[.ca] Where Are the Customers' Yachts? or A Good Hard Look at ... (ISBN 0471119784)

Wisdom Wrapped in Whimsy:
Put down that ugly brokerage statement from the busted, dot-gone Bear market. Skip that news report of the latest bankruptcy filing and spend a couple of whimsical hours with author Fred Schwed, Jr. WHERE ARE THE CUSTOMERS' YACHTS? is a rejoinder to Wall Street's inflated self-confidence that begins with that classic question. Schwed's conversational style makes this a quick read. His style is 'wry', 'dead-pan', 'droll' - a bit of Andy Rooney, maybe a bit of 18th Century novelist Lawrence Sterne. Schwed looks back to the 1920's (published 1940, republished 1955) as "one of the great universal delusions of history" a period of "supreme miscalculation". It was a kind of grand "nonsense" we can relate to in our own post-internet bubble period. Schwed is more humorist than moralist. Misdoings on Wall Street are "overrated" often a mix of "bad luck and bad brains". Advisors are "romantics" who genuinely believe that the market's movements can be predicted. Often they become victims of their own "confused sincerity". Technical analysts are "pathetic", persuading themselves of predictive patterns in stock charts and statistical data. In the end market activity may repeat itself, but often "ponderously, with an infinite number of variations." Schwed takes the side of short sellers, an unpopular bunch who weigh against the general herd to profit when the market declines. He notes that such professional cynicism is never tolerated in an un-free society. Years before the Wall Street Journal began 'testing' the efficient market theory (EMT) selecting stocks with darts, Schwed relates the apocryphal story of a bank trust officer's relative success selecting stocks from his pen's random ink spots. In a timeless passage, Schwed summarizes his investment program: "When there is a stock-market boom, and everyone is scrambling for common stocks, take all your common stocks and sell them. Take the proceeds and buy conservative bonds...just wait for the depression...sell out the bonds...and buy back the stocks....Continue to repeat this operation as long as you live, and you'll have the pleasure of dying rich." Who can argue with a contrarian strategy that would have worked wonderfully in recent years.

Original Motley Fool:
"The more things change, the more they stay the same." That's how Fred Schwed, Jr. introduces this gem, if my translation of the French is correct. The book is timely, even though it was first published in 1940. The author shares his observations of Wall Street with wit and humor. "The chief concern of this book", he states, "will be with an examination of the nonsense ... ." One example is this excerpt from a paragraph he takes out of The Wall Street Journal: "the action of the market was regarded as in the nature of a technical recovery, with little thought of the imminence of dynamic action." Nonsense was apparently well articulated before the bull market of the '90s. Another example is his explanation of why people buy high and sell low when they go to the stock market. They mistakenly believe that once prices are rising (or falling), they'll continue to rise (or fall). "But it is not a fair thing to say of the stock market," he claims,"which, not being a physical thing, is not subject to Newton's laws of propulsion or inertia." There's more than "an examination of the nonsense" here. Readers may take "A Little Aptitude Test" to see if finance is their calling and consider "A Little Wonderful Advice" on getting rich. If Schwed's advice doesn't make you rich, his hilarious insight will at least make you laugh.

Laymen's Fun:
Well, maybe this was a 2 star book, but to me it was hopeless from the start. "Fred Schwed", a jokester of a name to begin with talks about Wall St just as naively as anyone who barely knows it. His viewpoints are clearly from the beginner's point of view, or rather the beginner intermediate- the guy who has just accepted that trading is luck only and that long term investing is simple diversification. He hasn't quite accepted that there are true winners out there and that there is something of an art to the game and eagerly puts any down who attempt to play it. Clearly he has associated with those who are not "in the know" \o...\c Anyways, I started at page 1 and read almost to halfway through the whole book before I could bare no more. I really did try to read it through, thinking that I could squeeze something worthwhile out of it. No, I can stand it anymore. I think I'll leave it at the train station on the way to the coffee shop right now! Waste of $\o...\c and an hour or so of my time.. Definitely not deserving of "Wiley Investment Classic" with the likes of Fisher and LeFevre.

Laugh and Learn!:
A friend of mine gave me this book to read to help me understand a bit about why the economy is in the dumps and why all my investments are in the toilet. While I laughed a lot and learned a lot, my investments are still in the toilet. I guess I'll never know how wall street really works, but this book is a great introduction and has some good (humorous) insights for outsiders like me.

Funny!:
If you think reading Investment books is a rather dry and serious affair, then you'll be pleasantly surprised by this one. I found it funny but also bearing a ring of truth. The short story relating to the title was I thought the most funny of all.