The Modern Intelligent Investor: An Exclusive Review

My friend, Stefan Papp, who just finished his book Investing for Programmers, invited me to an early read and write a testimonial for the book. But I found the topics so relevant that I wanted to share my thoughts with you as well.

First of all, he went through the basics of investing comprehensively. Concepts such as equities, bonds, coupon rate, derivates, forex - concepts that you would find in a college level 101 investing class. 

He makes an argument why programmers are especially attuned to investing - the analytical skills, the ability to be rational, to think and build systemic tools.

And I think he’s dead right.

He even goes into accounting basics, like cash flow and leverage. Now we’re talking about a college level 101 accounting class.

Then Stefan amps up the content and difficulty, layering on different instruments, such as crypto and private equity. On the the private equity front, I think a more apt title would have been startup equity.

But these are all just the basics; the next phase are the portfolio approaches and how to optimize one. Some of the concepts, like Sharpe ratio, were ones we employed in our crypto hedge fund.

But what I really like is how he blends modernity with investing concepts. He brings into the fore how to design your own asset monitor and risk management tools, including the use of AI and LLMs for research.