Leeb, Stephen
LEEB, Stephen
PERSONAL: Married; wife's name Donna (a business writer). Education: University of Pennsylvania, B.A.; University of Illinois, M.A., Ph.D.
ADDRESSES: Offıce—Leeb Capital Management, 500 Fifth Avenue, 57th Floor, New York, NY 10110. E-mail—lcminfo@leeb.net.
CAREER: Leeb Capital Management, Inc., New York, NY, president; editor, The Complete Investor; former editor, Personal Finance; investment advisor.
WRITINGS:
(With wife, Donna Leeb) Getting in on the GroundFloor, G. P. Putnam's Sons (New York, NY), 1986.
(With Roger S. Conrad) Marketing Timing for theNineties: The Five Key Signals for When to Buy, Hold, and Sell, Harper Business (New York, NY), 1993.
(With Roger S. Conrad) The Agile Investor: Profiting from the End of Buy and Hold, Harper Business (New York, NY), 1997.
(With Donna Leeb) Defying the Market, McGraw Hill (New York, NY), 1999.
(With Donna Leeb) The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself—and Profit—from the Coming Energy Crisis, Warner Business Books (New York, NY), 2004.
SIDELIGHTS: Stephen Leeb, with more than twenty-five years of investment experience and a focus on growth stocks, has been one of the leaders of Forbes magazine and the Wall Street Journal's annual stock-picking contest. He and his wife, Donna Leeb, who has a diversified background in business writing, collaborate on much of his published work. The couple worked together to found and develop Investment Strategist, Stephen's first investment letter, a biweekly publication to which more than 100,000 people subscribe. They have also collaborated on two books: Getting In on the Ground Floor, Marketing Timing for the Nineties: The Five Key Signals for When to Buy, Hold, and Sell, and The Agile Investor: Profiting from the End of Buy and Hold, and also co-wrote Defying the Market and The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself—and Profit—from the Coming Energy Crisis. Stephen Leeb is a regular guest on CNNfn, Bloomberg TV, and Bloomberg Radio. Booklist reviewer David Siegfried called him an "independent thinker" and said that the couple's works "often defied the conventional wisdom of Wall Street."
A Publishers Weekly reviewer referred to Leeb as a "market-timer," and called Marketing Timing for the Nineties: The Five Key Signals for When to Buy, Hold, and Sell a "numbingly complex formula on how to prosper in all kinds of markets." Mary Whaley, reviewing The Agile Investor: Profiting from the End of Buy and Hold, published in 1997, noted that Leeb predicted a rapid inflation rate in the ensuing ten to fifteen years in a dangerously volatile market he attributes to three factors: an increasingly discontent and growing American "underclass," who see their standard of living falling, increasing prices of basic commodities driven by demand from developing countries, and a "huge monetary and debt overhang, which will be soaked up by rising inflation." Leeb then offers an investment strategy for an inflationary environment. Joel Jones said of the book in Library Journal that it is well written and easily accessible, "with a premise that lay investors should heed."
In The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself—and Profit—from the Coming Energy Crisis, the Leebs forecast not only upward-spiraling oil prices, but, according to Marianne Lavelle in U.S. News & World Report, "an economic cataclysm." This energy crisis will differ from previous ones, they believe, because of the finite supply of oil and the huge increase in demand, particularly from China. The Leebs suggest strategies so investors can not only survive the crisis but thrive. A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that the book is thoroughly researched and "offers a solid, concise overview of the economy and stock trends," but nonetheless cautioned that investors should consider the Leebs's strategies carefully before revamping their portfolios.
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Booklist, January 1, 1997, Mary Whaley, review of The Agile Investor: Profiting from the End of Buy and Hold, p. 794; February 1, 2004, David Siegfried, review of The Oil Factor: Protect Yourself− and Profit−from the Coming Energy Crisis, p. 939.
Forbes, February 15, 1993, Mark Hulbert, "Leeb's Fairy Tale," p. 232; September 13, 1993, Mark Hulbert, "Computer Tricks," p. 259.
Library Journal, February 15, 1997, Joel Jones, review of The Agile Investor, p. 144.
Publishers Weekly, June 14, 1993, review of Marketing Timing for the Nineties: The Five Key Signals for When to Buy, Hold, and Sell, p. 54; January 19, 2004, review of The Oil Factor, p. 64.
U.S. News & World Report, March 15, 2004, Marianne Lavelle, review of The Oil Factor, p. 14.
ONLINE
Business Week Online,http://www.businessweek.com/ (August 19, 2002), Gene Marcial, "When Fear Is an Investor's Best Friend;" (January 28, 2003) "Stock Picks for Tense Times;" (February 26, 2003) Gene Marcial, "Where to Ride out the Iraq Storm?" (July 1, 2003) Karyn McCormack, "Stocks: 'The Best Game in Town'" (interview with the Leebs).
Leeb Capital Management Web site,http://www.leeb.net (October 9, 2004).*