Friday, April 20, 2012

The Hidden Agenda: A Proven Way to Win Business and Create a Following

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The Hidden Agenda: A Proven Way to Win Business and Create a Following

Each of us pitches ideas every day. Sometimes we sell our ideas to a small room full of skeptical colleagues. Sometimes we pitch to a boss, or a board of directors, a new organization, or for the contract of our dreams. Regardless, it all boils down to the act of stirring someone to join youâ€"to agree to follow you. Yet we consistently underestimate how critical it is to recognize the needs, spoken and unspoken, of the decision maker. Decisions are made by people, and people have needs and agendas. Understanding these needs and agendas are critical to success in business. Kevin Allen's approach is not about persuading, but about creating a connection that assures a mutual win.

Through his years of successfully pitching ideas, veteran ad man Allen has seen a pattern emerge: pitches aimed directly at the needs of the decision maker are winners. By recognizing the unspoken need of the decision maker, and connecting the pitch to that need, the likelihood of winning the sell is virtually assured. In The Hidden Agenda, Allen describes in practical terms an entirely new way to compel people to follow you and embrace what you are selling. The Hidden Agenda lays out concrete steps to identify the "who" you are reaching, "what" elements you can connect with, and "how" to connect with your audience with the end goal of simultaneously winning the sell and establishing an ongoing collaborative relationship.

This entertaining book moves at a rapid clip and is full of lively anecdotes of hard-won advertising campaigns. From Mastercard's iconic "Priceless" campaign to Rudy Giuliani's mayoral campaign, Kevin Allen has seen first-hand how to effectively find, connect, and speak to the Hidden Agenda to win business unfailingly, every time.

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Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company

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The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company

Now a decade after The Four Steps to the Epiphany sparked the Lean Startup revolution, comes its sequel... The Startup Owner's Manual. The Manual incorporates 10 years of learning and best practices that have swept the startup world. It incorporates the Business Model Canvas as the organizing principle for startup hypotheses, provides separate paths and advice for web/mobile products versus physical products, offers a wealth of detailed instruction on how to get, keep, and grow customers recognizing the different techniques for web and physical channels and teaches a "new math" for startups: "metrics that matter for fueling growth." The Startup Owner's Manual is a step-by-step, near-encyclopedic reference manual or "how to" for building a successful, scalable startup. Want to know what to do the first, week, month or year? What's the right distribution channel for your product? How to get traffic to your web site? ...and how to activate customers or users on arrival? Who are the right "first customers," and why? ...plus many more great tips in nearly 500 pages, complete with index, glossary, and Customer Development Checklists. It's the indispensible reference guide for any startup founder, entrepreneur, investor or educator.

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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Investing Made Simple: Index Fund Investing and ETF Investing Explained in 100 Pages or Less

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Investing Made Simple: Index Fund Investing and ETF Investing Explained in 100 Pages or Less

Find all of the following explained in plain-English with no technical jargon:
  • Asset Allocation: What does it mean, why is it so important, and how should you determine your own?
  • How to Pick Mutual Funds: Learn how to choose funds that are mathematically certain to outperform the majority of other mutual funds.
  • Roth IRA vs. Traditional IRA vs. 401(k): What's the difference, and how should you choose between them?
  • Financial Advisors: Learn what to look for as well as pitfalls to avoid.
  • Frequent Investor Mistakes: Learn the most common mistakes and what you can do to avoid them.
  • Calculate Your Retirement Needs: Learn how to calculate how much you'll need saved in order to retire.
Who Is This Book For?
Anyone who has questions about investing, but who doesn't want to trudge through a 300-page textbook.

What This Book Is Not:
This book is not going to make you an absolute expert on the topic, and
This book is not going to provide you with a way to get rich overnight.

What it will do (hopefully) is provide an easy-to-understand, concise introduction to the topic of prudent investing.

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Monday, April 16, 2012

Futures 101: An Introduction To Commodity Trading.

