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Summary Of Animal Farm | George Orwell

2022-04-01T14:20:00.001+05:30

Animal Farm by George Orwell

About George Orwell:

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is characterized by lucid prose, biting social criticism, total opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.

Summary:

This is a story about a group of animals who live on Manor Farm, a farm in the British countryside that is under the operation of Mr. Jones, a poor drunkard. Old Major, a well-respected pig, calls all of the animals to a meeting to share his vision of a farm free of humans, where the animals reap what they sow.

This vision inspires all of the animals and they await the day for a rebellion. After Old Major passes away, the rebellion begins when Mr. Jones forgets to feed the animals. The animals, led by the pigs, chase away all of the humans from the farm, renaming it Animal Farm. Two pigs named Snowball and Napoleon emerge as leaders, and for a while life on the farm is good.

Rules are written on the barn for everyone to follow and a rhythm of work and recreation settles on the farm. The animals coexist in harmony and they feel a sense of pride as they work for no master. One day, the farm is attacked by Mr. Jones and some men. Bravely, the animals fight the intruders away. Tension begins to build on the farm, as Snowball and Napoleon are at odds with one another on the direction the farm should take.

Snowball wants the build a windmill, which he claims will increase food and reduce work, while Napoleon wants to increase production. Just as Snowball wins over the animals with his windmill idea, Napoleon calls his secret attack dogs to chase Snowball away.

With Snowball gone, Napoleon becomes the sole leader of the farm. Over time, more and more resources go toward the pigs and dogs and less resources go toward the working animals. Through the smooth talking of Squealer, the mouthpiece for Napoleon, the animals are assured that the pigs need the extra resources in order to think and organize the farm.

Surprisingly, Napoleon then declares that they should build a windmill and that he was never actually against the idea since it had secretly been his all along. The animals work hard to build the windmill, but it gets destroyed. Napoleon blames Snowball for this act of vandalism and vows that the animals on Animal Farm will build it again. Soon, Napoleon reaches out to humans outside of the farm and begins making business deals for more supplies.

The attempt to rebuild the windmill is led by the efforts of Boxer, an old work horse nearing retirement age. Eventually, the windmill is completed, but then gets blown up during an attack by neighbouring men. Over time, the rules on the barn begin to change to fit the pig’s new lifestyle until only one rule remains: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

In the end, Napoleon invites neighbouring farmers to visit the farm and because the pigs have picked up on the mannerisms of humans, the animals cannot tell the difference between the two.

First, this story highlights the relationship between the working class, proletarians, and the aristocracy, bourgeoisie, within the context of a capitalist society. As farm animals, they work not for themselves, but for the profit of someone else and they are only fed and rested enough so that they can perform more work. And when the animals are no longer productive, they are killed off and replaced. This relationship, though easily illustrated through farm animals, is applicable to social classes today. Socialist theory argues that for the rich to be rich, there must be a working class that is poor.

This is clearly illustrated not only on a national level, but a worldwide level as well. Ideally, it might be nice to picture a world where people own what they work for. That every person contributes and takes equally. But as the story develops, readers see more of why this type of utopian society cannot exist, an example of a communist system trying to exist in a capitalist world. The animals are protected within the boundaries of their socialist farm and they thrive under this system of equality.

But soon, they are forced to interact with the outside world and that's when communism turns into something else. It becomes a totalitarian society under the rule of one leader. And slowly we see that for socialism to work under a communist rule, everyone, even those outside of the community, has to be under the same system.

Brief Summary:

Lastly, this story demonstrates the power of knowledge and how the uneducated and ignorant can be easily manipulated. Squealer will often twist words and events around to make Napoleon look good. And while it may seem obvious as readers to see the manipulation, this sort of thing happens in real life too. The public can oftentimes be misinformed and manipulated about certain issues if they are ignorant about it. Facts and events that seem so concrete may not actually be true. Nowadays, it's often up to individuals to find out for themselves.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe Summary || Clive Staples Lewis

2021-06-28T08:30:00.004+05:30

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

About Author:

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge University (Magdalene College, 1954–1963). He is best known for his works of fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.

Summary:

This is a story about Peter, Susan, Edmond and Lucy, siblings who live in England during World War II. They discover a wardrobe and by entering it, they are transported to a magical world called Narnia.

Narnia is ruled by the White Witch, an evil sorceress who keeps the world in eternal winter. However, a prophecy tells those four humans will take down the Witch. Knowing this, the White Witch convinces Edmond to bring his siblings to her. The group is taken in by beavers and learns that Aslan, a mighty and powerful lion is back in Narnia, ready to restore order. Scared, Edmond runs away from everyone and decides to visit the White Witch. When he gets there, he is punished for not bringing his brother and sisters. Peter, Susan, and Lucy eventually meet Aslan and an army is summoned.

Edmond is rescued from the White Witch, but because he is a traitor, he technically belongs to the White Witch. Aslan and the White Witch make a deal so that Edmond can stay if Aslan is sacrificed. The White Witch kills Aslan and she takes her army to finish off Aslan's forces. Aslan comes back to life and revives the stone statues at the White Witch's castle.

The White Witch and her forces are defeated in battle and Aslan appoints Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy as the kings and queens of Narnia. In the end, after years of living in Narnia, the group stumbles back into trees and re-enters the normal world as they were as children. While the previous book in the Narnia series focused more on the allegory of Creationism, this story focuses heavily on the allegory of Christ and the crucifixion.

It's Aslan, the innocent, who must die for the life of Edmond, the guilty. As Aslan is approaching the Stone Table where the White Witch waits, the tone in his voice is similar to that of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. He is reserved and nervous, not quite the lion that readers have known him to be. However, since Aslan knows that no innocent blood can be spilled on the table, he is confident that he will be resurrected.

One of the interesting aspects of the story is how time works in Narnia compared to the real world. In Narnia, the children grow upto be kings and queens, living a good number of years into their adulthood. Yet, when they are drawn back through the wardrobe and re-enter the real world, they appear as children, as if time had never moved forward.

This speaks highly of how children view time. Because of a child's limited life experience, time seems longer than it really is. This is probably why a five-minute timeout can seem like an eternity for misbehaved children, and a few seconds in a wardrobe can feel like a lifetime in another world. The story is also a study into forgiveness in the context of family.

Edmond betrays the others early in the story, yet they are willing to forgive him. This shows that even though an individual within a family acts selfish and prideful, there is always an opportunity for forgiveness if both parties are willing to work things out. It takes courage to forgive, both from the receiving and giving party.

Summary Of Grorge Owell 1984

2021-06-21T08:30:00.002+05:30

1984 by Grorge Owell

About Author:

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English essayist, journalist and critic. As a writer, Orwell produced literary criticism and poetry, fiction and polemical journalism; and is best known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

Summary:

It was a bright and cold April day, Winston Smith, a 39-year-old man, entered the houses of victory. The smell of dining flooded the place. He barely climbed the seven floors that led him to his house. On each landing, there was a very large colour poster with the huge face of a man with a big moustache and hard features at the bottom was written Big Brother watches over you, this poster was also in every street.

Winston looked at the city from the window . London was cold and sad. It was part of the Area 1 strip, a province of Oceania . the territory dominated by the party Order was kept, thanks to the patrols and the thought police who listened to you and watched you through the telescreens, that way they controlled your thinking.

Winston worked in the Ministry of Truth. In Newspeak , the official language of Oceania , it was called Minitrue. It was responsible for what would be understood as Culture and Education on its lustrous facade , it read war is peace freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. Once at home , Winston took a sip of Geneva that made him feel a little better then out of a drawer , he took out a book of white covers and a red spine. He hid in a place where the camera could not see him, if they found him writing, he would be sentenced to death or forced labour. Despite this, he began writing in his diary, first he summed up a terribly bloody movie they forced him to watch. Then he was inspired to write about what happened to him that morning, he was in the Ministry of Truth, prepared for the two minutes of hatred they perform every day. While waiting for them to begin, Obrien appeared , a big but nice member of the party and a young attractive brunette, both had interest in Winston.

One seemed intelligent and friendly and the other dangerous. The two minutes of hatred began, which consisted of the face of Goldstein, the enemy of the people. He had been part of the party but he fled , betraying them and creating the Brotherhood, He was part of the Eurasian rebels, his speech caused attendees to shout angrily as if they were out of their mind. Later the speech merged with the possible face of Big Brother at that moment the people relaxed as if asleep, chanting G H Winston was horrified but he couldn’t slip away. However, unlike the rest Winston’s eyes met OBriens and both seemed to understand each other, does the brotherhood actually exist. He left the thought and returned to his room. He realized that he had been writing under the big brother he was committing a Thought crime. Criminals are punished with vaporization that is death and disappearance. Still, he felt freer than ever.

Winston’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door, he quickly struggled to keep his blank expression and rose to open it. It was the lady preferably called Parsons . She needed help with the drain After fixing it. Winston ran into her aggressive children, totally blinded by violence despite their young age. They scared Winston that night. Winston dreamed of the death of his parents and sister during one of the first purges, then he kept dreaming of the young brunette she was removing her clothes. Something unusual since they belonged to the anti-sex League. The way she stripped off his ideals fascinated Winston.

The next day after waking up with a loud whistle and doing forced sports in front of the Telescreen, he went to the Ministry of Truth there he would recreate articles from the past so that they would correspond with the present. In the cafeteria Winston met with Syme, a philosopher specializing in Neo language, his main objective was to control the mind. Syme arrogantly defended the destruction of words and ancient literature while Winston was nostalgic with the old language, he then realizes that the brunette girl was watching him intently. A beep tells them to return to work Back at home, Winston writes in his diary about a bad experience he lived with a prostitute. The memory generates many uncomfortable feelings, he explained his relationship with his wife Catherine, he didn’t know if she was alive or dead. They had separated 10 years ago being unable to produce children for the party, for these the desire was a crime.

So, despite his wishes, Winston was never going to have a romantic relationship. Winston usually reflected on the power that could reach the Proles, 85% of the population. Unfortunately, the Thought Police controlled them they were like a dumb mass. He finally came to the conclusion that he had something to fight for, he felt he was writing that diary to fight the lie for obrien Winston walked to the neighbourhood of the Proles. After unsuccessfully trying to get some information about the past from an old man he went to the store where he bought his diary, he bought a coral stone. Going to those places and buying goods was very frowned upon, so when he left the store, his heart stopped when he came across the brunette girl. They both hid and Winston went home, terrified of the torture he would receive if someone discovered him.

Four days later in the halls of the Ministry of Truth , Winston crossed paths with the young woman, she had a bandaged arm. When they were 4 meters from meeting the girl stumbled and fell on the floor letting out a cry of pain. She looked at Winston with fear, he helped her up and they both continued on their way She had slipped him a paper that red I love you. After that confession they decided to meet in secret in the Victory Plaza. They found themselves in the middle of a large conglomeration. They spoke in whispers and agreed to see each other in a hidden place. She described a complex journey to meet. After a brief but intense handshake, they separated When the day came, they met in one of the forests that surrounded the city. They were together for hours . her name was Julia and she was 26 years old they loved and wanted each other.

From that day they continued seeing each other, sometimes in the bell tower of a dilapidated Church others in the street pretending they didn’t know each other. Once after the explosion of a nearby bomb Winston kissed her again. Winston and Julia continued their meetings at the Carrington store, the old man turned a blind eye and they talked for hours. Julia carried products that Winston had not seen in years. Julia did not remember anything before the Revolution, just what her grandfather told her. Her grandfather disappeared when she was 8 years old. Julia was rebellious with what affected her but she did not intend to destroy the party and didn’t believe in the Brotherhood.

One day Winston realized that Syme had disappeared he had ceased to exist, he had never existed however nobody stopped to think about it. Everyone organized the week of hate the number of rocket bombs and deaths increased still Julia and Winston were seeing each other. Their lives were better One day and it finally happened. Winston ran into Obrien with a serious and gentle courtesy he invited him to go to his house, to pick up a new edition of the newspeak dictionary Winston agreed knowing that he was throwing himself into death but he didn’t care. In another meeting, Winston told Julia that he killed his mother and little sister since they took away his food. One day he ran away with a chocolate tablet and when he came back there was no one at home. He never saw them again. Julia downplayed him, Winston said that the only ones with freedom are the Proles but Julia reminded him that he was free in his thinking even though the telescreens watched them. Julia and Winston went to Obrien’s house, Winston confessed all his concerns and his relationship with Julia. Obrien’s assistant also an enemy of the party appeared and they toasted wine for Goldstein . O’Brien confirmed the existence of the Brotherhood and asked them a series of questions, about how far they would be willing to go to fight the party they were willing to do anything but separate. O’Brien informed them they would receive the Goldstein manuscript lastly, he explained the Brotherhood worked like this they worked, held them, they confessed , and killed them days later Winston began to read the book with Julia in the Cherrington store.

They both watched a lady who hung the clothes upon seeing her, Winston felt that the Proles were the same ones and they were the dead ones, Julia repeated that. We are the dead and in turn a voice behind the wall repeated you are the dead Both froze, the voice told them to go to the center of the room and without touching each other to put their hands on their heads. The house was surrounded and they had to say goodbye said the voice behind the frame. Suddenly many soldiers in black appeared and surrounded them then they threw away the paperweight and the small piece of coral rolled on the floor, they beat Julia and took her like a sack. Then Mister Carrington appeared and the soldiers adopted a more submissive attitude. The seller had another aspect and attitude He was an agent of thought, he always had been.

Winston woke up with a cold light he didn’t know where he was, he just felt a strong pain in his stomach and hunger they took prisoners in and out. He met the poet Ampleforth arrested for having kept the word God in a poem. After he saw Parsons, her daughter had accused her they all disappeared in horror. Suddenly they put Obrien next to a guard who hit Winston hard, making him faint. When he woke up O’Brien was at his side along with a man in a white coat and syringe then they started questioning him. He confessed all the crimes of which he was accused even though he had not committed them the tortures were unspeakable O’Brien was part of the party. He had lied to him and now wanted to erase his thoughts and then kill him. O’Brien wanted to show him their power by convincing him he held five fingers instead of four that is why the doctor injected an explosion inside that caused a flash. When Winston regained consciousness, he felt that he was missing a part of his brain. O’Brien kept asking him questions that he could no longer answer. He had forgotten the past but the effect did not last long there O’Brien allowed him to ask questions. Winston asked about Julia O’Brien replied she betrayed him immediately and was no longer the girl he had met, she signed the existence of Big Brother but didn’t confirm that of the Brotherhood. Finally and after much thought Winston asked what’s in room 101, O’Brien smiled and replied he should already know. The doctor then injected a liquid and Winston went into a deep sleep upon waking O’Brien explained to Winston that there were three steps in his reintegration, Learning, understanding and acceptance. He was in the second then he gave a speech about what fuelled the party It was power for power and specifically power over men, its main objective was to empty them Winston refused to believe it he trusted the spirit of humans.

However, O’brien played a recording in which he and Julia agreed to do horrible things for the Brotherhood then they released Winston from the stretcher. He hardly approached a mirror and discovered his body in horror he had no hair or teeth, his nose was crooked and his eyes seemed to pop out, his knees were bigger than his thighs and his spine was deformed on his entire body. Winston burst into teers upon seeing himself after this Winston was changed to a better cell where they fed him and gave him hot water to clean himself. He was much better until one day he woke up screaming Julia’s name he still loved her but Minutes later Obrien was in the cell, asking if he hated Big Brother. Winston answered yes so, they took him to room 101 there Winston had to face his greatest fear, they tied him completely to the chair and brought a box with hungry rats to his head.

As soon as they let go, they would throw themselves at his head, tearing his eyes and tongue away when they were about to release them Winston sold out Julia, he didn’t care what happened to her there they had him. Winston had set aside love and emptied himself since Winston left the Ministry of love, he spent his days at the bar drinking Geneva and playing chess. Nobody approached him because they didn’t want to risk being seen with him.

One day he saw Julia . But everything had changed she was not Julia nor was he Winston both admitted to having betrayed the other. Another day at the bar Winston was expectant at the news of victory or defeat against Eurasia When the telescreens claimed that Oceania had won. Winston was glad and felt some love and pride towards Big Brother, it finally happened. Winston walked the long hall and behind him was a guard the shot with which he had dreamed so much in the cell finally pierced his head but it didn’t matter because he loved big brother.

Fahrenheit 451 || Story by Ray Bradbury

2021-06-14T08:30:00.006+05:30

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

About Author:

Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.

