The Best Forecasting Business & Money Books 2025

1. Buying Your Own Business: Identify Opportunities, Analyze Today's Markets, Negotiate the Best Terms, Close the Deal (2nd Revised, Updated ed.) (Paperback)

Buying your own business is the shortest route to realizing that dream-and often financially safer than starting from scratch. Buying Your Own Business, 2nd Edition is the essential reference to reaching your goal. This completely revised and updated guide offers more strategies and tips than ever. You'll learn how to: Also included are completely new sections on how to: With more than twenty years of experience buying and selling businesses, Russell Robb provides the practical step-by-step advice you need to buy a business-and make it your own Russell Robb is a twenty-year veteran in the mergers and acquisitions business, providing investment banking and corporate finance advisory services to a wide range of middle-market companies. He served as president of the Boston Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) and as president of the 9,000-member Association for Corporate Growth International headquartered in Chicago. Robb is the author of Streetwise(r) Selling Your Business and the first edition of Buying Your Own Business. He is currently the managing director of Tully Holland, Inc. He lives in Cambridge, MA.

Buying Your Own Business: Identify Opportunities, Analyze Today's Markets, Negotiate the Best Terms, Close the Deal (Paperback)

2. The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't, Pre-Owned (Hardcover)

Pre-Owned - UPDATED FOR 2020 WITH A NEW PREFACE BY NATE SILVER One of the more momentous books of the decade.--The New York Times Book Review Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair's breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger--all by the time he was thirty. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of the website FiveThirtyEight. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how we can distinguish a true signal from a universe of noisy data. Most predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because most of us have a poor understanding of probability and uncertainty. Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the prediction paradox The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future. In keeping with his own aim to seek truth from data, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball to global pandemics, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good--or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary--and dangerous--science. Silver observes that the most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability, and they tend to be both humble and hardworking. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise. With everything from the health of the global economy to our ability to fight terrorism dependent on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver's insights are an essential read.

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't, Pre-Owned (Hardcover)

3. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, Pre-Owned (Hardcover)

Pre-Owned - A New York Times Bestseller and an Economist Best Book of 2015 The most important book on decision making since Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. --Jason Zweig, The Wall Street Journal Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week's meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts' predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight, and Tetlock has spent the past decade trying to figure out why. What makes some people so good? And can this talent be taught? In Superforecasting, Tetlock and coauthor Dan Gardner offer a masterwork on prediction, drawing on decades of research and the results of a massive, government-funded forecasting tournament. The Good Judgment Project involves tens of thousands of ordinary people--including a Brooklyn filmmaker, a retired pipe installer, and a former ballroom dancer--who set out to forecast global events. Some of the volunteers have turned out to be astonishingly good. They've beaten other benchmarks, competitors, and prediction markets. They've even beaten the collective judgment of intelligence analysts with access to classified information. They are superforecasters. In this groundbreaking and accessible book, Tetlock and Gardner show us how we can learn from this elite group. Weaving together stories of forecasting successes (the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound) and failures (the Bay of Pigs) and interviews with a range of high-level decision makers, from David Petraeus to Robert Rubin, they show that good forecasting doesn't require powerful computers or arcane methods. It involves gathering evidence from a variety of sources, thinking probabilistically, working in teams, keeping score, and being willing to admit error and change course. Superforecasting offers the first demonstrably effective way to improve our ability to predict the future--whether in business, finance, politics, international affairs, or daily life--and is destined to become a modern classic.

Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, Pre-Owned (Hardcover)

4. WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us, Pre-Owned (Hardcover)

Pre-Owned - WTF? can be an expression of amazement or an expression of dismay. In today's economy, we have far too much dismay along with our amazement, and technology bears some of the blame. In this combination of memoir, business strategy guide, and call to action, Tim O'Reilly, Silicon Valley's leading intellectual and the founder of O'Reilly Media, explores the upside and the potential downsides of today's WTF? technologies. What is the future when an increasing number of jobs can be performed by intelligent machines instead of people, or done only by people in partnership with those machines? What happens to our consumer based societies--to workers and to the companies that depend on their purchasing power? Is income inequality and unemployment an inevitable consequence of technological advancement, or are there paths to a better future? What will happen to business when technology-enabled networks and marketplaces are better at deploying talent than traditional companies? How should companies organize themselves to take advantage of these new tools? What's the future of education when on-demand learning outperforms traditional institutions? How can individuals continue to adapt and retrain? Will the fundamental social safety nets of the developed world survive the transition, and if not, what will replace them? O'Reilly is the man who can really can make a whole industry happen, according to Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet (Google.) His genius over the past four decades has been to identify and to help shape our response to emerging technologies with world shaking potential--the World Wide Web, Open Source Software, Web 2.0, Open Government data, the Maker Movement, Big Data, and now AI. O'Reilly shares the techniques he's used at O'Reilly Media to make sense of and predict past innovation waves and applies those same techniques to provide a framework for thinking about how today's world-spanning platforms and networks, on-demand services, and artificial intelligence are changing the nature of business, education, government, financial markets, and the economy as a whole. He provides tools for understanding how all the parts of modern digital businesses work together to create marketplace advantage and customer value, and why ultimately, they cannot succeed unless their ecosystem succeeds along with them. The core of the book's call to action is an exhortation to businesses to DO MORE with technology rather than just using it to cut costs and enrich their shareholders. Robots are going to take our jobs, they say. O'Reilly replies, Only if that's what we ask them to do Technology is the solution to human problems, and we won't run out of work till we run out of problems. Entrepreneurs need to set their sights on how they can use big data, sensors, and AI to create amazing human experiences and the economy of the future, making us all richer in the same way the tools of the first industrial revolution did. Yes, technology can eliminate labor and make things cheaper, but at its best, we use it to do things that were previously unimaginable What is our poverty of imagination? What are the entrepreneurial leaps that will allow us to use the technology of today to build a better future, not just a more efficient one? Whether technology brings the WTF? of wonder or the WTF? of dismay isn't inevitable. It's up to us

WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us, Pre-Owned (Hardcover)

5. Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance, Pre-Owned (Hardcover)

Pre-Owned -

Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance, Pre-Owned (Hardcover)

6. Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance, Pre-Owned (Paperback)

Pre-Owned - The New York Times bestseller A succinct, lucid and compelling account . . . Essential reading. -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini electrified the financial community by predicting the 2008 crisis before others in his field saw it coming. This myth-shattering book reveals the methods he used to foretell the current crisis and shows how those methods can help us make sense of the present and prepare for the future. Using an unconventional blend of historical analysis with masterful knowledge of global economics, Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm, a journalist and professor of economic history, present a vital and timeless book that proves calamities to be not only predictable but also preventable and, with the right medicine, curable.

Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance, Pre-Owned (Paperback)

7. Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die, Pre-Owned (Paperback)

