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Investors who succeed on Wall Street spend their career analyzing companies, and honing and refining their investment strategies. But they had to start somewhere.
Training for research analysts is basically nonexistent on Wall Street resulting in a "baptism by fire" that forces the new analyst to develop expertise on their own through an agonizing process of trial and error. To overcome this deficiency, Sonkin and Johnson have written the ultimate "survival" guide for someone embarking on a career as an investment professional. Arnie Ursaner, a sell side veteran, who retired after 43-years on Wall Street said, "I wish I had this book when I started in the business. I remember my early days being characterized by a lot of hits and misses. This book provides valuable shortcuts to experience more hits and fewer misses."
The single most important element in survival is having knowledge, as knowledge dispels fear, and on Wall Street, fortune favors the prepared mind. Pitch the Perfect Investment accelerates the learning process, giving the college or MBA student the edge they need to succeed, whether they are pitching a stock idea in a job interview, in a stock pitch competition, or for a student-run investment fund. Echoing this sentiment, Aswath Damodaran, a prolific author of over 20 books on valuation and a professor at New York University, said, "...this is a book that most of my students would have loved to have had before their first interview and job."
Sonkin and Johnson also seek to push the open-minded, seasoned investment professional out of their comfort zone and challenge them to think about familiar concepts differently. In an industry where even the most successful veterans must worry about younger managers snapping at their heels, Pitch the Perfect Investment equips the Chief Investment Officer and Director of Research with new tools, enabling them to tighten their analytical process and significantly improve communication and efficiency throughout their organization. As noted by Geoffrey Moore, author of several highly-acclaimed strategy books in the technology industry, "Much heartache will be avoided and faster decisions will be reached by any organization that adopts Sonkin and Johnson's recommendations."
Nicholas Galluccio, CEO of Teton Advisors, added, "In this era of hyper-competition on Wall Street, active portfolio management is under attack by ETFs and passive investment vehicles. In this new environment, beating the market is even more essential to the active portfolio manager and even the smallest edge can make the difference between success and failure. Pitch the Perfect Investment will give the professional investor that edge."
No other single resource will provide students, money managers, analysts, bankers, executives, salespeople, and individual investors with a faster way to improve their performance. Pitch the Perfect Investment is the essential guide to winning on Wall Street.
Questions? Email info@pitchtheperfectinvestment.com
Paul D. Sonkin (New York, NY) is a portfolio manager at GAMCO Investors / Gabelli Funds. Sonkin has over 25 years of experience researching small, micro and nanocap companies. Prior to analyzing stubs, spin-offs and micro-cap companies for GAMCO, Sonkin was for 14 years the portfolio manager of The Hummingbird Value Fund and the Tarsier Nanocap Value Fund. He holds an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a B.A. in Economics from Adelphi University. For 16 years, Sonkin was an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Business, where he taught courses on security analysis and value investing. For over 10 years, he was a member of the Executive Advisory Board of The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing at Columbia Business School. He has extensive corporate governance experience having sat on six public company boards. Sonkin is the co-author of Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond (2001).
Paul Johnson (New York, NY) runs Nicusa Investment Advisors, an advisory firm focused on helping CEOs and Boards of Directors deal with operational and financial strategy, capital allocation, shareholder value creation, and corporate communications. Johnson applies his 35 years of experience as an investment professional, combined with 25 years as a business school professor, to help senior managers address these critical strategic issues. Johnson was given the Commitment to Excellence award by both the 2016 and 2017 Executive MBA graduating classes in recognition of his outstanding commitment to their educational experience. Johnson is a contributing annotator to The Most Important Thing Illuminated, by Howard Marks. Johnson is also co-author of The Gorilla Game, Picking Winners in High Technology. Johnson has an MBA in Finance from the Executive Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