Summary:

This is a story about a man named Guy Montag who is a fireman. He's not a fireman by today's standards though. Instead of putting out fires, he starts them by burning books, which are outlawed by the government. After talking to his neighbour, Clarisse, Guy begins to question his work. He looks around and sees a wife who doesn't love him and an entire society caught up in technology and war. People kill each other every day and no one seems to care. After learning that Clarisse died, Guy further begins to question whether or not he is doing the right thing by burning books. So much so, that he steals a book before burning a lady and pile of books.

His fire captain, Beatty, notice changes in Guy and watches him carefully. Guy reveals to his wife that he's had a small collection of books in their house and they try to read them together, but his wife is disinterested. Guy meets an old English professor, Faber, and they decide to fight the government. Meanwhile, when Guy is at work, they get an alarm that books have been discovered. Surprisingly, the firemen end up at Guy's house. Guy is forced to burn all of his books with a flamethrower, but then kills Beatty when provoked. He grabs what books he can and runs to Faber's house for a last goodbye.

The government has a full televised search for Guy, even using a mechanical search dog to track him. Guy makes it out of the city and travels down the river, where he meets a group of runaways. There, he learns that they all have memorized books, a human library of literature. In the end, the runaways see the city being destroyed by enemy bombs and prepare for the grim future. So why does this society not like books? What did book ever do to people? In this society, people have chosen to not read books. It's that simple.

The majority of people stopped reading and instead wanted entertainment with bite-sized portions of educational information. From there, the government decided that books should be banned because books contained conflicting ideas that brought about arguments and conflicts. So rather than have a marketplace of ideas, the government wanted to streamline thinking so that everyone thought the same way. And what's scary is that this doesn't seem too farfetched to happen in real life. Most importantly, this story tries to answer the question: Why are books so important? As Faber discusses with Guy, books are valuable for three reasons.

The first is that books hold quality information. The second reason is that books require time to read them, a commitment. And the third reason is that we have the ability to react to our world based on what we, as readers, gain from the read material. That the words in books are not just lifeless words, but carry meaning that has real life application in our lives. It's not just that this old dead guy wrote some things for me to have to read hundreds of years later, but how do those words apply to our society today? Even though technology has advanced our world, we still tend to see the same human problems from the past, so it seems that technology makes our lives easier, but doesn't really solve many of our most basic problems, like war, disease, and poverty. It is quite scary how the author could have imagined some of the technology that we find ourselves using today.

In the story, the society has fast cars, mechanical dogs, large TV screens, reality TV, bluetooth, and a host of other technologies. It makes you wonder how far we are from a world without books.

The Great GATSBY || Story by F.Scott Fitzgerald

2021-06-07T08:30:00.004+05:30

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

About Author:

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and short story writer. He was best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term which he popularized.

Summary:

This is a story about a man named Nick who is living in America in the 1920s. He moves to New York to become a bond trader and finds that he lives next to a large mansion occupied by a mysterious man named Gatsby. Gatsby has wild parties every night with lots of women and alcohol and when Nick is invited, he learns that Gatsby had also been in the army.

However, no one really knows how Gatsby got rich. Nick reunites with his cousin, Daisy, a flirtatious young woman who is married to Tom, a rich businessman. However, Tom is having an affair with a mechanic's wife, Myrtle. Nick meets Daisy's friend, Jordan, a young professional golfer, and they form a romantic relationship. Meanwhile, Nick and Gatsby become friends and Gatsby shares how he inherited his wealth from a yacht owner. It's also revealed that Gatsby had known Daisy when they were younger and he is still in love with her. In fact, Gatsby secretly watches Daisy from across the lake, as Daisy lives there with Tom and her daughter.

Gatsby and Daisy finally meet and a flood of emotions come back. They admit their love for each other. To escape the heat, they all drive into town. Tom finds out Daisy wants to leave him and gets upset, telling Daisy and Gatsby to drive back home where they will discuss it. However, Daisy, driving Gatsby's yellow car, runs over Myrtle by accident. Tom then tells the mechanic that it was Gatsby who ran over Myrtle.

As Gatsby is swimming at home, the mechanic shows up and shoots him. Sadly, no one shows up to Gatsby's funeral and Nick, confused and saddened, sells everything and moves back to the Midwest.

This story presents a historical snapshot of the 1920s, an interesting time in American history. We get the vividness of the time, with the lights and glamour that saturated the people. Drinking, parties, and sex were to be celebrated, not condemned. And it should be noted that to express this energy and culture through writing is a difficult task. It's simply not just saying that there were bright lights and cocktails, but emerging a reader in this world with subtle reminders of the culture. Identity is also an important theme, as characters, as with real people, have complex identities that often involve deceit.

People are not who they say they are: Tom and Myrtle having an affair and the ambiguous history of Gatsby, as Gatsby's name isn't even his real name. And we, as readers, are reminded of this when his father shows up and corrects Nick, saying that his name was "James Gatz." There are several explanations given to us as to how Gatsby became wealthy. Readers learn early on how he had gained his wealth, but are still left wondering how that wealth had been maintained over the years. Ambiguous phone calls seem to be coming to the house, even after Gatsby's death, which hints at illegal gambling as a source of income for Gatsby. Nick makes an interesting observation about parties that could be still true today.

That while they happen every weekend, there is a certain emptiness experienced at parties. This emptiness derives from how fake and replaceable people are. That if you attend enough parties, they all tend to be the same. Furthermore, Gatsby wishes he could go back to when he had first met Daisy. And any character that wishes the present were the past, that things were the way they used to be, is doomed. This is a strong literary device and several of the best stories incorporate in their tragic characters. So be forewarned, living in the past is dangerous.

Short Summary of Frankenstein

2021-05-31T08:30:00.043+05:30

About Author:

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction.[2] She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Summary:

Frankenstein begins when a young man named captain Walton takes a ship into the Arctic Ocean he's hoping to make important scientific discoveries. His ship gets stranded for a few days when a sheet of ice forms all around it, to his amazement he and his crew see a gigantic man about eight feet tall driving a dog sled across the ice until it disappears in the distance.

A little later they see a normal-sized man on another dogsled chasing the first one, this man is almost dead from exhaustion and exposure so they take him aboard. The man is Victor Frankenstein, Walton becomes friends with him and while Frankenstein is recovering he tells Walton his story.

Frankenstein grew up in Geneva his father had been an important figure in the government and they were well off. He grew up with his cousin Elizabeth whom his parents expected him to marry eventually, he had a little brother named William, he had a best friend named Henry Clerval. Frankenstein goes to a famous University in Ingolstadt where he becomes very good at science. He figures out scientifically how to bring something to life though he doesn't tell us what the secret is. He makes a creature using parts from a graveyard on a rainy night in November he brings it to life but he's so horrified by it that he runs away the next day.

His friend Clerval arrives at the University to begin his studies but Frankenstein becomes ill and Clerval spends all winter nursing him just as he's getting better at the beginning of spring he gets a letter telling him that his little brother William has been murdered.

Justine a servant in his house whom everyone always liked has been arrested because William had been carrying a locket that was found on her so Frankenstein heads home. Just before he gets home he sees the monster from a distance and he knows that the monster killed his brother. Frankenstein watches Justine's trial and his cousin Elizabeth testifies that she's too nice to have done this but she's convicted and sentenced to death. Frankenstein has to watch her die.

Frankenstein goes with his family on a sightseeing trip and one day when he goes mountain climbing by himself the monster appears to him and makes him sit down and listen to his story. Frankenstein would rather kill him but he listens the monster describes how he came to life completely disoriented he didn't know how to speak or understand language and he had to get used to the feel of his own body and to figure out basic concepts like light and dark heat and cold and hunger and thirst. He eventually wandered out into the forest where he could hide and look for berries and nuts.

The first human he sees is an old man in a hut who runs away in terror because the monster is so hideous he's fascinated by the first village he walks into but the residents are terrified and they drive him off by throwing things at him he finally finds shelter in this little shed built up against the side of a cottage he can look through a crack and observe the people who live there but they don't know he's there these people are called the delay sees a brother and sister named Felix and Agatha and their blind old father who plays the guitar the creature sees how much they love each other and he wants to be like them.

He starts learning language by listening to them speak French. One day an Arabian woman named Safee arrives, Safee doesn't speak English or know much about European culture so Felix teaches our everything from vocabulary and reading to history and the monster learns along with her he learns to read and write and about good and evil and about the history of human societies in the woods. He finds three books Paradise, Lost The Sorrows of Young Werther and Plutarch's lives and he reads the papers that were in Frankenstein's dressing-gown which reveal who Frankenstein is, where he lives and how he came to make the monster.

The monster starts to hate Frankenstein for giving him such an awful lonely existence and abandoning him since he's too ugly to make friends with anyone. Eventually the monster learns the story of these people the delay sees were a rich family in Paris but Felix helped a wealthy Turk escape from prison because he felt sorry for him, so the government took the delacey family's money and banished them and they went to live in the cottage, The Turk did escape from prison but he abandoned Felix afterward but the Turks daughter safety had fallen in love with Felix so she escaped to come marry him the monster wants to be friends with the delay seized and he decide that if he goes to talk to the old man first the old man will listen because he's blind when the others leave he pretends to be a traveler and speaks to delacey and it's going okay until Felix and Agatha and safety come back the women are horrified and Felix drives the monster off with a stick at first the monster goes out into the woods and decides that he's going to declare war on humans but in the morning he cools down and decides to go back and try again but he finds Felix giving up the lease and he never sees the delay sees again which makes him feel doubly rejected he comes back at night and destroys the cottage then he starts the long walk to Geneva to try to find his creator he gets shot while he's on his way there just because he stops to help a woman who's drowning when he gets to Geneva he grabs this little boy thinking that he can use the boy to learn his way around but when the boy mentions his father's name is Frankenstein the monster kills him to get revenge on Frankenstein you might notice that there's an inconsistency in the story here because Victor made the creature in November then got sick all winter William got killed the following spring maybe six months later but the creature spends a whole year at the cottage and he kills William more like 18 months after being created so there's a difference of a year between the two stories just to be even more hateful he puts the locket William was carrying in Justine's pocket knowing she'll be condemned for murder the monster insists that Frankenstein make a female as ugly as he is so he'll have a companion he promises to go away with her to South America and threatens to kill lots of people of Frankenstein won't do it so Frankenstein agrees Frankenstein decides to go on a long trip and work on the new monster away from home so he and Claire vall go in a long sightseeing trip through Germany England and Scotland he eventually rents a little cottage on a remote island in Scotland to do the work but he gets disgusted and destroys the new creature before it's finished the monster comes in to find out what he's doing and is furious that Frankenstein broke his promise the monster swears he'll get revenge and says I'll be with you on your wedding-night Frankenstein takes all the parts and puts them in a basket then sails out in a bow at Knight and dumps it all then he goes to sleep in the boat when he comes ashore he's in Ireland and the people arrest him it turns out someone strangled his friend Clare ball and they think Frankenstein did it he gets sick again because he's so upset that the monster killed another of his friends and a magistrate has him nursed back to health he's eventually released since he didn't kill Claire ball he goes back home and he marries Elizabeth like they've been planning their whole lives he thinks the monster is planning to kill him on his wedding night so he sits up waiting with a gun but the monster actually kills Elizabeth his father dies of grief soon afterward so Victor has lost everybody he devotes his life to finding the monster and destroying it but the monster keeps going farther and farther north until they're chasing each other on dogsleds far out to sea after he tells Walton the whole story he dies the monster comes onboard the boat to pay a final farewell to Frankensteihe tells Walton he's going to set himself on fire and destroy himself because he didn't mean to be bad Walton winds up taking the ship back home partly because the crew makes him and partly because Frankenstein story shows that scientific discovery isn't worth sacrificing your life for one of the major questions of the book is how much we should blame Frankenstein for what happens and how much the monster critics like to point out all the things that are wrong with Frankenstein because he was irresponsible and created this monster for no good reason then he abandoned his creation instead of helping it and he was very careless about protecting his friends readers tend to see the monster is more a fault though because even though he gets a lot of bad breaks being frightening Lee ugly and misunderstood his decision to kill a child that's just evil and he keeps killing people out of spite or for revenge another question is whether the creature is naturally good like he claims to be and what it is that makes him become evil his own choices or things that happened to him for more information about Frankenstein check out the Frankenstein spark note on sparknotes calm you

Summary Of The Catcher in the Rye || J.D. Salinger

2021-05-28T22:43:00.005+05:30

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

About Author:

Jerome David Salinger (January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010) was an American writer best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye. Before its publication, Salinger published several short stories in Story magazine and served in World War II. In 1948, his critically acclaimed story "A Perfect Day for Bannerfish" appeared in The New Yorker, which published much of his later work.

Summary:

This is a story about a boy named Holden Caulfield. He just got kicked out of another all-boy's school called Pencey. He comes from a wealthy family with a lawyer father, nagging mother, a brother who is a Hollywood writer, a brother who died, and an intelligent sister. Holden really doesn't like phonies, which is basically all types of people that annoy him. So, he leaves Pencey hating most, if not all, of the people there. He can't go home because he doesn't want to tell his parents that he got kicked out so he goes to New York. In New York, he stays at a hotel and meets more phonies.

He takes a cab to various bars where he meets more phonies. He meets an old girlfriend, but scares her with his plans of running away. Finally, he goes home, but sneaks in to see his sister. They talk and she misses him. Unfortunately, he can't stay long and goes to visit an old teacher of his. The teacher makes him a bed and gives him advice on life. When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, Holden says he wants to watch children play in a field of rye and catch them if they fall off the edge of the field.

Holden goes to sleep, but wakes up to find that the teacher is patting his head. Holden freaks out and sleeps in a terminal. He thinks about running away, but wants to see his sister one more time. They spend the day together and as she is riding the carousel; he decides not to run away. The Catcher in the Rye has a bad reputation in the literary world, but it really isn't so bad. A lot of the frustration that Holden expresses is what young men often experience.

His opinions of the world are honest, but can be a little burdening at times. He is extremely negative and pretty much gets irritated by everything and everyone.

The narrative style of the novel is interesting as it uses second-person. The references to "you" as the reader make it feel like Holden is speaking to you, making the story more personable. Looking at the story arc, not a lot happens in terms of real-life events. But what fills in the gap between or during these events are the stories that Holden shares. He refers to a lot of the people from his past, including old teachers, students, and family.

I'm sure all guys can relate to Holden a little. So if you think you're a smart aleck that hates how fake people are and you have life all figured out before you're 25, sorry, but Holden probably thinks you're a phony.

Summary Of Charlotte's WEB || E.B. WHITE

2021-05-24T08:30:00.013+05:30

Charlotte's Web By E.B. White

About Author:

Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985) was an American writer. He was the author of several highly popular books for children, including Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte's Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970). In a 2012 survey of School Library Journal readers, Charlotte's Web came in first in their poll of the top one hundred children's novels. In addition, he was a writer and contributing editor to The New Yorker magazine, and also a co-author of the English language style guide The Elements of Style.

Summary:

This is a story about a pig named Wilbur, who was born on the Arable farm. Mr. Arable wants to kill Wilbur when he was born because Wilbur is a runt, but Fern, Mr. Arable’s daughter saved him. Fern raised Wilbur until he was sold to Mr. Zuckerman, a farmer who lives nearby. Fern starting visiting Wilbur a lot as Wilbur gets accustomed to his new home.

However, Wilbur is lonely and none of the other animals want to play with him. One day, Wilbur heard a voice that offers friendship and its source was from a spider named Charlotte. Charlotte and Wilbur became friend. However, Wilbur learns that Mr. Zuckerman plans on killing him in the winter.

Charlotte vows to save Wilbur’s life by any means necessary. Charlotte decides that to save Wilbur she must trick Mr. Zuckerman. She begins writing words in her web so that everyone can read it. She writes, “Some Pig”, “Terrific”, and “Radiant” over the course of weeks. This brings hundreds of visitors to Mr. Zuckerman’s farm, which prompts him to enter Wilbur in the county fair as a show pig.

Charlotte travels with Wilbur to the fair for one more miracle. At the county fair, Charlotte grows weaker and only has the energy to write one more message in her web. She writes “Humble” which earns Wilbur a special bronze medal from the county fair judges. Also at the fair, Charlotte creates an egg sac that contains thousands of little eggs. Because a spider’s life is so short, Charlotte tells Wilbur that she will die soon and not be able to return to the farm. Wilbur takes the egg sac back to the farm and Charlotte died at the fair alone. Back at the farm, Wilbur watches the egg sac until one day, little spider lings begin to emerge. Wilbur was overjoyed to see Charlotte’s children, but they soon start flying away with the wind.

