Oct

18

BooksThe other night I went shopping for books. I hit the three major book stores in our area, Barnes&Noble, Borders, and Books a Million. Since I enjoy browsing through book stores, I usually walk the entire stores. I noticed a few things such as the inventory levels being very low, and the labor was very tight, despite many customers. All three stores had one thing in common that was of great interest to me; The business/investing/trading section of books has recently shrunk by an average of three vertical feet of shelf space, being replaced by books on how to survive the coming recession/depression/hard times. I found many investing books in the remainder displays with a heavy markdown. Two of the stores had a separate display of the new book by the Palindrome, and also a couple of other displays of books on how to handle the coming recession/depression. A quick scan through some of those recession books showed no mention of buying good stocks on the cheap as a way to handle the rough times. I also noticed a decrease in the periodical section of business related magazines, with just the major ones represented. I've never seen such a shift in a business section inventory since the malaise of the late 70's. Later, going home and browsing through Amazon.com, I noticed heavy markdowns of all investment books. I can't say whether my small sample of the major bookstores in my area constitutes any kind of national trend. However, I wouldn't mind if the public loses interest in investing for awhile, licking their wounds. That will indicate a great buying opportunity for stocks. One positive note about the three stores: all had "Education of a Speculator" in stock, and it wasn't on markdown.

Steve Ellison writes:

At the public library today, I saw a display on the stock market "crisis." I was surprised because usually the displays feature topics related to multiculturalism. Included in the display was the Senator's book "The Right Stock at the Right Time". There were also two books about stock market strategies by the American Association of Individual Investors and two books about 1929.


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3 Comments so far

  1. shmuel on October 19, 2008 1:45 am

    i recall those wily years, sitting in the 23d street barnes&noble floor taking down 'education of a speculator' in one gulp.

  2. George Parkanyi on October 19, 2008 1:34 pm

    In Canada, we're lagging. I too like browsing the bookstore (our equivalent to Barnes and Noble here is Chapters), particularly for investment-related books, and I haven't noticed any of the things Jeff has noticed. But it will come. Barring a big rally into this month-end, it will be interesting to see what happens after people start getting their October month-end statements. Will mutual fund redemptions accelerate? Or are commodities and commodity related issues just a little oversold (and Education of a Speculator overbought) here? I've never seen a COT so friendly to the long side. In Canada we have high quality oil and gas income trusts yielding 15-20%. For example Canadian Oil Sands Income Trust is at 19%. Am I missing something, or have people resolved never to use gasoline or to eat again? Just kidding on the EoS…

  3. Dave Bacon on October 22, 2008 10:55 am

    No change in the size at a local Barnes and Noble in downtown Seattle. However there did seem to be a few more books on crashes than the last time I looked.

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