Elroy Dimson

Mike Staunton

Paul Marsh

Investors have too often extrapolated from recent experience. In the 1950s, who but the most rampant optimist would have dreamt that over the next fifty years the real return on equities would be 9% per year? Yet this is what happened in the U.S. stock market. The optimists triumphed. However, as Don Marquis observed, an optimist is someone who never had much experience. The authors of this book extend our experience across regions and across time. They present a comprehensive and consistent analysis of investment returns for equities, bonds, bills, currencies and inflation, spanning sixteen countries, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. This is achieved in a clear and simple way, with over 130 color diagrams that make comparison easy. Crucially, the authors analyze total returns, including reinvested income. They show that some historical indexes overstate long-term performance because they are contaminated by survivorship bias and that long-term stock returns are in most countries seriously overestimated, due to a focus on periods that with hindsight are known to have been successful. The book also provides the first comprehensive evidence on the long-term equity risk premium--the reward for bearing the risk of common stocks. The authors reveal whether the United States and United Kingdom have had unusually high stock market returns compared to other countries. The book covers the U.S., the U.K., Japan, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark, and South Africa. Triumph of the Optimists is required reading for investment professionals, financial economists, and investors. It will be the definitive reference in the field and consulted for years to come.

101 Years of Global Investment Returns

Triumph of the Optimists

Mary Jackson

This new and unique book demonstrates that Excel and VBA can play an important role in the explanation and implementation of numerical methods across finance. Advanced Modelling in Finance provides a comprehensive look at equities, options on equities and options on bonds from the early 1950s to the late 1990s. The book adopts a step-by-step approach to understanding the more sophisticated aspects of Excel macros and VBA programming, showing how these programming techniques can be used to model and manipulate financial data, as applied to equities, bonds and options. The book is essential for financial practitioners who need to develop their financial modelling skill sets as there is an increase in the need to analyse and develop ever more complex 'what if' scenarios. Specifically applies Excel and VBA to the financial markets Packaged with a CD containing the software from the examples throughout the book Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Mike Staunton

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