However, three children stay behind and live in the doorframe that Charlotte once lived. In the end, Wilbur watches over Charlotte’s children and grandchildren, but never forgets the sacrifice Charlotte made for friendship.

Gone With The Wind || Margaret Mictchells

2021-05-17T08:30:00.003+05:30

Gone with the Wind

About Author:

Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel, published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel Gone with the Wind, for which she won the National Book Award for Most Distinguished Novel of 1936.

Summary:

Margaret Mitchell's famous novel gone with the wind has given birth to the legendary unforgettable couple of Scarlett O’ Hara and Rhett Butler, the bittersweet story of this unlikely couple will warm your hearts and show that light is always visible at the end of the tunnel. Scarlett was a rich beautiful woman with many suitors but her heart only belonged to Ashley Wilkes, the young and educated son of a distinguished southern family. Ashley also loved Scarlet back but Scarlett was a fierce demanding woman, she always got what she wanted and a wild tigress hid beneath her elegant exterior no man could really control her and Ashley ultimately came to the decision that marrying Scarlet was not the right choice instead he chose to marry his cousin Melanie who was a mild soft-spoken woman the exact opposite of Scarlet.

Scarlet furious by Ashley's decision vows to take revenge on him and decides to marry Melanie's brother despite still having feelings for Ashley. Soon after treacherous reigns of civil war take a hold of the country and men are forced to leave their families to fight in the war. Scarlett loses her husband in the war and decides to leave the quiet country life behind and move to a boisterous city.

There she meets with Rhett butler an adventurous man not very different than scarlet herself he's the only one who is able to see beneath the facade Scarlett has created for herself and he acknowledges the real passionate woman she is. However, war has taken its toll on everybody's life Ashley whom Scarlett still hopes to gain back is taken to prison and the city is invaded by the enemy forces. Rhett helped Scarlett escape the city and return back to hometown only to her mother dead and her father distraught and her town in shambles.

At last, the war ends after taking so many things from Scarlet and she decides to take charge of rebuilding her hometown. she marries a rich merchant for his money but ironically, he also loses his life a while after their marriage. Rhett who'd had feelings for scarlet all this time finally proposes to her and she quickly accepts. Their marriage started happily but turned for the worse as time went on the two had similar personalities and were constantly quarrelling with each other.

Scarlett could also not forget her first love Ashley even after all these years and they gradually lost sight of what made them fall in love in the first place the death of their young daughter was the final push that drove the two to the edge of the cliff. Exhausted after all the ups and downs of the life together Rhett ultimately decides to leave Scarlet but as if in a moment of revelation Scarlett realizes how much he actually meant to her and that her desire to have Ashley was nothing more than a young girl's fantasy a strong passionate woman like Scarlett always gets what she wants so she decides to think of a way to earn back her true love ending the novel with her famous quote “tomorrow is another day”.

The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life Summary || Robin Sharma

2021-04-09T06:00:00.025+05:30

The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life

About Author:

Robin Sharma is a Canadian writer, best known for his The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari book series.

Sharma worked as a litigation lawyer until age 25, when he self-published MegaLiving (1994), a book on stress management and spirituality. He initially also self-published The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, which was then picked up for wider distribution by Harper Collies.

Sharma has published 12 other books, and founded the training company Sharma Leadership International

Summary:

A strong morning Routine is something to help us to perform at our best and reach New levels of productivity, we know that those who rise early are more likely to achieve success in life as opposed to those who sleeping, but not everyone knows how to create successful morning routine that can transform their lives.

Today we will take a look at book “THE 5 AM CLUB” by Robin Sharma and will learn how to create the best morning routine and join the 5 a.m. club.

If you want to be successful you have to be productive every day, if you want to be productive you have to win your morning and the best way to do that is to have a morning routine. First hour of the day is where hero’s are made. Did you want to be one of them you have to join the 5 a.m. club by following below takeaways:

Takeaway number 1: your brain state at 5 a.m.

Rise early and read the benefit of the special brain state. Isolation has a multiplying effect and it will promote your creativity, double your energy and prepare your productivity. As humans we all have mental capacity that gets depleted during the day. If you wake up at 7 a.m. your mental capacity will go towards things like communicating with other people whereas if you wake up at 5 a.m., everyone else is sleeping and you can use your mental energy to focus on your most important projects. At 5 a.m. you have a golden opportunity to work without distraction and because of that you can easily enter the state of flow. Another reason why waking up early is beneficial is the fact that you had to do was 95% of the people are not doing. To become top 5 best and most of the people don't get up early.

Takeaway number 2 : Four Rules To Become One Of The Greats:

first you have to capitalize on your talents and strength. Talent alone will not get you anywhere it you don't capitalize in it and keep improving. The fact is that self-discipline beats talent so even if you are good at long distance running, people with discipline and hard work will beat you every time.

secondly you have to avoid distraction to do that you have to focus, simplified and concentrate on your most important things in your life. You will be surprised how much you can get done when you work without distractions. One hour of uninterrupted work equals to 4 hours of interactive.

Thirdly small things done daily than one thing that once in a while this is because of the power of habit. Once you push yourself out of the bed at 5 a.m. for a few weeks it becomes easier and you form a habit that supports your goals.

forth is personal mastery, you are your most valuable as if you want to master yourself you should spend first hour every morning working deeply on you.

Takeaway number three: four interior empires:

There are four interior empires in total that everyone should take care of. The first one is mindset, Our mindset dictates how we see the world and how we react to things we have to train our mind to become consistent and discipline. second one is health set, said this is your fitness and nutrition you must nurture your body to keep it healthy, eating healthy food and exercising is the best way to do that. Third one is heart set, this is your well-being and your emotions, an expressed emotion will never die. At some point they will come out when least expected. The forth one is soul set, this is your spirituality. In our everyday life would always in a rush and hurry for material things but sometimes you have to put these things aside and connect with yourself.

Takeaway number 4: 20/20/20 Formula:

Just waking up at 5 a.m. alone will not guarantee you a successful and productive day. that is why you have to utilise 20/20/20 formula that means 20 minutes for movement 20 minutes for reflection and 20 minutes for growth. First step is to move, train vigorously for 20mins. What is really important tips to make you sweat, sweating get rid of cortisol the hormone of the fear, exercise also accelerates the formation of Neuro connection so by sweating for 20 minutes you will be able to think faster. The time between 5:20 and 5:40 is time for your reflection on yourself when they would start to be like any other day with deadlines creeping up and people pulling up to the different size so it's important that you take this time for yourself. You can pick up a journal and write down things that are running through your head or things that you are grateful for. By writing things down you Free Your Mind from them and you'll be able to enter the state of peace, to really connect yourself you can also use this time to meditate, meditation is a proven way to stay calm. Of the world are always calm and finally it is time for the last 20 minutes of your first hour here you need to grow. Study the life of the great achievers by reading their auto-biography you can also read books watch documentaries or listen the audiobook. One thing that is common to all successful people is love of learning. So here you have it a perfect morning routine that will supercharge your day and allow you to become a true member of the 5 a.m. Club

Takeaway Number 5 Embrace The Sleep

Your sleep is a secret to become even more productive. Last hour of the day might just be the second most important hour of the whole day because that would prepare your body for recovery. Growth happens during recovery phase some people think that the muscle gets stronger in a gym but that is not true in fact the muscle get weaker in a gym as it your muscle fibers during the exercise. The real growth is happening during the rest phase and there is no better rest than having a good night's sleep. To have a good night's sleep try not to use any devices at least one hour before bedtime or even better if you can stop using them by 8 p.m. and then hit the bed by 10 p.m. that will ensure that you maximize your value of your next days 5 a.m. time also blackout curtains are the great way to improve your sleep specially if it's light outside when you go to the bed and the end.

Mindset: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential || Carol Dweck

2021-02-26T06:00:00.011+05:30

Mind-set: Changing The Way You think To Fulfil Your Potential

About Author:

Carol Susan Dweck (born October 17, 1946) is an American psychologist. She is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Dweck is known for her work on mind-set. She was on the faculty at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of Illinois before joining the Stanford University faculty in 2004. She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Summary:

Mind-set was written by Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck her decades of research on achievement and success led her to discover what great parents teachers CEOs and athletes already know that our mind-set is the basis of accomplishment. Here we will discuss six lessons we can learn from this book:

Lesson #1 The two mind-sets:

People with the fixed mind-set belief intelligence can't be changed this leads to a desire to look smart so they avoid challenges, they don't want to look bad if they fail which holds them back in the face of obstacles they get defensive or give up easily, they see effort is pointless and believe that people are only great at things because they were born with special talents. When confronted with constructive criticism they ignore it lastly they feel threatened by the success of others. People with a fixed mind-set achieve much less than they're capable of, on the other hand people with the growth mind-set believe intelligence can be developed. This leads to a desire to learn so instead of avoiding challenges, they embrace them they persist in the face of obstacles and see effort as a path to mastery they accept constructive criticism and use it to their advantage. Lastly they feel inspired by and learn from the success of others as a result they fulfil their ultimate potential.

Lesson #2 mind-set in sports:

Michael Jordan wasn't a natural, he was one of the hardest-working athletes in history he was rejected by his high school varsity team and the first two NBA teams that could have chosen him he was devastated but his mother told him to work hard and discipline himself and that's exactly what he did. He used to leave the house at 6:00 in the morning to practice before school but what about people that seemed to just be a natural, yes these people exist but Carroll argues that with all the praise for their talents and with how little work they've needed to put in they can easily develop a fixed mind-set they may not learn how to work hard or cope with setbacks. A growth mind-set is what allows athletes to maintain their success in the long term Carol found that athletes with a growth mind-set found success in doing their best in learning and improving found setbacks motivating and took charge of the processes that bring success.

Lesson #3 mind-set in business:

Jim Collins and his team conducted a five-year research project with the aim to find out how companies go from good to great. One thing they found was that great companies had leaders with a growth mind-set in the late 1980s IBM was in trouble, their culture was filled with people trying to be better than each other they had a culture of smugness and defending personal status that inhibited learning and growth in 1993 they asked Lou Gerstner to turn things around Lou had a growth mind-set and encourage teamwork and got rid of the uptight culture over the next nine years IBM increased in value by eight hundred percent. Ultimately Carol argues that successful businesses need to Train leaders managers and employees to have a growth mind-set this can be done by cultivating a growth mind-set environment and involves presenting skills as learner ball, conveying that the organization values learning and perseverance not in a talent giving feedback that promotes learning and future success and presenting managers as resources for learning.

Lesson #4 mind-set in relationships:

There's two common ways of dealing with pain and heartbreak in a relationship. The first is to label yourself as unlovable and seek revenge this is how fixed mind-set people deal with it they let these experiences scar them and prevent them from forming new relationships in the future. For people with the growth mind-set it's about understanding forgiving and moving on although they are deeply hurt from these negative experiences like anyone would be they want to learn from it. In a relationship it's possible to believe your qualities your partner's qualities and the relationships qualities are fixed but the growth mind-set says that these three things can be developed. Two fixed ways of thinking about a relationship are (1.) If you have to work at it, It wasn't meant to be. the truth is that all relationships require work and effort and you can't expect your partner to know your needs if you don't communicate them effectively the romanticized idea of a perfect problem and free relationship that automatically works is unrealistic and the (2.) second way of thinking about a relationship is that problems indicate character flaws people often blend their relationship problems on their partner and assign the blame to a character flaw they think that their partner is just an angry person when really the problem is not the person but the situation if Julie is angry every day when Jim gets home from work instead of blaming Julie for being an angry person he could look at the situation and try to understand why she's always angry by communicating with her by doing this a solution can be found finally your partner may have different skills beliefs and values than your own a growth minded approach to a relationship is helping your partner to reach their own goals and fulfil their potential.

Lesson #5 mind-set and parenting and teaching:

The way children think about themselves is heavily based on the messages they receive from their parents and teachers, this has a direct effect on their learning and development with every interaction you have with a child ask yourself am i giving them the fixed mind-set message that they have permanent traits and I'm judging them or am I communicating a growth mind-set message that says you are a developing person and I'm interested in your development. Another critical lesson is to not praise children's intelligence if you say you learn that quickly you're so smart what children really hear is if I don't learn something quickly I'm not smart or if you say you're so brilliant you got an a without even studying children really hear I'd better quit studying or they won't think I'm brilliant this doesn't mean don't praise your children but praise their effort and choices not their intelligence and talent, you could say you really studied for your tests and your improvement chosen you read the material over several times and you tested yourself on it. It really worked, consider this real-life scenario nine-year-old Elizabeth loved gymnastics and was determined to win the local gymnastics competition she did very well but not enough to win she was devastated if you were her parents what would you do, tell Elizabeth you thought she was the best, tell her she was robbed of a ribbon that was rightfully hers reassure her that gymnastics is not important tell her she has the ability and will definitely win next time or tell her she didn't deserve to win.

Let’s got through each answers,

(A) is Insincere and doesn't offer her a way to improve.

(B) places blame on the judges when the problem was her performance do you want Elizabeth growing up to blame others for her deficiencies

(D) does ability automatically take you where you want to go if Elizabeth didn't win this one why should she win the next one and finally

(E) it seems harsh and obviously you'd say in a nicer way but this is necessary to help Elizabeth cultivate a growth mind-set that will bring her success in the future her growth minded father told her Elizabeth I know how you feel it's so disappointing to have your hopes up and perform your best but not win but you know you haven't really earned it yet there were many girls who've been in gymnastics longer than you have and who've worked a lot harder than you if this is something you really want then it's something you have to really work for.

Elizabeth took this to heart and spent more time perfecting her routines at the next competition she became the overall champion.

The final lesson how to change your mind-set:

The first way is to access Carole's resources one is a brain ology computer program designed to help students develop a growth mind-set through classroom activities and online instruction other resources include a live workshop webinars keynote presentations and more the second way to change your mind-set is merely knowing about the growth mind-set imagine the impact we can make by sharing this summary with someone you know it could be your friends family partner students or co-workers I don't ask you to share this just to increase my subscribe account I value having a positive impact on people's lives and by sharing this post you can do the same.

HAPPY READING! J

Treasure Island || Summary Of Treasure Island || Robert Louis Stevenson

2021-01-19T23:58:00.004+05:30

This is a story few boy named Jim Hawkins who lives in England together with his mother and father at the family’s inn. A loud and drunk man whose name is Billy Bones rents a room from the Hawkins and warns Jim to be aware of a one-legged man. After Jim’s father died, Billy Bones is visited by a couple of buccaneers who always threaten to kill him, revealing that Billy Bones was the first mate to the notorious pirate. Captain Flint, Billy Bones dies of a stroke and Jim searches through his belongings and finds a treasure map to Flint’s treasure. The buccaneers break into the family's inn and try to find the map, but Jim and his mother hide safely. As Jim’s mother stays to watch the family's inn, Jim seeks the help of Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney.

They decide to go after the treasure and Squire Trelawney funds the expedition by buying a ship, the Hispaniola, and hiring a crew with the help of a one-legged cook named Long John Silver. After hiring Captain Smollett, the voyage begins, although the captain is always hesitant about the crew. As the journey begins after sometime, Jim overhears Long John Silver talking to a few others about their plan to kill the Captain and the Squire so that they can get the treasure themselves.

Jim warned Captain Smollett and they prepare for a fight as the island just spotted on the horizon. Captain Smollett allows John and some of the crew to spend their afternoon on the island as Jim sneaks on a boat to shore. As soon as the boat hits the beach, Jim took the chance to takes off and runs. Jim meets a person name Ben Gunn, a former mate of Flint who has been marooned on the island for a couple of years. Meanwhile, Captain Smollett, Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and a few others get on a ship and row to the island to flee the mutiny by Long John’s men aboard the Hispaniola. As they were out for a long time they are low on supplies but reunite with Jim.

The group takes refuge in a house-like structure waiting for an attack from Long John and the pirates. Seeing this Long John appears and wants to talk terms, but Captain Smollett refuses. The pirates decided to attack and due to this fight many of the pirates are killed. Just after that Dr. Livesey leaves to seek out Ben Gunn, while Jim sneaks away to Ben Gunn’s handmade boat to chop the anchor of the Hispaniola. Jim succeeds, but is shipped adrift with the present . Jim eventually drifts back to the Hispaniola and takes the control of the ship, leading it toward the island. Jim returns to the house-like structure, expecting to ascertain his comrades, but is instead greeted by Long John and his group. Long John explains to Jim that there's a truce whereby they got the map by Dr. Livesey with the promise of being left alone by the pirates.