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Futures 101: An Introduction To Commodity Trading.

This award-winning beginners book explaining commodities is written in layman's language with lots of details and touches of wit to keep you awake. It must be doing something right as copies of the hard cover book have sold thousands throughout the world. If you are curious about commodity futures and do not want to see a sale pitch, then dig into this and have fun learning some new things.

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Friday, March 30, 2012

ETF Trading and Investing Strategies (Collection)

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ETF Trading and Investing Strategies (Collection)

A brand new collection of state-of-the-art insights into trading and investing…now in a convenient e-format, at a great price!

 

Breakthrough ETF trading and investing strategies: 3 eBooks packed with techniques for reducing your risks and costs — and supercharging your returns

 

Three remarkable eBooks help you use the latest ETF strategies to cut your investing costs, control your risks, and improve your returns! In The ETF Trend Following Playbook, Tom Lydonhelps you drive superior performance by combining proven trend following strategies, low-cost ETFs, and fully-proven technical analysis methods. You’ll discover how to quickly identify markets that are about to plummet, so you can get out of the way... and how to identify markets that are headed up, so you can capture all of their profits.In Buy—Don’t Hold, Leslie Masonson shows how to avoid the massive stock-market drops that destroy “buy and hold” investors, and offers specific, easy-to-use investing strategies for investors with each risk profile: conservative, moderate and aggressive. Finally, in Investing with Exchange Traded Funds Made Easy, Marvin Appel cuts through today’s ETF marketing hype, helping you choose the right ETFs from the hundreds now available. Drawing on objective data and proven, backtested strategies, Appel reveals what ETFs can and can’t do, and shows exactly how to use them to consistently beat the market.

 

From world-renowned investing experts including Tom Lydon, Les Masonson, and Marvin Appel

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Friday, March 16, 2012

Taking Stock

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Taking Stock

TAKING STOCK


C.J. develops his characters brilliantly and makes them easily identifiable with and believable, unlike so many characters who seem to need a cape and cowl to do what they do in suspense novels.
--Frank Cinnella


A chillingly accurate Thriller. Taking Stock is all too real, and downright uncomfortably exciting.
--Carolynn Evans for Curled Up With a Good Book


THE END OF MARKING TIME


... West has brilliantly portrayed a world gone crazy where the rule is there are no rules, or are they. Crime fiction meets science fiction in this awesome thriller."
--Book Bitch


Powerful, thought provoking and massively entertaining... I loved this book and the way it made me root for someone who I knew I shouldn't like.
--CrimeSquad.com


SIN AND VENGEANCE


...the book was spellbinding. The plotting is brilliant, and Randy is an exquisite character, an evil genius for the modern age.
--Debra Hamel


C.J. West delivers, from the highly erotic opening scene to the chilling conclusion. Sin & Vengeance is a provocative page-turner brimming with intrigue and heart-pounding suspense.
--Alynn


ADDICTED TO LOVE


This book had me so hooked. I loved the plot ... unique and creative [with] just the right about of romance, sexuality, thrills, mystery, and just plain crazy ...
--Tiffany Harkleroad, Tiffany's Bookshelf


CJ's latest offering is a blend of the thrillers we come to expect from him and a new touch of romance, actually a little steamier than just any old romance, so I like to call it a "steamy thriller."
--Roxanne



Tiny magnetic dots locked deep in Boston's financial district hold the keys to $44 billion. The massive fortune is spread among seventy-five thousand customers and only the computers know exactly how the shares are divided at any given time. Millions are spent to keep the systems safe in their temperature controlled room and keep Internet-based hackers at bay. No one knows this better than the people assigned to safeguard this fortune. Erica Fletcher is one such guardian, buried by an insurmountable workload, precisely how she likes it. Beautiful, smart, tough, nothing can knock her off course and nothing penetrates her defenses. She's locked her emotions away and poured her life into her career. She's a superstar among her peers and a nightmare to any man who tries to control her. Erica's boss wants her out and their confrontation wakes Erica to a stark reality. She's traded her life for success and security, forever running from her mother's mistakes. Her roommate convinces her to slow down and just as her first real romance blooms, her life is thrown into chaos. Two hundred million has disappeared from the firm and the evidence all points to Erica. She fights for her life as she struggles to hold on to the new woman she's become.

