management business, and served as chairman of the investment management firm. At various times during this period, he was ranked as the number one U.S. investment strategist by the Institutional Investor magazine poll and then, from 1996 to 2003, as the number one global strategist. He was also a member of the five-man executive committee that ran the firm until its merger with Dean Witter in 1996. In 2003, Biggs left Morgan Stanley and, with two other colleagues, formed Traxis Partners. Traxis now has well over a billion dollars under its management. Biggs' latest book, Wealth, War, and Wisdom, is also published by Wiley.

"Highly Amusing" (Financial Times, Saturday 25th August 2007)

• Introduction. Chapter One. The Triangle Investment Club Dinner: Hacking Through the Hedgehog Jungle.Chapter Two. The New Hedgehogs May Have Been Golden Boys, but They Still Bleed Red.Chapter Three. Short Selling Oil: The Crude Joke Was on Us.Chapter Four. Short Selling is Not for Sissies.Chapter Five. The Odyssey of Starting a Hedge Fund: A Desperate, Frantic Adventure.Chapter Six. The Roadshow Grind: Blood, Swat, Toil, and Tears.Chapter Seven. The Run-Up and Haunted by Remembrances and Doubt.Chapter Eight.Hedgehogs Come in All Sizes and Shapes.Chapter Nine. The Violence of Secular Market Cycles.Chapter Ten. The Battle for Investment Survival: Only Egotists or Fools Try to Pick Tops and Bottoms.Chapter Eleven. From One Generation to Another: Bismarck and the Yale Endowment.Chapter Twelve. Nature's Mysticism and Groupthink Stinks.Chapter Thirteen. The Internet Bubble: I'd Still Rather Have Air-Conditioning.Chapter Fourteen. Great Investment Managers Are Intense, Disciplined Maniacs.Chapter Fifteen. You're Only as beloved as Your Most Recent Performance.Chapter Sixteen. Once You Have a Fortune, How can You Hang on to It?Chapter Seventeen. Three Investment Religions: Growth, Value, and Agnostic.Chapter Eighteen. The Trouble with Being Big.Chapter Nineteen. Bubbles and True Believer.Chapter Twenty. Divine Intervention or Inside Information? A Tale That Will Make Your Blood Run Cold.Chapter Twenty-One. John Maynard Keynes: Economist, Hedge-Fund manager, and Fascinating Character.Conclusion.Recommended Reading.