Dr. Livesey visits Jim and offers him a chance to escape, but Jim refuses after promising to not run away. Long John faces mutiny among the pirates, but survives, as he was leading the group to the treasure. The pirates arrive at the treasure location, but discover that it has been dug up. Fighting ensues and Dr. Livesey and Ben Gunn rescue Jim and Long John. They visit the security of Ben Gunn’s cave, where he has stored the treasure after having dug it up himself. The treasure is loaded onto the Hispaniola and therefore the men sail away, leaving a number of the pirates behind. During the journey home, Long John escapes on a ship with a sack of gold. In the end, they all return to England and split the treasure earned.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book summary || Charlie and the Chocolate Factory summary || Book by Roald Dahl

2021-01-16T22:07:00.001+05:30

This is a story about a boy whose name is Charlie he lives with his parents and grandparents in a tiny shack in the outskirts of the city. His family is poor, as Charlie's father works as a toothpaste capper, and everyone eat very limited meal. In the newspaper, Mr. Willy Wonka, who is the owner of a successful candy company announced a contest in which five golden tickets have been placed in Wonka candy bars. The five children who will find the golden tickets will be allowed to enter the chocolate factory and will win a lifetime supply of candy. Charlie is excited about the news as all children's, but then realizes that because his family is poor and cannot afford to buy candy, he become sure that will mostly not win. Soon, in the newspaper reports that tickets are being discovered by various children. Charlie tried to win by opening two chocolate bars, but he did not find any ticket. After few Weeks the family has seemingly forgotten about the golden tickets as Charlie's father has lost his job. With an empty stomach, Charlie walks outside and finds a dollar on the street. He went to a candy shop and buys two candy bars. Luckily this time he find a golden ticket. Charlie's family is excited about this discovery and Grandpa Joe agrees to go with Charlie to the chocolate factory the next day. The long-locked gates of the Wonka factory are opened and the five children and their families are greeted by Wonka, a exuberant fellow with flare and wit. There was a show organised by Wonka around his chocolate factory,introducing them to all of his candy inventions. He also introduced the group to the Oompa-Loomp as a small race of people who love chocolate and work in the factory. As the tour goes on, all of the children except Charlie misbehave and get taken away. In the end, Wonka explained that the golden ticket contest was just a way to find someone who could inherit the factory. Charlie accept the offer and his entire family moves in.

First, this story highlights poverty. As a readers, especially young readers, the concept of poverty may not be fully understood to them. The term "poor" is often used loosely as in "I'm so poor that I can't buy that toy". But this story better defines the term by portraying one family that better reflects the actual definition of the word. Charlie's family is destitute. As they were Living in a two-room shack, they are getting by with one paycheck to feed seven people, eating bread and cabbage stew for each meal. More importantly, though, a destitution does not come to define Charlie. Yes, it limits him from buying a large amount of candy bars, but he still is a smart and hardworking individual with good character. In contrast, there are the other golden ticket winners whose condition maybe be different from Charlie. Collectively, those children represent the different types of misbehavior that children often engage in. There is the over eater, spoiled brat, gum-chewing competitive kid, and TV watcher as they were from different family and financial background. Each of these characters are over-exaggerated to a satirical level in hopes that children can understand that these behaviors are unacceptable. But the children are not the only one responsible for their bad behavior. It is the parents. Wonka invites two parents to accompany each golden ticket winner not just for supervisory reasons, but so that we can see from where these children learned their bad behavior. They had to learn it from somewhere and these parents are enablers, doing nothing to stop it. And so even though the contents of this story may be for children, there is a sprinkle of meaning in it for adults too. Behavior of a child id the complete reflection of his surroundings and parents.

Summary Of The One and Only Ivan || Teen Book Review || Katherine Applegate

2021-01-16T00:50:00.004+05:30

This is a story about a gorilla named Ivan who lives in a mall as a spectacle for shoppers. Mack, his trainer, runs a little show with Stella the elephant and other animals. Ivan lives in a glass cage with a runaway dog named Bob. Because Ivan has a knack for drawing, Mack sells Ivan's paintings in the gift shop. Life for Ivan grow more stable as people were becoming less interested in the animals. The highlight of his day is when the janitor, George, and his daughter, Julia, stop by and Ivan watches Julia draw. One day, a new baby elephant named Ruby is added to the group. Stella nurtures her and helps her transition to show business. However,Stella's leg is infected and death looks eminent. Before Stella dies, Ivan promises to save Ruby. Saddened by the death of Stella, Ruby refuses to obey Mack, but eventually gives in and becomes the star attraction. Meanwhile, Ivan starts to paint. He creates a large poster with the word "HOME" on it. With the help of George and Julia, the public and media become aware of Ivan and Ruby and both animals are taken away to a zoo with others of their own kind. At first Ivan is nervous because he hasn't interacted with other gorillas in such a long time. In the end, Ivan and Ruby are happy in their new home and Julia visits the zoo.

One of the most interesting aspects of this story is how the story is told. Readers must read through the perspective of Ivan, a gorilla.Normally, it would be difficult to see the world through the eyes of another species,but because Ivan has a good understanding of the human world and is continuing to learn about this world, readers are taken on a journey of discovery. Concepts that are simple for readers to understand are sometimes more difficult for Ivan. But in this lack of understanding, readers can see how strange some of our human attitudes and behaviors actually are to outsiders. And because the story is from the perspective of Ivan, readers come to understand the definition of freedom according to an animal. What makes Ivan's definition of freedom unique is that he was taken from his family in the wild.So while most domesticated animals are born and bred in a more controlled environment,never really knowing true nature and freedom, Ivan remembers and has access to this knowledge,and this allows his freedom to be a running back towards something that was taken away from him, rather than an experience that he never had. The story also highlights the power of art and creativity and how simple drawings can act as bridges of communication. In the story,art is used as a means of communication between a gorilla and humans, but this concept can apply to today's international relations since the world is becoming more globally connected,requiring more cross-cultural interaction.

Please share your review about the summary of this children book.

Story of The Cay || Theodore Taylor (Book Summary )

2021-01-15T00:08:00.006+05:30

Let us here a story about a boy named Phillip. A boy who lives with his American parents on the island of Curacao in the Caribbean. Unfortunately the island is suddenly attacked by German U-boats, who surround the island and cut off any supplies from getting in and out. Phillip's mother decides that she wants to go back to America and takes Phillip with her. They took the boat but the boat on which they were travelling gets attacked and Phillip got thrown out of the boat, suffering a head injury. He woked up in a lifeboat with a large Black man named Timothy and a cat named Stew. These guys drift for a while until they saw a small island and decided to go there. With that accident, Phillip soon realized that he is blind due to his head injury. They reached that island and set up camp. At first, Phillip is distrustful of Timothy because he does not like Blacks as he was taught since childhood blacks are below whites, but later discovers that he needs Timothy as he will be his eyes while they are on the island. Soon Timothy teaches Phillip about the island and shows him skills to take care of himself, like fishing and weaving. Timothy senses a coming hurricane and prepares for the storm by tying both of them to a tree. When the storm hit the island, Timothy protects Phillip from the wind and rain. Finally they survive the storm, but is very exhausted. Due to tiredness and injuries Timothy soon dies. Phillip buries him and resumed his life on the island. Eventually, Phillip is rescued and reunited with his beloved family. He got surgery to fix his eyes and vows to find the island where Timothy is buried.

These type of Desert island stories are always difficult to narrate, especially from a first-person perspective, because we know that the narrator survives. How else could he tell the story? Racism is an underlying issue in this story. Phillip's mother has always taught her son that Blacks are lower than Whites, Phillip was having this attitude when they first arrive on the island. However, because to his situation as a blind person, he got no way rather than to learn to get along with a Black man, subduing his inherent racism. However, we can see that his racism is more than subdued as he become friend with Timothy.

Similarly, the author pictured Phillip blind, both literally and figuratively. This blindness forced him to see beyond skin color to the point that he does not want to view Timothy as White or Black, but just as a fellow human being. In terms of storytelling, this story has presented an interesting perspective on narration. For the most part, the narrator is blind and so he cannot give physical descriptions of his surroundings, but must describe his experiences through his other senses. What is even more interesting is how readers are able to picture the setting and images through a blind narrator. You will think that it could never work since a lot of people say how much they like authors who can paint pictures in their heads that are so visual. But Phillip, as the narrator, painted a picture of an island without visual images, but a descriptive images. In fact, as readers, initially we all are blind when it comes to reading stories. The author describes images in our mind and we must recreate them in our mind to understand the world presented to us. This story is a great example of the power of the imagination and the written word, that people are able to imagine something or someplace without having actually been there and seeing it.

The Story About a Boy James summary 2021 || James and the Giant Peach written by Roald Dahl

2021-01-13T22:21:00.002+05:30

This book is a story about a boy named James who is forced to live with his two abusive aunts in the English countryside after his parents die to a rhinoceros. One fine day, a mysterious old man presents James with a bag of tiny green crystals that have magical powers. Mistakenly James falls and spills the tiny green crystals near a dormant peach tree in the yard. A lifeless tree was near by and that lifeless tree suddenly sprouts a peach, which begins to grow larger and larger. His abusive aunts take notice of the giant peach and begin charging people money to see it. His aunt were so rude that they locked up James all day, and force him to clean up after the crowds are gone. As James is cleaning, he discovers a tunnel leading to the middle of the giant peach. There, he finds a group of human-sized insects:Centipede, Grasshopper, Spider, Earthworm, Ladybug, Silkworm, and Glow-worm. That group become friend with James and attribute their giant growth to having eaten the tiny green crystals that James had spilled. On next day early morning, the group decides to venture out by cutting the stem connecting the peach to the tree. The giant peach begins to roll-down the hillside, killing James' two aunts in the process. The giant peach rolls faster and faster until it lands in the ocean. In order to avoid a group of vicious sharks, James attaches strings to hundreds of seagulls and the peach is carried in the air. Everyone can see it floating in the air and just bedside it they see Cloud-Men, mystic creatures who are responsible for the different types of weather, like rain,snow, and hail. And as they are drifting through the clouds, the peach crashes into a rainbow and begins to descend. James got a clue that they are approaching land and the giant peach crashes on top of the Empire State Building. In the end of story all of the insects become successful in America and James, who has made a lot of friends, lives in the large peach pit in Central Park. This story tells fellow readers to take a closer look at the world around them. First, a closer look at nature. By having a closer look we can find there are several amazing things happening in the natural world, from photosynthesis to the water cycle.

The book even explores the importance of each type of insect and how each of them contributes to the well-being of the environment. But this idea of looking closer at the world also applies to looking at other people and how we should take the time to talk to them to get to know them. By following this and making it a habit we can find out how they contribute to the rest of us since everyone contributes to the world.

The author also creates a mythos of Cloud-Mento explain how different weather is created. And what's interesting about this mythos is that it has elements that almost make it tribal, with gods and mystics, not science, responsible for natural phenomenon. What this does is portray the world as organic rather than mechanical.That first, nature is controllable, and second, that nature is controlled by organic or mystic beings. On a more hopeful note, the underlying message of this story is that there are ways to escape a troubling home life. The verbal and emotional abuse James receives is a bit over-the-top, but that might be the reality for some kids.How do they escape that? And as we are aware they can't fly away on a giant peach,ultimately, this story suggests that abused kids can find possible escapes through friends and writing. The power of relationships and creativity and imagination are all a person needs to take them anywhere they want to go.

The Little Book That Still Beats the Market || Joel Greenblatt

2020-10-12T06:00:00.009+05:30

The Little Book That Still Beats the Market

About Author

Joel Greenblatt (born December 13, 1957) is an American academic, hedge fund manager, investor, and writer. He is a value investor, alumnus of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He runs Gotham Funds with his partner, Robert Goldstein. He is the former chairman of the board of Alliant Techsystems (1994-1995) and founder of the New York Securities Auction Corporation. He is also a director at Pzena Investment Management, a high-end value firm.

Summary of Book

What should you be doing with all your hard-earned money? You could put it under a mattress, lend it to a bank, lend it to a company or you could invest it in a company and/or in the stock market. This is probably the best alternative. The problem is just that most people have no business investing in individual stocks on their own, or, as Joel Greenblatt puts it: "Choosing individual stocks without any idea of what you're looking for is like running through a dynamite factory with a burning match. You may live, but just still an idiot." There is a solution though. Let’s learn in following takeaways.

Takeaway #1: The madness of the markets:

Think of a company, any company. Let’s take Amazon. During the last year, you could have bought Amazon for as low as $1377, and as high as $2012, a price difference of about 50%. Not just that, but the value of the whole company bounced from about a $1 trillion, down to approximately $650 billion, and then back up to $1 trillion again. Here point is that, Amazon - the business - didn't shift in value that quickly. The market is simply overreacting to the information that it is presented with. But this all may just be a fluke, maybe we, when asked to pick a company, happen to pick an extremely volatile one. Let’s take another company GAP. During the last year, you could have bought GAP, America's largest fashion retailer, for as little as $18 per share and as high as $31 per share. That's an even bigger difference, more than 70%! Do you think that GAP sold 70% more clothes ten months ago than they do today? NO! Clearly, at times, the market doesn't know what it is doing.

Takeaway #2: How much is a business worth?:

When looking at these fluctuations, it's fairly simple to tell that the market isn't always efficient. Sometimes, greed is ruling and prices are too high, and at other times, fear is ruling, and the prices are too low. Suppose that the value of the Amazon (as a business) fluctuated between $1,500 and $1,700 during the last year, while the prices fluctuated between $1,377 and $2,012. If you could state this with any kind of certainty, becoming rich trading Amazon stocks would be a really simple task. It will be like just buy it whenever the price goes way below $1,500 and sell it whenever it goes way above $1,700. The problem is it is not that simple. Let's take an example. One of your friends owns a shop called "The Swedish Merchant". It sells only Swedish stuff. The shop made a profit of $100,000 last year. How much would you be willing to pay for it, knowing this? Well, your guess is as good as mine (as long as you guessed somewhere between $500,000 and $2 million). In the stock market, you're typically provided with more information than this before you ask to determine the price of a business, but the difficulties are the same nonetheless. Firstly, $100,000 is just what The Swedish Merchants earned last year. We must determine if it, after our purchase, will be able to generate more or less than that, in the coming year. Secondly, we must decide how confident we are in that prediction. And thirdly it's not just about the next year potentially we could own The Swedish Merchant for a very long time. So we have to estimate how much the business will earn 5 to 10 years from now as well, in order to be able to set a definite price tag on it.

Takeaway #3: PE(Price To Earnings) and ROA(Return On Assets):

So far, we've concluded that stocks sometimes sell at a discount from their underlying value, but that it's very difficult to decide WHEN that is happening. So is it hopeless? Let us take The Swedish Merchant's most fearsome competitor - "Just Broccoli". The Swedish Merchant earns $100,000 per year, like I presented before, while Just Broccoli earns $50,000. The price of the businesses is $1 million each. Which one would you rather buy everything else equal? You would buy The Swedish Merchant, of course. Here, you only pay $10 for every $1 in earnings. In Just Broccoli's case, you pay $20 for every $1 in earnings. The Swedish Merchant would pay your initial investment back in 10 years, compared to Just Broccoli's 20 years. In the stock market, the most common way of measuring this, is through the so called price to earnings, or price to earnings ratio. The price to earnings ratio is calculated by taking a business current price and dividing it by its earnings. The price to earnings of The Swedish Merchant is 10, and that of Just Broccoli is 20. This is the first point of this takeaway - you would rather own a business with a low price to earnings than a high one. Simultaneously, price is not everything. Even buying at a low price to earnings can result in a disastrous investment. You must also make sure that you buy a good business. This is where return on assets, or ROA, comes into play. Let's say that building that store of The Swedish Merchant cost $500,000, and the store of Just Broccoli also cost $500,000. Everything else equal, would you rather invest in the company that can build stores with $100,000 in profits, for $500,000, or the company that can build stores with $50,000 in profits, for $500,000? Once again, you would prefer The Swedish Merchant's business¨. This ratio is referred to as return on assets, or ROA. The higher, the better. It says something about the quality of the business, and with comparable companies, it can often show you which of the companies that possess the best moat, something that Warren Buffett loves to see in his investments.