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Friday, March 2, 2012

The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition)

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The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition)

Among the library of investment books promising no-fail strategies for riches, Benjamin Graham's classic, The Intelligent Investor, offers no guarantees or gimmicks but overflows with the wisdom at the core of all good portfolio management.

The hallmark of Graham's philosophy is not profit maximization but loss minimization. In this respect, The Intelligent Investor is a book for true investors, not speculators or day traders. He provides, "in a form suitable for the laymen, guidance in adoption and execution of an investment policy" (1). This policy is inherently for the longer term and requires a commitment of effort. Where the speculator follows market trends, the investor uses discipline, research, and his analytical ability to make unpopular but sound investments in bargains relative to current asset value. Graham coaches the investor to develop a rational plan for buying stocks and bonds, and he argues that this plan must be a bulwark against emotional behavior that will always be tempting during abrupt bull and bear markets.

Since it was first published in 1949, Graham's investment guide has sold over a million copies and has been praised by such luminaries as Warren E. Buffet as "the best book on investing ever written." These accolades are well deserved. In its new form--with commentary on each chapter and extensive footnotes prepared by senior Money editor, Jason Zweig--the classic is now updated in light of changes in investment vehicles and market activities since 1972. What remains is a better book. Graham's sage advice, analytical guides, and cautionary tales are still valid for the contemporary investor, and Zweig's commentaries demonstrate the relevance of Graham's principles in light of 1990s and early twenty-first century market trends. --Patrick O'Kelley

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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Real Estate: The Sustainable Investment

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Real Estate: The Sustainable Investment

Practical Advice for Investing in Income Property

The Best Selling Book Real Estate: The Sustainable Investment offers advice and stories to make the learning curve a bit less steep and measurably safer â€" with proven strategies for reaching long-term investment goals by including small income property in your asset allocation. Sustainable investing for sustainable living and a more secure financial future.

• What type of real estate investment is right for you?
• Making leverage actually work for you.
• How and why to get started now.
• What to look for in a partner before you say “I do.”
• An excellent overview of investment basics.
• Pro Forma Property Analysis Sheets inside and online.
• Insightful management lessons from the real world.
• Critical thinking about your investment timing.
• The first real estate book with its own iPhone app to make property analysis mobile and easy.

Reading this book could be your best investment on the path to intentional success and that decisive moment when investment dreams become investment reality.

From the authors of Real Estate: The Sustainable Investment comes the first of its kind mobile appâ€"Real Estate Analytics. The Five-Star complement to the book is now available for your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. The Top-Rated book shows you how to make good investments. The app makes analyzing an investment property easy. Now, it’s up to you to find the right property and make the investment. Used together, you have powerful tools to make better decisions.

Website:

The companion website for this book at www.thesustainableinvestment.com offers:

• Free printable versions of the Pro Forma Property Analysis templates featured in the book.
• Answers to frequently asked questions and chapter previews.
• More information about Real Estate Analytics, the free mobile app developed by the authors.


“I’ve been Glen’s partner in numerous real estate investments for over twenty-five yearsâ€"the best investments I ever made. I’ve also been a guest lecturer at Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies as a guest of the Dean, Dr. John Gordon. I can assure you that if Glen and John get together to write a book on real estate investment strategies for young people, it’s a book I’ll recommend to my children and grandchildren.”â€"William A. Whelan, President, Pope and Talbot, Inc.; President and CEO, Roseburg Lumber, Inc.

