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The Alchemy of Finance

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The Alchemy of Finance

By: George Soros
Narrated by: Grover Gardner
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About this listen

 George Soros is unquestionably the most powerful and profitable investor in the world today. Dubbed by BusinessWeek as "The Man Who Moves the Markets," Soros has made a billion dollars going up against the British pound. Now, in The Alchemy of Finance, he shares the investment strategies he uses to read the mind of the market.©1987, 1994 by George Soros (P)2000 by Penton Overseas, Inc. Published by Penton Overseas, Inc. and Audio Scholar, Inc. Economics Investing & Trading Leadership Management & Leadership Personal Finance Investing Business Inspiring Stock

Critic Reviews

"An extraordinary...inside look into the decision-making process of the most successful money manager of our time. Fantastic." (Wall Street Journal)
"Breathtakingly brilliant." (Esquire)
All stars
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Very wordy, I’ll probably have to listen to it twice. But interesting, just needs to be simplified

Very wordy, I’ll probably have to listen to it twice

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Forget all popular (and unpopular) commentary you may have heard about Soros and listen to his actual words. It totally changed my view of him, and of financial markets.

Mind blowing

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Maybe too abstract for most people but the thoughts have great value in our investment activities.

Review of The Alchemy of Finance

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Soros is routinely demonised. You only have to read this book to realise that many of the “quotes” of things he has said/written, are entirely removed from their proper context. Reading this you should walk away having shared some time with a mind that aims to be a philosopher first, trader second. His theory of reflexivity follows from his personal philosophical insights on the nature of consciousness and how inherent subjectivity corresponds to objective real world consequences (the first chapter and epilogue summarise this well - the latter also includes one of the most bastardised quotes used to defame him). Although there is some repetition and redundancy in what he writes across chapters, it helps to reinforce his main points that are in fact rather simple. Having them front of mind then helps you enjoy the moments when he finds concise and simple ways to explain their relevance to all sorts of problems. For example, he posits that both the dogmas of planned economies and perfect competition in market economies are based on the same false premise of perfect information. The answer lies in the middle somewhere, but not as a tendency towards an equilibrium (a purely theoretical concept he thinks has little bearing to the real world), but because the world is dynamic and (in an open society at least) is self-creating, and so necessitating ever new solutions to ephemeral problems. Indeed, our tendency to think that problems can be solved once and for all is a mistaken belief from our misguided commitment to the existence of equilibriums. This is reminiscent of Poppers critique of Plato and Marx in The Open Society, and indeed, Popper has been a big influence on his thinking. He says his only disagreement is that social phenomena are not really amendable to the scientific method. His reasoning is compelling, but I don’t think Popper would really disagree. Both espouse criticism rationalism as a means for progress, whether scientific, moral or aesthetic. I think the deeper point that Soros emphasises that subjects such as economics are inherently entwined with reflexivity (what we think impacts what we do and what we do impacts what we think) that it is in principle unscientific. In contrast, matters of science eg the laws of physics, are not impacted by whatever scientists think or feel about them. Again I’m not sure Popper would disagree.

Overall it is a short book that is well worth the time to understand what his thoughts are in a variety of topics, meanwhile acknowledging his attempts to present himself in the best light. On the other side of it, there is but a shred of contempt for him from the words he uses here, and no shortage of it for those that choose to mince them for their own ideological agendas.

Granted that people can debate his actions or influence in markets (in the past) or politics (more recently), but at the basic level of intellectual honesty, this book is hardly what his enemies so readily misconstrue it to be.

In his own words

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Soros’ discussion of reflexivity is interesting. But overall the book is very verbose, and given it doesn’t pretend to adhere to the scientific method, the approach is somewhat dull and can take too long to get to the point

One good concept, but not much content

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