Pre-Owned - Mesmerizing & fascinating... --The Seattle Post-Intelligencer The Freakonomics of big data. --Stein Kretsinger, founding executive of Advertising.com Award-winning Used by over 30 universities Translated into 9 languages An introduction for everyone. In this rich, fascinating -- surprisingly accessible -- introduction, leading expert Eric Siegel reveals how predictive analytics (aka machine learning) works, and how it affects everyone every day. Rather than a how to for hands-on techies, the book serves lay readers and experts alike by covering new case studies and the latest state-of-the-art techniques. Prediction is booming. It reinvents industries and runs the world. Companies, governments, law enforcement, hospitals, and universities are seizing upon the power. These institutions predict whether you're going to click, buy, lie, or die. Why? For good reason: predicting human behavior combats risk, boosts sales, fortifies healthcare, streamlines manufacturing, conquers spam, optimizes social networks, toughens crime fighting, and wins elections. How? Prediction is powered by the world's most potent, flourishing unnatural resource: data. Accumulated in large part as the by-product of routine tasks, data is the unsalted, flavorless residue deposited en masse as organizations churn away. Surprise This heap of refuse is a gold mine. Big data embodies an extraordinary wealth of experience from which to learn.Predictive analytics (aka machine learning) unleashes the power of data. With this technology, the computer literally learns from data how to predict the future behavior of individuals. Perfect prediction is not possible, but putting odds on the future drives millions of decisions more effectively, determining whom to call, mail, investigate, incarcerate, set up on a date, or medicate. In this lucid, captivating introduction -- now in its Revised and Updated edition -- former Columbia University professor and Predictive Analytics World founder Eric Siegel reveals the power and perils of prediction: What type of mortgage risk Chase Bank predicted before the recession. Predicting which people will drop out of school, cancel a subscription, or get divorced before they even know it themselves. Why early retirement predicts a shorter life expectancy and vegetarians miss fewer flights. Five reasons why organizations predict death -- including one health insurance company. How U.S. Bank and Obama for America calculated the way to most strongly persuade each individual. Why the NSA wants all your data: machine learning supercomputers to fight terrorism. How IBM's Watson computer used predictive modeling to answer questions and beat the human champs on TV's Jeopardy How companies ascertain untold, private truths -- how Target figures out you're pregnant and Hewlett-Packard deduces you're about to quit your job. How judges and parole boards rely on crime-predicting computers to decide how long convicts remain in prison. 182 examples from Airbnb, the BBC, Citibank, ConEd, Facebook, Ford, Google, the IRS, LinkedIn, Match.com, MTV, Netflix, PayPal, Pfizer, Spotify, Uber, UPS, Wikipedia, and more. How does predictive analytics work? This jam-packed book satisfies by demystifying the intriguing science under the hood. For future hands-on practitioners pursuing a career in the field, it sets a strong foundation, delivers the prerequisite knowledge, and whets your appetite for more. A truly omnipresent science, predictive analytics constantly affects our daily lives. Whether you are a consumer of it -- or consumed by it -- get a handle on the power of Predictive Analytics.

Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die, Pre-Owned (Paperback)

8. Asia Future Shock: Business Crisis and Opportunity in the Coming Years [Hardcover - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. China is the world's biggest market for cigarettes. By 2020, 300 million Chinese will be elderly. By 2010, China will have 7 of the world's biggest shopping malls. This book is an invaluable asset for corporate planners and strategists, futurologists, and anyone developing business in Asia as Backman provides an essential map for Asia's future.

Asia Future Shock : Business Crisis and Opportunity in the Coming Years, Used [Hardcover]

9. Apollo's Arrow [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. From seers to scientists, mystics to meteorologists, there have always been peoplewho claim to know what will happen in the future. The Oracle at Delphi, Pythagoras, Newton and the stock analyst on a business report have all endeavoured to look forward in time. But even with recent technological advances and the help of computers and satellites, are we any better at predicting the future now than we were in the distant past? How can scientists claim to foresee future climate events when even three-day forecasts prove a serious challenge? In Apollo's Arrow , David Orrell looks at the history of prognostication to show how scientists (and charlatans) have tried to forecast the future. He then breaks down the mathematics of what really goes into apredictive model. Orrell has created a compelling, elegantly written history of our future that addresses some of the most important issues of our time.

Apollo's Arrow, Used [Paperback]

10. Applied Time Series and Box-Jenkins Models [Hardcover - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. Written for both undergraduate and graduate students, this text presents Time Series analysis and Box-Jenkins models. Transfer functions and intervention analysis are covered more thoroughly than in any comparable text at this level. Rigorous mathematical applications are presented in a manner that is highly accessible to students.

Applied Time Series and Box-Jenkins Models, Used [Hardcover]