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Monday, February 27, 2012

The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career

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The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career

A blueprint for thriving in your job and building a career by applying the lessons of Silicon Valley's most innovative entrepreneurs.

The career escalator is jammed at every level. Unemployment rates are sky-high. Creative disruption is shaking every industry. Global competition for jobs is fierce. The employer-employee pact is over and traditional job security is a thing of the past.  
 
Here, LinkedIn cofounder and chairman Reid Hoffman and author Ben Casnocha show how to accelerate your career in today's competitive world. The key is to manage your career as if it were a start-up business: a living, breathing, growing start-up of you.
 
Why? Start-ups - and the entrepreneurs who run them - are nimble. They invest in themselves. They build their professional networks. They take intelligent risks. They make uncertainty and volatility work to their advantage.
 
These are the very same skills professionals need to get ahead today.
 
This book isn't about cover letters or resumes. Instead, you will learn the best practices of Silicon Valley start-ups, and how to apply these entrepreneurial strategies to your career. Whether you work for a giant multinational corporation, a small local business, or launching your own venture, you need to know how to:
 
* Adapt your career plans as you change, the people around you change, and industries change.
* Develop a competitive advantage to win the best jobs and opportunities.
* Strengthen your professional network by building powerful alliances and maintaining a diverse mix of relationships. 
* Find the unique breakout opportunities that massively accelerate career growth.
* Take proactive risks to become more resilient to industry tsunamis.
* Tap your network for information and intelligence that help you make smarter decisions.
 
A revolutionary new guide to thriving in today's fractured world of work, the strategies in this book will help you survive and thrive and achieve your boldest professional ambitions. The Start-Up of You empowers you to become the CEO of your career and take control of your future.

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Sunday, February 26, 2012

The New Robber Barons

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The New Robber Barons

WITH TRILLIONS ON THE TABLE NOBODY PLAYS FAIR, AND EVERYONE PLAYS FOR KEEPS.

The NEW ROBBER BARONS continues financial expert Janet Tavakoli’s on-going chronicle of the global financial crisis captured in her articles from the September 2008 meltdown through February 2012. Picking up where her previous book, Dear Mr. Buffett, ended, she exposes the criminogenic environment that enabled international oligarchs to solidify power.

In January 2009, Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, told Tom Brokaw: “the idea that people that move money around are some favored class…strikes me as getting pretty far away from where we should be.” Two years later he publicly excused apparent insider trading by one of his successor candidates, David Sokol.

Berkshire Hathaway officer Charlie Munger admonished law students that Americans shouldn’t be "bitching about a little bailout."

Shortly before Congress confronted him with Goldman Sachs’s profiteering during the financial crisis, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein quipped he was doing “God’s work.”

CEO Jamie Dimon told shareholders that he didn’t think JPMorgan made a mistake when it came to potential foreclosure fraud: “maybe we’ll have to pay penalties eventually to some of the attorneys general but we really think we should just continue.” Meanwhile the bank scoured 115,000 mortgage affidavits and reserved $1.3 billion for legal costs.

After MF Global’s October 31, 2011, bankruptcy a U.S. Congressman told former CEO Jon Corzine: "You've got thousands of hard working people around this country that feel cheated."

Tavakoli serves up example after stunning international example of no-strings-attached socialization of losses and privatization of gains. In the words of Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur: "I believe most of us would call that theft."

COMMENT FROM JANET TAVAKOLI

This is a compilation of articles from September 2008 to the present. The e-book includes the original reference links including links to some of my original public (non-client) analysis. This is unedited so that readers can see my original thought process and ultimate vindication when the truth was eventually revealed by Congressional investigations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Janet Tavakoli is the author of, STRUCTURED FINANCE & COLLATERALIZED DEBT OBLIGATIONS (John Wiley & Sons, 2003, 2008), CREDIT DERIVATIVES (Wiley, 1998, 2001), which revealed grave flaws in the methodology for rating structured financial products and abuses in the credit derivatives markets, and DEAR MR. BUFFETT: WHAT AN INVESTOR LEARNS 1,269 MILES FROM WALL STREET, (Wiley 2009) in which she explains the causes of the greatest credit bubble in the history of the world, how we could have avoided it and how we can prevent it from happening again.

