4W Magazine

The Big Gamble: A Radiography of Investment and Speculation

By Eva E. Montilla
For 4W Magazine
 

José Abbo and José Roncal, two recognized students of global finance, have culminated the findings of their nearly six-year research into a compendium that will be of great interest to connoisseurs of global finance, and even to some who are not.

The international markets are in constant flux. One day we awaken to a serious real estate crisis, and the next with the noisy crash of the stock markets, followed by more news of rising prices of crude oil and its derivatives.  Or, it’s simply the news about unusual economic growths and/or recessions. But this October we provide a sneak peak at a literary novelty that could impact the market—the formal release of the new book, The Big Gamble: Are You Investing or Speculating? an intellectual production by two avid students of global finance, José Abbo (Panamanian) and Jose Roncal (Argentinean).

To get more details about this book, which calls for a complete understanding of investment and speculation, we spoke with one of the authors, José Abbo, who is no neophyte in this field. He has spent two decades writing on the economy and on global finance and, in the year 2000 he published his first book Disvisando Wall Street Desde el Sur de America (Overseeing Wall Street From South of the Border) addressing the Latin-American market.

The partnership between the two authors began at Cable and Wireless Panama—Abbo is the international vice-president of Financial Projects of the telecommunications company, and Roncal, the typical international financial executive, came to the country as their financial director. As close collaborators every day, they exchanged ideas on international market events, and both expressed an interest in producing a work, though conscious of the fact that “to write a book was a sacrifice of time.”

Researching the topic

According to Abbo, The Big Gamble took four years of research and writing, and another two years during which both authors had outlined their own ideas. Initially, they informally spoke about doing the book, but they first opted to write a small leaflet, considering that the topic of corporate scandals in the U.S. was still so fresh.

Later on, they decided they weren’t completely convinced by the subject, and instead chose to focus on the telecommunications industry. They considered writing about the lessons learned from AT&T, but they desisted from this as well.

Finally, they decided to focus on investments and speculations, or as Abbo calls it “financial dementia,” or “chinguia” (Panamanian slang for gambling) which is contagious. According to Abbo, “The book is about speculative bubbles, the debacle of the international credit crisis and the financial dementia, which the economy of Panama has not escaped since the country piqued the interest of speculators.”

“We began,” explained Abbo, “by relating the subject to typical things in life and every time we reviewed the content, we ended up expanding on it. Suddenly, the booklet had become one hundred pages long. It was no longer a leaflet, but a book. There was a key factor: I’d found a document from 1993 that was the start of developing the topic about defining an investment and a speculation and that’s what motivated us to do more. With this in mind, we looked for a publishing house. After the first rough edition, came the style, and then the book which expanded into more than 200 pages.”

Speculation and investment

Abbo was emphatic on affirming that, “We should not confuse speculation with investment, because we commit the error of acquiring assets that are overvalued. This is explained clearly in the book. We enhanced the work to help determine when something is an investment and not a speculation.

A good investment does not exist in the long term; everything is a speculation.

The first section is interesting and quite didactic. The second section is about the motivation to work toward your goals, dreams and the truth vocation. In this sense, Abbo emphasized that, “we all want to become rich, but, if you really want to be compared to successful people, it’s necessary to speculate and not to give up if you fall down. We must be willing to take the risks.

We decided to include biographies of some successful people, like Frederick Smith, founder of Federal Express; Donald Trump, the model of the successful speculator; Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google; and Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, founders of Apple Computer; they are the examples of the people who aim for achievements and do not give up; on the contrary, they were persistent, they took risks”.

“One has to believe in luck with a prepared mind,” he affirmed emphatically.  “A prepared mind foresees an opportunity and makes use of it. It is always necessary to start with the possibility that you can fail, but things can be achieved if there is passion for what one does. I am a person who likes what I do, and because of that, I am dedicated to learning.”

I have dedicated many years to finance and to writing, I also have passion and believe in myself.  In the face of adversity we must focus and not worry too much about the outcome, because too much energy is lost. ”

It is necessary to have faith

Abbo gave the example of Steve Jobs, who in a commencement ceremony at the graduation of Stanford's University student in 2005, said, “You can connect the points of your past, but you cannot connect the points of your future.” Abbo clarifies that with “There is nothing wrong with speculation. Life is random and it is necessary to learn to live with the uncertainty. It is necessary to have faith. This book is going to be a success. The two authors have worked very hard.”

He mentioned that the mechanics to produce the work were not so easy, since Roncal, after spending some time in Panama was then transferred to Barbados. Today he lives in the U.S. thus, the production of this book was created largely at long distance.   But the important thing is that both maintained the passion and believed in themselves enough to finish the project.

The Big Gamble: Are You Investing or Speculating? is targeted at the international market. It is written in English (and a Spanish version might soon be in the works). It will be released officially this October, with a launch probably in New York. It’s approximately 200 pages long.

PRLog.org

Rookie or sophisticated investors alike will benefit from “The Big Gamble: Are You Investing or Speculating?” A unique feature of this new book is a companion website where readers get “on the fly” book updates as economic conditions change.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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FinancialSpeculation.com is an innovative book/website combination that educates readers on the difference between investing, speculating and gambling. The author's new book, "The Big Gamble" has been endorsed by Donald Trump who calls it "a great read!"