Takeaway #4: The magic formula:

If you stick to buying good companies, or in other words those with a high ROA(Return On Assets), while buying these companies at low prices, or in other words when their price to earnings ratios are low, you will end up buying under-priced businesses. Joel Greenblatt's even constructed a system that will do just that for you, which he calls "the magic formula". It's simply ranking companies according to their combined score in these two regards - the quality and the price of the business. Intuitively, it does make a lot of sense. And when back testing it, it does make a lot of financial sense as well. During the 17 years period that Joel Greenblatt evaluated the magic formula, it outperformed the overall market by about 18%, returning 30.8% per year rather than 12.3% per year. With such a return, $10,000 turned into almost a million in 17 years, as compared to the markets more modest increase to just $70,000. Some of the companies that you'll invest in using this formula, will turn out to be crappy investments. But the important thing is that ON AVERAGE, it will help you to find true bargains. If you're not impressed by the results yet, consider what happened when Joel Greenblatt divided companies into ten different groups, ranking them with the formula.

As you can see, it's quite a good predictor. The best group performed better than the second-best, and the second-best perform better than the third-best, and so on. Crazy!

Takeaway #5: Step-by-step instructions:

Here comes a step-by-step instruction on how to invest using the magic formula.

1. Go to magicformulainvesting.com

2. Choose a company size. 50 million or bigger should do.

3. Follow the instructions on the site to get a list of top-ranked magic formula companies.

4. Buy between five and seven of these companies. Spend 20%-33% of the capital that you intend to invest.

5. Repeat step 4 every two to three months, until all your capital is invested. This should result in a portfolio of about 20 to 30 stocks.

6. Sell the stocks after holding them for a year. For tax purposes, hold the winners a few days longer than a year, and the losers a few days shorter. Repeat step 4 with the money from your selling.

7. Continue the process for many years

If you are like me, and you find investing to be a very challenging and stimulating interest, that you don't want to throw away for some automatic formula (with a name that makes it sound like a scam, by the way), you could use it for screening purposes only. For example, find the top 100 companies according to the magic formula and then pick your favorite 10 out of those.

A quick summary:

Market prices fluctuate more than underlying business values. It's difficult to estimate the future earnings of a company, and therefore also what a fair price of that company should be. Most investors have no business doing this. Price to Earnings and Return Of Assets are two of the most (if not the most) important quantitative factors to consider when buying stocks. According to the magic formula, if you buy stocks with a low Price toEarning and a high Return Of Assets, you will outperform the market by a wide margin over time. Go to magicformulainvesting.com and get started! And last but not least .. It is difficult to come up with something that rhymes with magic formula. Cheers!

A Beginner's Guide to Trading Tools and Tactics, Money Management, Discipline and Trading Psychology | How To Day Trade For A Living

2020-10-05T06:00:00.002+05:30

A Beginner's Guide to Trading Tools and Tactics, Money Management, Discipline and Trading Psychology : How To Day Trade For A Living

About Author

Andrew Aziz (Ph. D., P. Eng.) is a Canadian stock market trader, official Forbes Council member, investor and #1 best-selling author. He has ranked as one of the Amazon top 100 best-selling authors in the "Business and Finance" category for over 4 consecutive years (2016-present).

Summary of Book

Have you ever considered quitting your 9 to 5 job for a career in day trading? Well consider this: - Day trading has a steep learning curve - Day trading is very competitive Only 16 percent of day traders are profitable after their first six months. Day trading is a profession and not a strategy to get rich quick But!... Day trading can be executed from anywhere in the world where there's a proper internet connection, including the beaches in Bahamas. Day trading is flexible. You can be finished by 10:00 a.m. and then do whatever you want doing the rest of the day. Day trading is a license to print money, if you succeed, and it's probably the only one that the government won't put you in jail for...

Here I am going to summarizing the most important takeaways from the book How to Day Trade for a Living written by Andrew Aziz.

Takeaway # 1 Stocks In Play:

Day traders always step out of their positions before the end of the day. That's what separates them from other traders. It's said that the day trader is only as good as the stocks he's trading, and the best stocks to day trade are called "stocks in play".

Stocks in play fulfill three essential criteria: (a) They are trading at a high relative volume. Meaning that, they are being bought and sold more than what's typical for the stock. High volume is positive for a day trader because it's easier to get in and out of trades. (b) They have a fundamental catalyst, such as an earnings report, a merger, a major product release, a major contract and many more. (c) They are trading independently of the market, and independently of the market sector that they belong to.

Andrew Aziz uses scanners to find these stocks. He uses two different types: a pre-market scanner and a real-time intraday scanner. Once he has established which stocks that are in play, he will open up their stock charts and set up a plan. He will monitor these stocks on three separate computer screens, and usually there are only two to three great stocks per day anyway, so one chart per screen. From here, it's all guerrilla warfare. The day trader wants to wait for the right opportunity, then get in quick and get out even faster.

Takeaway #2: The 2 percent rule:

A trader’s primary objective should be to "Live to trade another day". As mentioned before - only 16% of day traders are profitable after the first six months. In other words - the learning curve is ruthless! But if you can survive it, great rewards will come.

As your primary objective is surviving, the importance of risk management can't be overstated. You must learn to limit your losses. If you want to reap the long-term profits of a great trading system, you must be able to survive for the long term first! Therefore, never risk more than 2% of your total capital in any given trade.

Risking 2% only will allow for you to be wrong a lot, and still survive because there will be times when you are wrong. Times when you need to accept defeat, and get out of the trade. And you might think: "but I don't want to make a thousand dollar loss"! Well, you definitely don't want to make a five thousand dollar loss! Get out of the trade! Look for opportunities where you are risking cents to earn dollars. You want asymmetry in this - a large potential reward but a small downside.

For example, risking a hundred bucks, but having the potential of gaining a thousand bucks. Your trade is then said to have a favorable R-multiple.

Takeaway #3: Understanding the candlesticks:

A day trader’s job is to analyse the balance of the power between buyers and sellers, and bet on the winning team. Day trading is the study of mass psychology. Price fluctuations in the market are a result of the actions of three categories of people - the Buyers, the Sellers, and the Undecisive. The best way to illustrate the price fluctuations and the underlying psychology of the market is with candlestick charts. The candlesticks are a fight between buyers and sellers. It's an excellent indicator that tells you which group that is currently winning - the Buying Bulls or the Selling Bears, during that specific time frame. It can be hourly charts, 5-minute charts or one-minute charts.

For instance - if the bulls are currently winning, it can be imagined as the height of the candle expresses how much the buyers are currently winning by so, in the following candle here, we see that they win by a smaller margin than before, and the price increases by a smaller amount as a result. Positive price action is represented by a hollow candlestick. On the other hand, if the bears are currently winning the battle, it will be represented by a filled, often red candlestick.

Sometimes, the battle is indecisive. This is then represented by an indecision candlestick, a very thin one, meaning that the price fluctuation during that time was minor. For a chart to be complete, it should also be accompanied by the trading volume for each time frame. The trading volume acts as a great complement to the price movements. A high trading volume accompanied by either a sharp movement in the stock price or an indecisive one is an interesting situation, which the day trader can profit from as we shall see in the following two takeaways.

Takeaway #4: The Support and Resistance Strategy:

Many traders love to identify complicated chart patterns if they are accompanied by ridiculous names - all the better apparently. Try Google search "the abandoned baby", "the dark cloud cover" or "the three black crows". Andrew Aziz never believed in these. If you make it too complicated, your risk curve-fitting and if the patterns are too arbitrary, they become subjective and suddenly you can see them everywhere.

Instead, Andrew Aziz prefers to use primarily two very simple trading strategies: Support or resistance trading and VWAP-trading. Support is trading terminology and means that a stock is showing respect for a certain price point. If the stock has bounced back up from such a point before, you can expect it to do so in the future as well. Resistance is the opposite - it acts as a ceiling from which the stocks uptrend is reversed. Here's how you trade using the support strategy. 1. Each morning before the stock exchange opens, find areas of support and resistance for your stocks in play. 2. Look for indecision candles around the support area accompanied by high trading volume. Set up your stop-loss slightly below the support area, on a five minute chart. 3. Keep the trade until the next support or assistance area. 4. If there's an obvious second support or resistance area, you may sell half your position at the first level, move your stop-loss up to break-even, and save the other half for that second level. Mirror this and you get how to short using the resistance strategy.

Takeaway #5: The VWAP Strategy:

VWAP means volume weighted average price, and this is the most important technical indicator in learning how to day trade for a living, according to Andrew Aziz. For now, it will be sufficient to say that it's a moving average, and that it takes into account the volume of shares that have been traded. If the stock price currently is above the VWAP, it's a bullish indication. And if the situation is reversed, it's a bearish indication.

VWAP should be included in your trading platform, otherwise you should switch platform. So, How do you set up a trade with it? 1. See if the stock in play shows respect for VWAP as a support. 2. Buy slightly above the VWAP and set up a trailing stop, slightly below. A break on a five-minute chart should get you out of the trade. 3. Keep your position until the next level of resistance. In this case, the next resistance level was expected to be the "whole-dollar" level of $22 dollars. 4. You may sell half the position close to the resistance level, and move up your stop-loss to your buying point. If you mirror everything you can use the VWAP short selling too.

The key for now should be to master just one strategy. So pick either VWAP or support and resistance, and start trading it in a trading simulator. Not over-complicating your strategies will allow for you to focus on what's really important - the psychological aspects of the game.

Day trade only stocks in play. Never risk more than 2% in any given trade. Candlestick charts! The support and resistance strategy is simple and efficient. The VWAP strategy is simple and efficient too. Trading is much like learning to ride a bicycle - once you've mastered this skill, no one can take it away from you.

Crack The Code To Wealth | The Millionaire Fastlane

2020-09-28T06:00:00.002+05:30

The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime!

About Author

DeMarco was the Founder and CEO of Limos.com, a global ground transportation marketplace, before selling it to a private equity firm in 2007. In his avid attempts to acquire wealth at a young age and escape the "settle-for-less" lifestyle that so many of his peers had embraced, he became a self-made millionaire who is currently the Founder of Viperion Publishing Corp. and The Fastlane Forum.

Summary of Book

We've all heard the kinds of strategies that are supposed to make us rich get a good education work hard save up retire and roll around in your savings like scrooge mc duck. But what if you don't want to only enjoy your riches in the last part of your life and anyways what if the stock market collapses and you lose all your savings, there has to be another way thankfully the millionaire fast lane explains a better approach to getting wealthy and in this summary I would love to share with you the five best ideas from this iconic book.

Idea #1 Your Mind is just as important as your wallet

How do people get rich is it luck or perhaps fate. A lot of people think so which might be the reason why they themselves aren't rich, if you believe becoming wealthy is out of your control this mind-set is jeopardizing your chances. You can control your future it just takes planning if you believe that it is pointless to plan ahead this puts you in a weak position to deal with the life's challenges. Without precautions such as creating a financial plan or arranging for health insurance, external events like losing your job becoming ill or suddenly having to deal with a recession can cause you far more grief than necessary. Sometimes prioritizing the moment in terms of spending can have serious drawbacks for example if you live from pay-check to pay-check suddenly finding yourself without a job would mean you can no longer pay your rent if you refuse to take responsibility for your life even earning an impressive income won't keep you from going broke. If you think you have no power over your own life it is tempting to want to spend your money while you have it after all what if you were struck by lightning tomorrow this is why people splurge on instant gratifications like expensive dinners and luxury cars, yet having this mind-set will drain your income and your credit range because regardless of how much you earn you'll spend it all of course it's possible you could be run over by a train tomorrow but this is unlikely and even if something terrible should happen in the future you'll be glad if you at least made some plans for worst case scenarios, like making sure you have a buffer of cash when you need it.

Idea #2 The conventional life path is broken:

We all know the strategy get a good education so you can get a well-paid job then work hard and save and invest your well-earned money then after around 40 years you'll eventually be able to retire and enjoy your wealth but there is a problem with the strategy. First it may not actually get you where you want. There is a ceiling to how much you can earn from a salary alone, clearly you can't exactly keep raising your work hours indefinitely it is just not possible to work a thousand dollars a week nor you can request your boss to dish out a 200 pay raise even if you're an exceptional employee the stock market too is unpredictable and out of your control thus the stocks you might invest in might plummet in value or simply grow more gradually than you expected. Finally your savings and investments are probably going to be subjected to inflation and you might find yourself left with only a small fraction of the value you first invested therefore if you're fortunate enough after some decades to save around 2.5million dollars it may only be worth the equivalent of just 250 000 in today's dollars add to that the impossibility of knowing whether you'll be even alive to enjoy it, even if your plan works out when you get to the stage where you can finally reap the benefits of your money and time you'll be old this strategy is based entirely on working really hard while you're young so that you can enjoy the rewards when you're older so here's a better idea to make the most of your retirement retire while you're young. Vitality and health tend to deteriorate as we get older and these are two qualities that enable us to appreciate free time it is far more enjoyable to go hiking when your joints donate from arthritis, but this advice is easier said than done it's one thing to want to retire young but another to actually pull it off but luckily there are some strategies to accomplish this impressive feat. First look beyond your salary job salaries are caught by your working hours and your employers budgets for your profession you can consider working within a commission model where more results equal more money but if you have your eye on a career that does not support this model then supplement your salary with a side business or side hustle which can give you the income you will need to earn and subsequently invest more for your soon-to-be retirement years.

Idea #3 Formal Education Doesn't Equate To Wealth:

Some specialist fields like medicine require a prescribed education but remember enrolling in a formal education isn't always the best route to wealth often the expense of education cancels out the higher salary you will hopefully earn at the end of it. Whereas it is possible that you'll learn more with a college degree especially if for example you go into business with an MBA the financial setback is a formidable consideration the College Board reports an average college degree which includes room and board sets you back nearly 60 thousand dollars. To afford this you probably have to take-out a student loan making your education even pricier. There is also no guarantee that you'll land a well-paying job after college but even if you do there's no guarantee that your salary will allow you to quickly erase this debt. College educated adults typically earn around 54 000 per year and this tends to be through a salary which we already discussed as having many drawbacks when it comes to your earning potential not to mention completing a college education takes years and not only does this mean foregoing time that you could be working and learning but it leaves you with less time to earn money later a conventional college education may also encourage you to think in conventional ways after absorbing the key concepts of your field and studying specific tools to solve problems you may find it difficult to think outside the box. In finance this can mean that you understand how to calculate return on investment but are ill-equipped to find new innovative ways to judge investment value. The bottom line is you can become rich and successful without a prestigious degree, amazing business ideas don't require formal degrees however you may need some special skills for example to develop a lucrative internet service by yourself you need the skills to write code but you don't need a computer engineering degree. Bear in mind some of the richest most successful people in the world never completed college. What's more important is to identify in-demand skills and find a means to cultivate them an employer or client will be much happier with someone who is proficient in their craft than someone with a fancy degree.

Idea #4 To Become Rich You Must Produce And Not Consume:

Right from childhood we're taught to be consumers, we are exposed to constant pervasive advertisements in the media and at home we're taught to place value on Christmas lists and family brand preferences the result a constant desire for products. If you really want to be rich get on the other team and start thinking like a producer, staying bound to a consumer mentality will limit you when you view an ad from a consumer perspective you focus on the product the happiness it will bring you and how you can get it all this prevents you from seeing behind the ad if you look at the world as a producer does a lot of useful information about marketing and product design will be revealed to you. You will understand which features make a product successful and the strategy used to sell it it's even better to look for information on how companies produce a product where they manufacture it and what their revenue model is just doing this can teach you a whole lot about different business strategies the only way to get rich quickly is to start your own business and seeing the world through a producer's eyes will help you do just that. As you now know the traditional get rich methods aren't reliable as long as you have an employer you won't be in a position to become very rich since you can't rely on winning the lottery next week the only real option is to start your own business then when you're more productive you'll get more income so to begin your successful business you need to have the strategy and knowledge of a producer.

Idea #5 Wealth And Money Are Not The Same:

How would you define wealth when most of us hear the word we tend to instantly think about money but really there is far more to it than that. Wealth is a combination of things that make you feel fulfilled actually it has three main components each of which is necessary for us to feel happy with our lives. The first factor is meaningful relationships including family the second is their health and physical fitness and the third is freedom so being wealthy isn't just about owning piles and piles of cash does the depressed and lonely person with an oversized bank account look like the picture of wealth to you that being said being financially independent does put you on the path to wealth in particular because it enables you to have freedom, sure money isn't all powerful its impact is limited for example you can purchase the best health care with money but no amount of money will transform your body into top condition nor can you spend cash in exchange for meaningful relationships in the case of freedom though it is slightly different once you have plenty of money to live comfortably you no longer need to trade your time for money as you would do in a job therefore when you find your-self in this situation you can use your money to buy you the freedom to spend your time as you wish to visit places you want to visit and generally do what you want being free means living where you want traveling and enjoying your hobbies even if they're expensive this is really how having a lot of money can increase your wealth.