Ms. Tavakoli is the founder president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, Inc. (TSF), a Chicago based consulting firm established in 2003 for clients including financial institutions, institutional investors, and hedge funds..

After more than 22 years of experience structuring, trading and selling derivatives and structured products while working for global Wall Street firms in New York and London, Tavakoli has received industry recognition as a global expert in finance. Ms. Tavakoli is a world renowned author and speaker on derivative products and securities.

Ms. Tavakoli is frequently published and quoted in financial journals including The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, New York Times, The Economist, Business Week, Forbes and Fortune,

Frequent television appearances include CBS's 60 Minutes, CNN, C-Span, CNBC, Fox, CBS Evening News, Bloomberg TV, and BBC.

Ms. Tavakoli earned a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology and an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. She is a former adjunct associate professor of finance at the Booth School of Business.

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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Investing Essentials: What You Need to Know (Collection)

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Investing Essentials: What You Need to Know (Collection)

This is the eBook version of the printed book.

If you liked this Short, you might also like Fire Your Stock Analyst!: Analyzing Stocks On Your Own, 2nd Edition (9780137010233) by Harry Domash. Available in print and digital formats.

 

Six short-and-sweet, quick-start investing primers: practical guidance on ETFs, dividend stocks, growth stocks, emerging markets, mutual funds, closed-end funds, and more!

 

Harry Domash's six quick-start investing guides give you crucial information for investing profitably in any market environment. Learn what you need to know, without useless theory or number-crunching that doesn't matter! Includes practical, up-to-the-minute primers on ETFs, emerging markets, dividend stocks, growth stocks, advanced growth stock analysis, and mutual funds/closed-end funds!

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Thursday, February 9, 2012

How To Win Friends and Influence People

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How To Win Friends and Influence People

YOU CAN GO AFTER THE JOB YOU WANT...AND GET IT! YOU CAN TAKE THE JOB YOU HAVE...AND IMPROVE IT! YOU CAN TAKE ANY SITUATION YOU'RE IN...AND MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU!

For more than sixty years the rock-solid, time-tested advice in this book has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.

Now this previously revised and updated bestseller is available as eBook for the first time to help you achieve your maximum potential throughout the next century! Learn:

* THREE FUNDAMENTAL TECHNIQUES IN HANDLING PEOPLE

* THE SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU

* THE TWELVE WAYS TO WIN PEOPLE TO YOUR WAY OF THINKING

* THE NINE WAYS TO CHANGE PEOPLE WITHOUT AROUSING RESENTMENT

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Applied Income Model (Personal Investment)

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Applied Income Model (Personal Investment)

Applied Income Model is a turnkey investment strategy that even someone new to investment can easily accomplish. It comes with its own software module where an investor simply plugs in the necessary data and then sits back and watches it do the job for you. It doesn't get any easier than this and this is the exact same program the author uses to make a healthy 5-figure monthly income. This book comes complete with its own software module with a download link inside the book.

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Sunday, February 5, 2012

The ShipIt Journal Five Pack

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The ShipIt Journal Five Pack

A five-pack of the 32 page ShipIt Journal, a workbook designed for groups of people (or individuals) who want to do work that matters.

Share them with your team, fill them out together, surface the issues and then ship.

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Saturday, February 4, 2012

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Prima Official Game Guide

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Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Prima Official Game Guide

Large map Poster inside 
Labeled with important locations, major roads, and hold capitals

A Champion for Skyrim

Multiple character builds based on hundreds of hours of playtesting reveal exactly what Skills, Perks, equipment, and other items to pick, and how to advance through the game, no matter the type of character you want to be.
 