Things fall apart summary

2020-07-14T11:00:00.009+05:30

Things Fall Apart

About Author

Chinua Achebe (/ˈtʃɪnwɑː əˈtʃɛbeɪ/; born Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe, 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His first novel Things Fall Apart (1958), often considered his masterpiece, is the most widely read book in modern African literature.

Summary of Book

Things Fall Apart is set in what is now Nigeria during the late 19th century, but it was written in 1958, as the colonial system was falling apart in Africa. And one of the reasons Things Fall Apart is so important is that prior to it, most novels about Africa and Africans in English had been written by Europeans. Achebeturned the traditional European notion of Africans as savages on its head, and confronted the great failure of people to, quote see other human beings as human beings. With characters that you can feel with and think with and breathe with, layer after layerof the reality of the colonial situation in Igboland is exposed, and we see the vicious cyclical realities that are produced by both individual and institutional power when it’sbased in fear and hatred and ignorance.

So things fall apart in Things Fall Apart not only because of the outside pressures of colonialism but also because of the interior pressures of the main character, Okonkwo. Okonkwo is a man known, throughout the nine villages and even beyond whose fame rested on solid personal achievements. He is known for his strength and his wrestling ability. Like during his prime, in one of the community festivals, before a crowd of 10,000 or more people, Okonkwo out-wrestled a man known as the Cat in a match.

And we’re told of this match, the oldmen agreed it was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights. We learn all of this, by the way, in the opening paragraph of the novel, so we're immediately drawn into this world of order and belief of competition and struggle, and of stories that are kept and passed down by elders. And we know from the beginning that Okonkwo is a man held in high esteem not only for his wrestling ability, but also because he had, quote risen so suddenly from great poverty and misfortune to be one of the lords of his clan. But despite his status and his achievements, Okonkwois haunted.

Okonkwo sees his father everywhere he goes. His father, Unoka, oweddebts all over town and spent like all of his time playing the flute and drinking palmwine. But the important thing here is that in 19th century Igboland, you couldn’t get ahead in life if you weren’t willing to work. Which, come to think of it, is also true today, Me From the Past. So Okonkwo grew up knowing that the whole village thought his dad was a loser, and the pain of it stuck with him. Like, Achebe writes his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.

For Okonkwo, It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious godsand of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Which quote allows me to mention something really important about Things Fall Apart. That red in tooth and claw line is borrowed from a Tennyson poem.

And throughout the novel, Things Fall Apart is conscious both of African storytelling forms and of European ones. This exploration of connections and differences between two narrative traditions is really interesting. Okonkwo is always running from this deep down fear of weakness and failure, and it gives him the drive to go from being a sharecropper to power and status and wealth.

It also makes him into kind of a jerk. Okonkwo develops one passion—to hate everything that Unoka had loved. One of these things was gentleness and another was idleness. There’s a great moment in the novel where Achebe says Okonkwo seemed to walk on springs, as if he was going to pounce on somebody. And then notes, And he did pounce on peoplequite often. This pouncing, and more generally just his rage and eventually drive him to three transgressions that he can’t undo, and his punishment is seven years of exile.

And then, of course, his dreams of greaterpower within his clan dissolve. So let’s look at Okonkwo’s first two big mistakes in the Thought Bubble. Okonkwo’s world, much like the ancient Greekworld in Oedipus, is one where mistakes are always punished and he does get punished for his three mistakes.

The first is his ferocious beating of one of his wives during the Week of Peace, a week when all violence is forbidden, to honor the Earth goddess and make sure that this year’s harvest will be bountiful. Okonkwo doesn’t just break the Week of Peace, he shatters it. Not only does he beat his wife for going to get her hair plaited rather than cooking, he tries to shoot her, luckily he misses.

Side note, Okonkwo has a real problem with women throughout the book. He’s consistently brutal and violent, and the description that he rules his household with a heavy hand is an understatement. His brutality is closely connected to his fear of anything that he perceives as gentle or weak and his ignorant belief that those traits should be associated with the feminine, which the book itself later dispels by showing one of his other wives and her courage and strength when it comes to protecting her daughter.

Okonkwo’s second transgression is the killing of a boy with his machete, and it’s not just any young man It’s Ikemefuna, who Okonkwo raised in his house for three years, a young man who called him Father. Ikemefuna had been turned over to the clan as a sacrifice by another village in order to avoid war and he’d been sent to live in Okonkwo’s compound, where he became a member of the family, and a great friend to Okonkwo’s son. And we’re told, Okonkwo was inwardly pleased at his son’s development, and he knew it was due to Ikemefuna. Of coursehe never shows it, for Okonkwo never showed any emotion openly, unless it was the emotion of anger.

So eventually, the clan decided that Ikemefuna should be killed to satisfy the Earth Goddess. And Okonkwo is advised not to participate due to his close relationship with the boy, but he ultimately does the killing himself because he was afraid of being thought weak.

So Okonkwo is finally exiled, not for beating his wife, not for killing Ikemefuna, but for an accident. His gun explodes during a funeral, and a man is killed. This is called a femaleocho, or female murder, because it was not on purpose. I’ll just briefly point to the irony of his avoidance of all things feminine and also the association of a gun exploding with femininity. Although it was an accident, Okonkwo had killed a clan member and had offended the earth goddess, and so he goes into exile. He and his familyflee the village and their home compound is burned to the ground.

Now Okonkwo’s best friend, Obierka, who helps Okonkwo during his exile, wonders, Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offense he had committed in advertently? As is often the case in the village, the answer comes in the form of a proverb. As the elders said, if one finger brought oil it soiled the others. Okonkwo had done wrong and he must be exiled, or else the whole community might be punished for what just he had done.

This attitude preys on the community’s fear of being entirely destroyed along with their communal memory of elders and ancestors. And that desire to keep the community intact at all costs is why the community ultimately doesn’t follow Okonkwo at the end of the novel. But then of course even though they don’t follow him, the community can’t stay intact. Why? Well, because missionaries. And the BritishEmpire. Which are really branches of the same tree.

When the first missionaries appear before Okonkwoand his family, during their exile, only one young person was truly captivated, Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye, and Okonkwo can sense his son slipping away, and filled with his tragic rage, he tries to control him by pinning him down at the throat and threatening him.And as you may know if you’ve ever tried threatening a teenager, threats only drive them further away, and after this incident, Nwoye joins the missionaries for good.

Okonkwo’s takeaway from this experience is not that he’s a jerk, but instead that his son is weak. He sits, staring into a fire, and reflects upon his son’s departure and remembers that people called him the Roaring Flame. And as he considers this, Okonkwo’s eyes were opened and he saw the whole matter clearly. Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. So Okonkwo decides that he was the roarin gflame and that his son is the cold, impotent ash.

Okonkwo’s eyes get opened a lot in Things Fall Apart, but his eyes never actually get opened! By the time Okonkwo returns from exile, aChristian missionary church has arrived in his own village, and many people have converted to Christianity. The first converts are those outcasts from society, they’re not even allowed to cut their hair. So those outcasts are the initial converts and it eventually leads to the arrival of the British Empire and radical change in Igbo society.

And in that we see how the community’s obsession with strength and stability ultimately leads to weakness and instability. Just as it does in Okonkwo’s life. So the British Empire follows on the heels of the church and sets up courts and police and prisons and trading posts and then finally, Okonkwo’s world completely crumbles. He isn’t able to question a system that discards individuals for the perceived greater good. And he isn’t able to question his own narrow definition of strength.

Like Okonkwo and his community, we both as individuals and as communities also struggle to see other human beings as human beings and just as in Things Fall Apart, the consequences are often disastrous.

The new trading for living Summary

2020-07-13T11:00:00.002+05:30

The New Trading for a Living: Psychology, Discipline, Trading Tools and Systems, Risk Control, Trade Management

About Author:

Alexander Elder, M.D., is a Russian-American professional trader and a teacher of traders. He is the author of Trading for a Living, considered a modern classic among traders.[citation needed] First published in 1993, this international best-seller[citation needed] has been translated into more than a dozen languages and is being used to educate traders around the world. His Come into My Trading Room: A Complete Guide to Trading was named a 2002 Barron's Book of the Year. His Entries & Exits: Visits to 16 Trading Rooms was named a 2007 SFO Magazine Book of the Year. His latest book is The New Sell & Sell Short: How to Take Profits, Cut Losses, and Benefit from Price Declines (2011).

Summary of Book

Freddy has always, for as long as his friends can remember, been fat. Furthermore, for as long as his friends can remember, he's been "on a diet". In front of other people, he seems quite strict about his diet, but a visit to his kitchen tells a different story. He insists that he wants to be slim, but is still as fat as ever.

To Freddy, the short-term pleasure of having a Snickers every once in a while is stronger than the delayed health and social benefits of weight loss. Freddy is very similar to how many traders behave in the markets. They insist that they want to become rich and successful through trading, but yet they keep ruining it for themselves, by seeking short-term thrills from gambles and other self sabotaging activities.

It is bad enough to deceive other people, but to deceive yourself is hopeless. The world is full of books on how to lose weight, but the world is still full of fat people. This is a top 5 takeaways from this book:

Takeaway number 1: The three pillars of trading:

Successful trading rests on three pillars: psychology, market analysis & trading systems, and money management. This is like a chair with the three legs. Remove one of them, and you'll hurt yourself. Or well, in this case, your trading account. Before you get a grip of yourself, there are no trading systems in the world that can help you in becoming a successful trader. Just like a diet doesn't work if you don't stick with it, you won't be profitable in the markets if you can't stick to your trading system and your money management rules.

Money management can't help you unless you have a trading system with a positive expected return on investment. People have tried this at the roulette tables for decades, and it does not work. The casino will always get the better of you. Finally, there's no trading system that can make up for poor money management. A short string of losses, in combination with poor money management, will destroy your trading account. So you need all three of them.

Takeaway number 2: How to keep your emotions in check:

In Trading For a Living, Alex Elder presents a lot of helpful advice on how to make sure that your emotions are under control while trading. He states that: "Analyzing yourself may actually take as much time as analyzing the markets."

Here are six advice from Alex Elder: Be realistic: If someone's says I currently have over $10,000 and I'm thinking about quitting my job and supporting myself on this? What do you think? I think he should think again. Keep a diary of your trades When you enter a trade, write down your reasons for doing so, and attach a print screen of what the situation looked like. This is essential for learning from your past mistakes, so that you won't repeat them again in the future.

Set up rules before entering: Before joining the crowd and inevitably getting influenced by it, set up a strategy for how you're going to exit the trade. Stop trading If you feel like you are trading too much, and that your results are poor, quit trading for that month and take a step back and analyze yourself and your methods.

Don't count money: If you find yourself translating your current paper profits into things that you'll be able to buy with that money, exit that trade at once. Practice sound money management: We will discuss more on this in takeaway number 5, but practicing this will help you keep your cool.

Takeaway number 3: One indicator to rule them all?

When analyzing markets and observing a price chart of a security that you want to trade, indicators of different kinds will help you in your examination. You can compare these indicators to footsteps of a man walking his dog. The man, in this parable, represents a long-term indicator of the market, and the dog represents a so-called "oscillator". When they are out walking together, the man will probably leave a fairly straight trail, just like a trend following indicator. The dog can't run away from the man further than the length of its leash, and at the end point in one direction, it is likely that it will turn and run the other way. It is only on rare occasions that dog will deviate from this.

Trend following indicators include moving averages, MACD, directional system on-balance volume, and many others, and they are useful for identifying and catching trends. It is usually profitable to trade in the direction of these. Oscillators include stochastic, rate of change, force index, elder ray and many others. They are useful for identifying turning points, and it is usually profitable to trade in the opposite direction of these.

The main point here is that there is no one indicator to rule them all. Different indicators are used for different purposes, and in different situations, and it often pays to combine them as we shall see in next takeaway.

Exponential's are better than normal averages. The moving average is probably the most famous indicator of them all, and it expresses what the average price of the, for instance, last 13 days of the security looked like. Alex Elder recommends using an exponential for this indicator, and for all other indicators involving longer time periods as well, which, instead of weighing all past days equally in calculating the average, attaches more weight to the more recent days.

Watch related markets An indicator is more reliable if it's confirmed by a similar indicator in a related market, for example if the exponential moving average of the last 30 days is up in, say, General Motors, and it's confirmed by an uptick in Ford, it is a sign of strength.

You need a bigger fishing rod to catch a bigger fish: Signals in longer time frames generally lead to greater price movements. Weekly chart beat dailies, which beat hourlies. Start out with a few indicators, both trend-following ones and oscillators, and learn to interpret them correctly. Add more of them as you get more comfortable.

Takeaway number 4: The triple screen trading system:

Traders often say things such as: "the trend is your friend", "let your profits run", "buy low sell high!" But why sell if the trend is up? And how high is high, anyways? An issue of following indicators is that they often contradict each other. Not only can, for example, a moving average disagree with a MACD, about whether there's a trend or not in the market, but a moving average can contradict itself, depending on which time frame that is used. The trend might be up on a daily chart, but down on an hourly.

The triple screen trading system helps with issues such as these. It applies three separate tests to every trade:

1. Market Tide The first screen identifies long-term trends by analyzing, for example, the slope of a weekly MACD histogram. Other weekly trend following indicators could be used here - but this is what Alex Elder used in his original system. Enter only in the same direction as this indicator.

2. Market Wave This screen identifies waves that go against the tide. You want to time your entry well, even when going with the trend, otherwise, you'll risk being stepped out by your stop quickly. Use an oscillator, such as the two day exponential moving average of the force index, to identify a good opportunity.

You're looking for lows in your oscillator for buying opportunities, and highs for shorting opportunities. Remember the dog from the previous takeaway? When he is at the far end of his leash in one direction, he is likely to turn.

3. Intraday Breakout The third screen identifies ripples in the same direction as the tide. It is a technique of entering, and when buying, it's called trailing buy stop, and when shorting it's called trailing sell stop. For buying, when screen 1 and 2 allow for it, place a buy order one tick above the high of the previous day. Buy only if today's price goes to that point, or higher. Place a stop at the low of the previous day.

Here's a summary of the triple screen trading system before we get to money management. When you've built a system, whether it's based on the triple screen or not, just remember this:

"Most traders take a good system and destroy it when they try to turn it into a perfect one."

Takeaway number 5: Money management 101:

Your priorities when constructing a money management system is:

1. Survival,

2. Steady returns,

3. High returns

Dr. Alex Elder emphasizes that survival comes first, always. Live to trade another day. You can ensure this by sticking to a simple rule: Never risk more than 2% of your equity in a single trade. This includes commissions by your broker and slippage when entering and exiting the trade. Set up a stop loss so that this is enforced. Move that stop-loss in the direction of your trade, never against it.

So, if you're long, you may only move your stop upwards, and if you're short, you may only move it downwards. Let's say that you've identified an attractive opportunity for going long, according to the triple screen trading system, in a stock at $100.

The stop-loss should be placed at the low of the previous day, according to the trailing by stop technique, which was, let's say $90. The size of your trading account is $10,000. You can risk, remember, at most 2% of this, which is equal to $200. How many stocks are you allowed to buy in this situation, at most?

If you guess 20 of them then you are right. For every stock you buy you risk $10, and you are allowed to risk $200 in total on any given trade, so you can buy 20 shares, maximum. Now, what if the stock goes down to $95? Are you allowed to lower your stop to $85?

No, never. You're only allowed to move stops in the direction of a trade, which, in this case, is upwards. Here's a summary of my summary: Successful trading rests on three pillars - psychology, market analysis & trading systems, and money management. You may have to spend just as much time analyzing yourself as you spend on analyzing the markets. There is no one indicator for all situations and purposes. Learn about different ones, and combine them for optimal results. Use, or take inspiration from, the triple screen trading system. Survival always comes first! If you don't practice sound money management, you're a gambler, not a trader.

Full Summary of book The SNOWBALL

2020-07-12T11:00:00.002+05:30

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

About Author:

Alice Schroeder (born December 14, 1956) is an American author and former insurance analyst. In the first week of October 2008, she published The Snowball, Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, a The New York Times Bestseller List bestseller. As a project manager for the US FASB, she managed SFAS No. 113. Since 2008, Schroeder has worked as a columnist for Bloomberg News.

Summary of Book:

Warren Buffett is arguably the most successful investor of all time. He has been averaging approximately a 20% growth of his capital per year, which has turned his small fortune of a thousand bucks in the early 1940s, into quite an outstanding one of 86 billion as of 2018. In 2007, he became the richest man in the world for the first time, and lately he's been having a back and forth with the likes of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. His complete focus on investing can't be overstated. He always tried to save a buck in order to grow his capital faster, not interested in real estate, art, cars, or any other tokens of wealth. He still lives in the same old house which he did 50 years ago. During his honeymoon together with a young Susie Buffett, he travelled the US with a car stuffed with annual reports and Moody's manuals. He basically never stopped studying. .

Let's get started with the takeaways!

Takeaway number 1: The power of compounding income:

Imagine that you recently started a new job. During your first day, you work for 8 hours and at the end of the day your manager gives you $100. The next day, you go back and you get ready for another 8 hours of labor. After 7 hours and 50 minutes, your manager goes over to you, gives you $100 and asks you to leave for the day. You're slightly confused, but don't complain about being able to quit 10 minutes earlier. On day 3, the procedure is repeated - only this time your manager gives you a hundred bucks after 7 hours and 40 minutes. On day seven, when your manager hands over your salary after only 7 hours, you feel that you must ask what all this is about. Why do you keep earning the same amount, but with less effort? Your manager simply gives you the following explanation: "Because you worked yesterday!"

This example illustrates the power of compounding income. Money comes easier and easier the more you have of it, or as in our example, the more that you've worked previously. Warren Buffett understood the importance of this at an early age when he was presented with the book "1000 Ways to Make a Thousand Dollars". He was fascinated by one of the business ideas of the book, which was to buy weighing machines. You get paid by taking out a small fee every time someone wanted to use the machines. Once you've gained enough money from weighing people with the first scale, you can now buy a second one, and earning money for the third one will go twice as fast!

Warren Buffett used this approach early in his life, but the business consisted of pinball machines, not weighing machines. In this, he also discovered the miracle of capital - money that works for its owner. He used the power of compounding income to his advantage in forming his first investing partnership - Buffett Associates. The deal was that he would gain half the upside, above a 4% gain, but pay a quarter of the downside to his partners. We have a hard time seeing the fund managers of Wall Street exposing themselves to such a risk of losing capital. But in Buffett's case, this was a calculated risk that accelerated his compounding even further.

By turning his company Berkshire Hathaway into an insurance company, Buffett has been using compounding to his advantage for many years now. You see, insurance premiums are always paid before the actual claims might come, which gives Buffett plenty of time to compound the money before an eventual payout. According to the saying: If someone dropped a dollar, the average billionaire wouldn't bother picking it up, because the money gained from doing so is less than what he usually earns during such a timeframe. Warren on the other hand, would gladly pick it up and state: "This is the start of my next billion!" That's the power of compounding.

Takeaway number 2: Be very skeptical of new paradigms:

"New paradigm is like new sex - there just isn't any such thing!" In 1999, just before the dot-com bubble went burst, people spoke about a "new paradigm" when referring to the stock market. Many expected returns averaging 20% per year, and they thought that Buffett was crazy who didn't want to buy the hyped up internet stocks. Buffett was VERY skeptical, and explained that there are only 3 cases in which high valuations like these ones could be motivated:

1. Interest rates are low and will continue to be so, or decline even further.

2. The share of the economy that goes to investors increase. In other words, employees and the government get less.

3. The economy starts to grow faster. He added that during the current circumstances, this was wishful thinking. The market is a voting machine in the short run and a weighing machine in the long run. There's no literacy test that leads to voting qualification, which the market proves over and over again. But eventually - weight will count.

Ultimately, the value of the stock market can only reflect the output of the economy. Between 1964 and 1981, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood still. At the same time though, the economy grew five fold! Why would investors pay the same price for something that generates 5 times the money?

Well, simply because they thought that the rules of the game had changed in 1964 - and they paid a high price for thinking so. Herd mentality makes it easier said than done to be skeptical when we enter into bubble-like valuations. It's simpler to go through life as the echo - but only until the other guy plays a wrong note.

You are neither right nor wrong because people agree with you - you are right because your facts and reasoning are right. During times of wacky valuations, it helps to be guided by an "inner scorecard" rather than an "outer scorecard".

Consider this: Would you rather be the world's greatest lover, but have everyone think that you're the world's worst lover, or would you rather be the world's worst lover, but have everyone think that you're the world's greatest? If you would pick the previous option rather than the latter one, you are guided by an inner scorecard, which is very helpful in resisting to participate in the madness that the market sometimes displays.

Takeaway number 3: Stay within your circle of competence:

According to the story: A man was able to corner the market of shoe buttons - a very small and niched market, but he had all of it. Once he had accomplished this, he imagined himself as the expert of basically everything! While among his friends, he always knew best. Whether they were discussing relationships, love making, health, or, or any other topic for that matter.

Because of his expertise in one area, he thought he was a master of everything. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, his right-hand man, referred to this as the "shoe button complex". Buffett attributes much of his success to the fact that he was able to avoid this, and instead stay within his circle of competence - money, business and his own life. For instance, Buffett could have pursued his grandfather's dream of becoming an author, but did not.

Luckily, within the field of investing, this is especially important. Buffett explained it like this: "We will not go into a business where technology - which is way over my head - is crucial to the investment decision. I know about as much about semiconductors or integrated circuits as I do of the mating habits of the anything else. You are investing in business, not a stock.

Remember this well and see to it that you understand what kind of company you are actually buying. This could mean that you want to focus on industries aligned with your education. For example - a medical students might want to invest in health care and pharma stocks, while an electrical engineer might want to focus on the energy sector. This could also mean that you want to invest more of your money in your domestic market, or companies exposed to your domestic market, as you understand the business environment there better.

Takeaway number 4: Use a margin of safety

Let's pretend that you're a construction engineer. You've been assigned with the task to build a bridge. The bridge is a very complex one, especially the calculations regarding the carrying capacity. You've been told that the trucks passing your bridge sometimes will weigh as much as 40 tons. Will you build a bridge so that your calculations say that it supports 41 tons, or 60 tons?

If you picked 41 tons, this could be a possible scenario: You made a small mistake in your calculations. So your bridge could only carry 38 tons in reality. Now this really heavy truck tries to drive across it ... Not so nice, eh? Sure an accident could happen if you try to build one which supports 60 tons as well, but the risk is reduced.

Let's face it - our estimations when trying to predict the future of a stock, we need plenty of room for error - a margin of safety. If you think that a stock is worth $50, you don't buy it if it also costs $50 in the market. In this situation, you might want to wait until the stock costs $40 instead, assuming that you still think its value remains the same at that point, of course.

Warren Buffett understood this early, thanks to his teachers Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. The margin of safety helps so that your profits from good decisions are not wiped out by the losses of your errors. A certain category of stocks that fulfills the margin of safety, which Buffett liked to invest in during his early career, are the so called "cigar butts". These are cheap and unloved companies.

They aren't the best ones, but they're often good for one more "puff". Buffett learned this approach from Graham as well. He looked for companies that will be worth more dead than the current price of the stock. Meaning that, if all the assets of the company was sold and it closed, the shareholders would earn a profit.

For such a company, the operating business is essentially free! Buffett never abandoned this approach of a marginal safety. This is also why he could stay ahead during many of the most speculative bubbles in the market. If he couldn't find companies that fulfilled his criteria - he stayed in cash. He didn't join the herd when it was heading for the slaughter that is the peak of a bull market.

Takeaway number 5: Invest where there's a toll bridge:

Graham had taught Buffett to be a true value investor and focus on cheap and disliked stocks. In 1959, when Buffett met Charlie Munger for the first time, this would partly change. Munger was more focused on the competitive advantage of a firm over time.

The idea with the "toll bridge" is that once the initial investment is made, that is building the bridge, the tolls can be increased in a monopoly like fashion - because there's no other simple way of receiving a similar solution for the customers, that is getting to the other side of the bridge. At one point Buffett and Munger actually owned 24% of a bridge which connected Detroit and Windsor.

With such a business, you could be stranded on a deserted island for years without having to worry about your investments. Buffett summarized it in this statement:

"It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price, than a fair company at a wonderful price."

Let's look at examples of toll bridges: Brands Coca-Cola has, through its brand, secured profits for many years ahead. Even if someone would manage to create a better tasting soft drink than Coke, they need to spend billions in advertising to be a threat. Network effects: All social media platforms are great examples here. YouTube and Facebook become more and more valuable for each individual user, the more users there are on the platform. It wouldn't be so fun on YouTube without any content creators, right? Therefore, a new entrant in the market, which by definition must be small in the beginning, can't deliver the same value, and therefore never gets a chance to grow.

Stickyness: When customers face high switching costs, changing from company A's product to competing company B's product, company A tends to be a good investment. Such an example is the enterprise software company SAP. Its products take significant time, effort and money to learn. So once you understand them, you don't want to start all over by switching to the product of another company.

High set up costs: If it takes a significant amount of money just to serve the first customer, competitors usually hesitate before entering the market. Railroads and electrical grids are great examples. Setting up a second rail, or a second grid next to the already existing one is a game of very, very high stakes.

Warren surely seems like a smart guy, right? Now, follow his advice so that you all can become great investors as well! happy reading!

A quick guide for investors | Poor Charlie's Almanack

2020-07-09T11:00:00.006+05:30

Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger

About Author:

Charles Thomas Munger (born January 1, 1924) is an American investor, businessman, former real estate attorney, and philanthropist. He is vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate controlled by Warren Buffett; Buffett has described Munger as his partner. Munger served as chairman of Wesco Financial Corporation from 1984 through 2011. He is also chairman of the Daily Journal Corporation, based in Los Angeles, California, and a director of Costco Wholesale Corporation.

Summary of Book:

People in general, think that the individual investor doesn't stand a chance against the professionals. Pointing to high-frequency trading and the complexity of the financial instruments that Wall Street has become renowned for, many argue that this must be true. And besides, why would the professional analysts have such high salaries otherwise?

In this book Burton Malkiel argues that this couldn't be further from the truth! He shows that even a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at stock listings would outperform their professionals. Fees, taxes, human psychology, and most of all that markets behave like a random walk, are stated to be reasons for this. This is an extremely controversial topic, as you probably can tell already. And the stakes are high. Banker's bonuses all over the world are threatened.

Fasten your seat belt, for the following takeaways won't be any less provocative!

Takeaway #1: Fundamental analysis doesn't outperform the market:

In beating the market, professionals tend to rely on one of two strategies: The fundamental approach or the technical approach. The investors who use fundamental analysis as their vehicle for earning money in the market, believe in the so-called "firm foundation theory" This theory argues that the price of an investment is anchored is something called "intrinsic value", and that the price of an asset typically over or underestimates this value.

The task of the fundamentalist is therefore to buy assets that have an intrinsic value higher than the current price of the asset, and sell if the opposite is true. The intrinsic value can be determined by discounting all the future cash flows of an investment. Discounting is the process of turning future earnings into today's value.

Remember that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow! To calculate the correct intrinsic value of a stock, a fundamentalist must assess the following 4:

1. Earnings growth rate. The most important part of the calculation revolves around the estimation of future growth rates of earnings.

2. The expected dividend payout. The higher the dividend payout, the greater the value of the stock, everything else equal.

3. The degree of risk. Everyone prefers an investment with a lower risk of losing money over an investment with a higher risk of losing money, even though the expected returns are the same.

4. Future market interest rates. I stated earlier that a Swedish crown today, is worth more than a Swedish crown tomorrow. But I didn't state how much more. The so-called "risk-free rate of return", which is decided by the interest rate of the three-month US Treasury bill for US investors is used as a baseline for this. The higher the risk free rate of return, the higher the return should be expected from any other investment

Perhaps you already see some of the problems ...

1. Faulty information. The information given by the company you are interested in acquiring could be misleading. This has been common, especially during times of mass optimism, such as during the dot-com bubble. In these situations CEO could mean "chief embezzlement officer", and you can't be sure where the CFO is a "corporate fraud officer" or not. Also the EBITDA in the income statement might be an acronym for "earnings before I tricked the dump auditor". All kidding aside, there are many cases where reported earnings, assets and the likes are misleading, which makes it very hard for the fundamentalist to predict the future. Any computer scientist knows that garbage in means garbage outs.

2. Errors and wrong conclusions in the analysis. Even if the information given to the fundamentalist is trustworthy, he's still faced with the daunting task: He must make predictions about the future without the benefit of divine inspiration. He must use the information available without conducting errors or drawing the wrong conclusions.

3. Influence of unexpected events. The fundamentalist might use all the current information available to assess a perfect analysis of the stock, only to find out later that the company's primary production plant was hit by an earthquake. Or that the CEO, and the founder of the company, dies of a sudden heart attack. Approximately 90% of the analysts on Wall Street are fundamentalists.

Takeaway number 2: Technical analysis doesn't outperform the market either:

Technicians, as the people believing in a technical analysis are called, trust in the "castle-in-the-air theory". As opposed to the fundamentalist view, this theory argues that intrinsic value is of less importance. Instead, what's most important is the behavior of the investment community. Crowds do not act rational, and they are susceptible to building castles in the air in the hopes of acquiring wealth. A successful investor's primary task is therefore to estimate which investments that are most prone to castle building. A sucker is born every minutes and the technicians task is to buy investments that later can be sold to these people. If someone else is willing to buy higher, the price you pay matters not! Dutch tulip bulbs during the mid-1600s, conglomerate's in the late 1960s and Internet stocks in the early 2000s, are great examples of castles in the air. The technician will use charts of stock prices and trading volume to determine future prospects of castle building. There are 3 primary reasons as to why technical analysis is stated to work according to Malkiel:

1. Price increases are self-perpetuating Increases in price tend to cause additional increases. People can't stand waiting on the side-lines when others are making money. Therefore, demand increases with every price increase which causes prices to go even higher, creating a dangerous upward spiral.

2. Unequal access to information. Insider's are the first to know about changes in a company. Then comes the friends the families of these people, then the professionals and their institutional capital and finally, poor people like you and me. Charts are supposed to give information about when either insiders or professional are buying, so that you can make your move before the rest of the market does.

3. Investors underreact to new information. The stock market will react to new information gradually, which results in longer periods of sustained momentum. Malkiel, and other advocates of the random walk counter argues with: 1: Sharp reversals Uptrends can happen drastically, which may cause the technician to miss the boat. When an uptrend is signaled, it may already be too late. 2: Profit maximization. Let's say that company A's stock is at $20.

One day, it develops a new product that increases the value of the company to $30. Before releasing this information, wouldn't it make sense for the insiders to buy the stock until $30 has been reached? Every dollar they invest before $30 is an instant profit! 3: The techniques are self-defeating. Once people know about the techniques that are supposed to efficient, the technicians will compete each other out.

Other traders will try to anticipate certain signals that they know that everyone else is buying or selling to. Approximately 10% of the analysts of Wall Street are technicians.

Takeaway number 3: Human psychology makes it even more difficult to beat the market:

As if the aforementioned reasons weren't enough, there are 4 factors that professionals and individual investors alike face when they are trying to beat the market, which further reduces their chance of doing so.

Overconfidence: This bias causes mortals like us to be over optimistic about assessments of the future, and to overestimate our own abilities. Thereby, we conduct sloppier analysis and take higher risks than otherwise would have been the case.

Biased judgments: Humans tend to think that they have some control in situations, even though the situation is completely random. Technicians are argued to be especially vulnerable to this as they think that they can predict future prices by looking at past ones.

Herd Mentality: This might be the most obvious one. Herd mentality is the primary reason for many of the stock market's greatest bubbles and following meltdowns. When your friends all brag about their latest stock profits and the news of predicting economic "golden ages", it's hard if not impossible, to stand idle on the side-lines.

One great example of this is group thinking. Individuals can influence each other into believing that an incorrect point of view is, in fact, the right one Loss Aversion.

Lastly, loss aversion is another psychological factor that makes it difficult to us to stay rational in the market. Losses are considered far more undesirable than equivalent gains are desirable. Consider the classic game of a coin flip. Heads, you lose $100, and tails, you win $100. Do you want to play? Most people don't. Studies have shown that the positive payout had to be 250 dollars before people were ready to take this gamble. You can only imagine the consequences that this results in for us in the stock market.

Takeaway number 4: The random walk and efficient market hypothesis:

Now, if neither fundamentalists nor technicians can predict the market, who can? According to the author, no one can! Why? Because the development of the market is a random walk. A random walk is one where future steps or direction cannot be predicted by history. Based on this concept of the random walk, three versions of the so-called "Efficient Market Hypothesis" have been developed.

Weak EMH: The market is efficient in the way that it is reflecting all currently available price information. If there are obvious opportunities for returns, people will flock to exploit them until they disappear. The weak theory suggests that technical analysis can't be used for beating the market, but that fundamental analysis might be able to.