All Collectibles Gathered
If you’re searching Skyrim for Skill Books, Unique Items and Weapons, every single Shout, Dragon Priest Masks, Treasure Maps, Unusual Gems, or even Captured Critters, we show you where every rare item is.
 
The Atlas of Skyrim
A comprehensive tour of every single location, from the vast Hold Cities to the smallest woodland den. Every major exploration point receives a walkthrough flagging important items, with detailed maps throughout.
 
Prowess in Combat
Every weapon, piece of equipment, and spell is detailed so you know which blade, bow, or incantation to crush your enemies with. Every type of combat is tactically analyzed, so you can better any foe in battle.
 
Trainers and Traders
Skyrim is full of merchants to barter with, and trainers to further
increase your Skill, Crafting, and Bartering proficiencies. Every alchemist, blacksmith, innkeeper, trainer, Khajiit caravan, and other vendor revealed.
 
Followers and Friends
Build your friendships across Skyrim and locate every Follower with information inside this guide. Become a Thane. Own property. Marry your favorite Housecarl. Details inside.
 
Massive and Complete Index

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Flash Crash (Abby Churchland Series)

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Flash Crash (Abby Churchland Series)

Two individuals clandestinely infiltrate the electronic trading platform of the New York Stock Exchange, steal sixteen million dollars in a fraction of a second, but incite a cascade of events leading to what Wall Street referred to as the "flash crash".
Discovering the truth behind a massive government cover-up and a top secret assassination, C.I.A. covert operative Abby Churchland and Special Agent Lance Brooks become targets of the very government they serve.
It is a story of two courageous individuals who dare to match wits and plot revenge against the most powerful government on earth. Their resolve will be tested and their lives changed forever and in the process one of them will finally discover what they have spent their entire life searching for.

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Final Fantasy XIII-2: The Complete Official Guide - Collector's Edition

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Final Fantasy XIII-2: The Complete Official Guide - Collector's Edition

Final Fantasy XIII-2 - The Complete Official Guide - Collector's Edition includes:

• Exclusive coffee table book printed on highest-quality paper and bound in a padded hard cover.

• Limited print run, includes two ribbon bookmarks.

• Includes a 16-page bonus section exclusive to this edition.

• Every secret, every unlockable, every side-quest, every mini-game, every Achievement and every Trophy revealed and explained in a dedicated Extras chapter. We've also added a story recap and an artwork gallery.

• The dedicated Walkthrough charts the critical path through the main narrative. It also provides regular prompts and tips to direct players to side quests and other optional features within the game world.

• The Tour Guide chapter includes one section per game location in each time period. This complements the Walkthrough by examining all optional activities offered in the game (side quests, mini-games, puzzles and power-leveling spots).

• The Completion Timeline chapter offers a visual and streamlined guide to 100% completion.

• The Strategy & Analysis section gives an advanced analysis of the game's key systems and features. This also covers the most complex topics such as character development in a thorough, yet user-friendly way.

• All-encompassing Inventory and Bestiary chapters feature exhaustive lists and tables covering all enemies, weapons, accessories, items and shops.

• The 100% complete guide to Final Fantasy XIII-2.

• Carefully designed to avoid unnecessary story spoilers.

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Options for the Beginner and Beyond: Unlock the Opportunities and Minimize the Risks

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Options for the Beginner and Beyond: Unlock the Opportunities and Minimize the Risks

This is the eBook version of the printed book.

Brief, carefully paced lessons on options and trading strategies using verbal definitions and many trading examples for clarification. Each lesson builds on the one preceding it and explains options in plain English, from start to finish. Step-by-step coverage of controlling risk, protecting your investments -- even advanced strategies other introductory books ignore! Authored by Dr. W. Edward Olmstead, contributing editor to The Spear Report and editor of The Options Professor newsletter.

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