Semi-strong EMH: The market is efficient in the way that it is reflecting all publicly available information. This would mean that an investor cannot beat the market by either technical or fundamental analysis. The only way to stay ahead of the curve according to its advocates is by using insider information.

Strong EMH: The market is efficient in that it is always mirroring the true value of an asset. In this case even insider information wouldn't help you trading stocks and earning above market returns. People often joke about supporters of the efficient market hypothesis by telling this story: A professor and his students was walking down a road when the student suddenly spots a $100 bill. He stops to pick it up, but is interrupted by his professor. "Ah, don't bother picking it up boy. If it truly was 100 dollar bill, it wouldn't be laying there." The author of this book is not a believer in this strongest form of the efficient market hypothesis. But rather he would answer his pupils something along these lines: "Hurry up and pick it up boy. If it's truly a hundred dollar bill, it won't be laying around for long."

Takeaway number 5: How you can beat Wall Street:

Because of the flaws of the two primary strategies of investing and because of human psychology, Wall Street professionals have been unable to beat the market historically. This can be proven by making a very simple point: An investor who puts $10,000 in the S&P; 500 market index at the beginning of 1969 would have $736,000 in 2014, compared to an investor who puts his money in the average actively managed fund, who would end up with "only" $501,000. When it comes to investing, you get what you don't pay for! Herein also lays the solution on how to beat Wall Street: Invest for the long run, and in cheap index funds primarily.

There are other asset classes to consider as well, to increase diversification and decrease your risk. Here's a lifecycle-guide on how to invest to beat "The Street". Mid-20s, Late 30s, Mid-50s, Late 60s, and beyond. This might sound too simple to be true, and it actually is. You must also consider these 5 core principles for asset allocation:

1. Risk and reward are related Anyone would pick $100 guaranteed before a $200 coin flip. Risk in the stock market is defined as the volatility of the individual investment. Volatility is measured by how much the return typically differs from its expected value. A higher volatility means a higher risk that you might be forced to sell with a loss at a later stage and may imply that your investment has a higher risk of defaulting

2. Length of holding time decreases risk. The longer you hold on to a position, the more likely that it will perform according to its expected value. In other words, the longer you can hold on to an investment before you need that specific money, the less risk you take! This is best illustrated by the following graph which shows how much yearly return different holding periods in stocks resulted in during 1950 to 2013. Notice that when holding stocks for at least 15 years, there wasn't a single period of negative returns. Trust in time in the market, rather than timing the market!

3. Use dollar cost averaging. Dollar cost averaging means investing the same fixed amount at regular intervals. For instance, put 10% of your salary in an index fund every month. By doing this you will benefit from the up- and downswings in the market. Your average price per share will actually be lower than the average price at which you bought them. Why? Because you'll buy more shares when the market is cheap and depressed and less of them when it's expensive and over-optimistic.

4. Decide your tolerance for risk. How much risk you can tolerate depends on your financial situation, your age and your psychology. If losing your investment money, means that you will have to drastically change your lifestyle, as in the case of a retiree living from his or her investment income, you might want to downsize risk. Similarly, if your sleep is affected by the volatility in your stock portfolio, you might want to "sell down to the sleeping point" as JP Morgan once suggested to a friend.

5. Rebalancing can reduce risk and possibly increase returns. Let's say that you're a 25 year old. You are then suggested to keep 70% of your assets in index funds, and 15% in bonds, according to the examples presented before. If stocks have been over performing lately, you might end up with 80% index bonds and 5 percent bonds.

This might be riskier than you would prefer, as decided by the previous point. By rebalancing every year or every other year to restore the same allocation as before, you can reduce this risk. Furthermore, you might be able to sell stock when they are close to a bubble, if you are lucky.

Here's a quick recap: Takeaway number 1 is that fundamental analysis has a tough time beating the market and the 2nd takeaway is that technical analysis doesn't seem to be a winning strategy either. Number 3 is that beating the market is made even more difficult due to human psychology. 4 is that future market development is essentially a random walk and therefore it cannot be predicted. The final takeaway is a hopeful one for the individual investor, as it suggests that he can easily beat the average analyst on Wall Street, by simply buying and holding the market index. This was only a fraction of what the more than 420 pages of "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" has to offer.

Summary of Beating the Street | national best seller

2020-07-08T11:30:00.006+05:30

Beating the Street

About Author:

Peter Lynch (born January 19, 1944)[1] is an American investor, mutual fund manager, and philanthropist. As the manager of the Magellan Fund at Fidelity Investments between 1977 and 1990, Lynch averaged a 29.2% annual return, consistently more than doubling the S&P 500 stock market index and making it the best-performing mutual fund in the world. During his 13 year tenure, assets under management increased from $18 million to $14 billion.

Summary of Book:

So the fifth most important takeaway from Beating the Street, is that you should "Focus on the even bigger picture". Imagine that you are living in Sweden, or some other country with seasonal weather conditions. One day in the winter, the temperature suddenly drops below zero degrees Celsius. People start to panic It was 30 degrees just a couple of months ago, what is happening? Is it the beginning of the next Ice Age?

The media starts to produce daily headlines about how polar bears could die from the cold; how electricity will stop working and how even hell may eventually freeze if this drop in temperature continues. A silly scenario, you say? Absolutely, but it's not much different from this one, which has happened on multiple occasions Imagine that you are living in a country with a stock market, which price is determined by a group of emotional human beings.

One day after a bull market, stocks suddenly drop ten percent from their previous high. People start to panic. The media starts to produce daily headlines about how stocks may eventually become worthless pieces of paper and how investors should switch to money in the bank and bonds if they don't want to risk personal bankruptcy.

Equally silly, yet, this is a reoccurring thing, from which we don't seem to learn very fast Just like with the weather, stocks go through numerous cycles. This is a natural thing, as the price of the market is determined by you, me and a bunch of other emotional characters that swing from optimistic to pessimistic and then back again.

Peter Lynch says that the key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them. The stomach determines the fate of the stock picker, not the head. Whenever Peter Lynch himself feels the itch to sell all his stocks and prepare for the worst he likes to remind himself of "The even bigger picture". The even bigger picture is that during the last 60 years stocks have outperformed bonds by almost 3.5:1 per year and let's not even discuss money in bank accounts here despite the thousands of reasons that we've seen that the financial world may come to an end, stocks have been returning, on average 7.1% per year versus 2.1% per year for bonds, after inflation.

Besides, if total disaster actually does strike, money in the bank will be just as useless as stock certificates but if disaster doesn't strike (which is a much more likely scenario) the stock picker will be the richer man in the long run. At number four we have that "Making money in stocks is a combination of science, art and legwork" So it's no secret that Peter Lynch became such a successful fund manager at Fidelity Magellan by investing in stocks But how did he do it?

He attributes his success to a combination of science, art and legwork Stock picking is partly a science, as great opportunities can be found by investigating the numbers that are presented in a company's financial statements Peter Lynch has many such quantitative factors that he likes to see, and he presents some of them in Beating the street - Growing sales and earnings - A reasonable price - Low debt - Share buybacks etc.

But if this was the only ingredients in picking great stocks, mathematicians and accountants would be the richest people on the planet (which they aren't) Successful investing is also partly an art In the long run, a stock will be priced fairly relative to how its earnings are developing.

The investor must understand what has been able to drive earnings in the past, and triggers that can cause them to grow in the future too A good way to make sure that you have a correct hunch is this: "If you are prepared to invest in a company, then you ought to be able to explain why in simple language that a fifth grade could understand, and quickly enough, so the fifth-grader won't get bored".

The last factor is legwork: stay busy. Peter Lynch himself visited hundreds of companies per year and read even more annual reports. He assessed that for every ten companies you investigate you'll find one where the story is better than the market is currently expressing.

He also emphasizes that when investigating an opportunity, you typically stumble across another one Peter Lynch's favorite question when interviewing CEOs was this: "Are there any other companies that you were impressed with?" When the CEO of one company talks fondly of a competitor in the same industry, you've probably found yourself a good deal.

Number three: Use the earnings line to identify buying opportunities

First: sales and earnings must be moving Second: buy at a reasonable price In Beating the street Peter Lynch gives an interesting tip on how to quickly evaluate if the price of a stock is fair or not. He says that one can identify an opportunity by looking at the "earnings line" of a company.

In the long-run, the development of a stock will resemble the development of its earnings Whenever we have reason to believe that the price of a stock is lower than what is fair compared to its earnings and expected growth rate, we have a buying opportunity. And if the reverse is true, we should probably sell. Let's take Google as an example here. During the years 2008 to 2013, Google's earnings increase from $4.2 billion to $12.7 billion , which is equal to a yearly growth of 25%.

Let's say that we had reason to believe that Google could continue this strong growth. As a rule of thumb: Peter Lynch thinks that a stock should sell at a P/E below its yearly growth rate. So whenever the stock of Google drops below a P/E of 25, we consider it a buy. The earnings line represents what the value of the company should be if the stock was priced at 25 times its earnings.

As you can see, Google could have been considered a buy in mid 2015 when the price of the stock dropped below the line. In mid 2018 on the other hand, the stock was a sell, as the gap between the price and the earnings line had become very large and interestingly enough, with these assumptions, Google should be a buy today. There's more science art and legwork to be added before we can decide weather Google is worthy of our money or not!

Number 2: Search for overlooked stocks with strong owners

It pays to be a contrarian when it comes to investing It can be very profitable to go to places where other fund managers and investors are afraid to invest. Look for companies that aren't followed by many analysts. In Beating the street Peter Lynch lists many of his investing principles and Peter's principle number 18 is: "When even the analysts are bored, it's time to start buying"

This typically results in a lower price than warranted Moreover, an overlooked company is usually favorable from other perspectives as well. For one thing, the largest share owners are usually still the founders of the company and the top management.

This type of "skin in the game" is great for the investor You can rest assured that your interest and that of the management are aligned. Furthermore, the owners of the business are typically more well educated about the industry with overlooked companies. What you want to see are owners that have succeeded with similar businesses before, What you don't want to see is that the largest five owners of the business are insurance companies or other large institutional players.

These people rarely know much about the industry and they probably don't care much about the company either, as it most likely will represent only a small fraction of their total capital on the management. So, look for companies that Wall Street has missed and where the owners are well invested and capable of running such a business.

And ranking in as the most important takeaway of Beating the street, we have: Buy Swedish Okay, not really, but Peter Lynch speaks fondly about Sweden in Beating the street so of course, I had to bring this up Actually, among Fidelity Magellan's top five performers under Peter Lynch's management, the only stock that wasn't from the US was Swedish...

Number one: Look for great companies in lousy industries

Where would you rather invest your money today? One: Internet and direct marketing retail Two: Software, Three: Life science, Four: Energy equipment and services, Five: Metals and mining, Six: Oil gas and consumable fuels. Which ones did you pick? According to research from fidelity.com, 1-3 are the top three performing industries of the last five years while 4-6 are the worst performing ones.

Peter Lynch would probably shy away from the first group and instead focus his legwork on the second one. Why? Because strong performance attracts competition. Everyone and his cousin would like to start a business in the first of the three industries, while companies are dying like flies in the second three. Peter Lynch recommends, that you should buy the strongest company or companies in industries, where the general opinion is that things have gone from bad to worse. As competitors fall the market share of these companies will increase as will their profitability. It won't take long before the stock price follows too.

A thriller by Harper Lee | To kill aMocking Bird

2020-07-07T11:00:00.021+05:30

To Kill A Mockingbird

About Author:

Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016) was an American novelist best known for her 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird. It won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. Lee only published two books, yet she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 for her contribution to literature. She also received numerous honorary degrees, though she declined to speak on those occasions. She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Capote was the basis for the character Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Summary of Book:

This is a story about a girl named Scout Finchwho lives in Maycomb, Alabama. She lives with her father, Atticus, older brother, Jem, and cook, Calpurnia. Scout plays in the neighborhood with Jem and their friend Dill, who lives in another town. Scout is smart for her age, as she can read pretty well. However, her teacher scolds her for having learned to read from her father. Scout lives near the Radley house, which is in famous in the community. Supposedly, a man named Boo Radley still lives there, but no one has seen him come out. The kids play near the house and try to get Boo to come out, but Atticus tells them to leave Boo alone.

One morning it begins to snow in Maycomb, which is extremely rare. Jem and Scout build a snowman with the light snow in their yard. However, their neighbor's house catches on fire and the entire town is out to help. During the commotion, Boo Radley puts a blanket around Scout’s shoulders, though she doesn’t realizes it until later. Because Atticus is a lawyer, he is assigned to represent Tom Robinson, a Black man, in a rape case. Word travels quickly and soon a boy at school teases Scout about it. Atticus warns Scout that she must not fight or get upset when people speak badly of him and that people will be speaking badly about him in the upcoming months because of the case. During Christmas, however, Scout’s cousin teases her and she fights him. One day, Jem and Scout pass by Mrs. Dubose’s house. She's an old, sick woman, who insults Atticus for defending Tom Robinson. This gets Jem mad and so he destroys all of Mrs. Dubose’s flowers. Atticus punishes Jem by making him read to Mrs. Dubose everyday for a month. Mrs. Dubose is barely awake during the time and dismisses them when the alarm clock sounds off. After a month of reading, Jem notices that the alarm clock goes off later and later. A month later, Mrs. Dubose dies. Atticus reveals that Mrs. Dubose was dying with an addition to morphine and that she slowly weaned herself off of it with the alarm clock, as Jem’s reading was a distraction.

Jem begins to grow up and separates himself from Scout. Then one day, Scout's aunt, Alexandra, arrives and lives with them. Her aunt wants Scout to act like a young lady, but Scout continues to fight and be tough. Dill also runs away from home to live in Maycomb. As the trial for Tom Robinson gets closer, the townspeople begin talking. A group of men even arrive at the house and tell Atticus that Tom is being held at the town jail. Atticus decides to protect the jail by sitting at the front door. Scout, Jem, and Dill run to the jail just as a group of men pull up in cars. The gang of men want Atticus to move out of the way, but he refuses. Scout runs in the middle of things and begins talking to one of the men she recognizes. She diffuses the situation and the angry men leave. The trial is the next day and so Scout, Jem and Dill go to the courthouse to watch. The courthouse is packed with people and the group finds their seats in the balcony as the court proceedings begin. In the case, Tom Robinson is accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a 19 year old girl. Mr. Tate, a man that arrived on the scene, is the first to be questioned on the stand. He says that he was called and found Mayella hurt. Atticus asks him to describe the wounds, which were choke marks around the neck and a bruised right eye. Mr. Ewell, Mayella’s father, is then questioned and recollects that he heard his daughter screaming and came to her rescue. Atticus questions him and it is revealed that Mr. Ewell is left-handed, which ties in with the bruised right eye of Mayella. Mayella is questioned and confirms her father’s story. However, when Atticus questions her, it is revealed that she is both uneducated and isolated by her father. And finally, Tom Robinson is questioned and he reveals that he did not rape her, but that Mayella actually came on to him and he refused and ran away.

In his closing argument, Atticus concludes that Mr. Ewell had beaten Mayella because he found out that she wanted to kiss Tom, a black man. The jury leaves to deliberate while the rest of the people wait. When the jury returns a few hours later, the verdict is read and Tom Robinson is found guilty and sentenced to death. Atticus is sad about the loss, but had expected it. The next day, dishes of food are given to Scout’s family for the work her father did. As the town soon forgets the trial, Mr. Ewell spits in Atticus’ face and swears to kill him. Atticus tries to act civilized and just walks away. Atticus tries to explain to Tom Robinson that there is still a chance that the ruling can be appealed. However, Tom Robinson tries to run away and is shot. Dill leaves town at the end of the summer and school begins. For Halloween, Scout dresses up as a ham for the school pageant and Jem walks with her to the auditorium. After the pageant, they walk home in the dark, but hear someone following them. They try to run, but are attacked by someone. Jem is hurt and Scout is on the ground. Someone pulls the attacker off of Scout and then the fighting stops. A man picks up Jem, who is unconscious, and they go home. Atticus calls the doctor and it’s assured that Jem and Scout will be okay. The sheriff discovers that Mr. Ewell is dead with a knife wound to his chest. Also, the man who carried Jem is Boo Radley, their mysterious neighbour. Atticus wants the attack to be public and suspects that Jem stabbed Mr. Ewell in self-defense, but the sheriff is adamant that Mr. Ewellstabbed himself after tripping. In the end, Jem wakes up the following day.