Where Are the Customers' Yachts? or A Good Hard Look at Wall Street: (A Marketplace Book)

"Once I picked it up I did not put it down until I finished . . .What Schwed has done is capture fully-in deceptively cleanlanguage-the lunacy at the heart of the investment business."-Fromthe Foreword by Michael Lewis, Bestselling author of Liar'sPoker This hilarious portrait of everyday Wall Street and its denizensrings as true today as it did when it was first published in 1940.Writing with a rare mixture of wry cynicism and bonhomiereminiscent of Mark Twain and H. L. Mencken, Fred Schwed, Jr.,skewers everyone including himself in his brilliant send-ups ofbankers, brokers, traders, investors, analysts, and haplesscustomers. "How great to have a reissue of a hilarious classic that proves themore things change the more they stay the same. Only the names havebeen changed to protect the innocent." -Michael BloombergPresident, Bloomberg, LP ". . . one of the funniest books ever written about WallStreet."-Jane Bryant Quinn, The Washington Post "It's amazing how well Schwed's book is holding up after 55 years.About the only thing that's changed on Wall Street is thatcomputers have replaced pencils and graph paper. Otherwise, thebasics are the same. The investor's need to believe somebody ismatched by the financial advisor's need to make a nice living. Ifone of them has to be disappointed, it's bound to be theformer."-John Rothchild, Author, A Fool and His Money FinancialColumnist, Time magazine "A delightful classic and reminder of excesses past and how littlethings change." -Bob Farrell, Senior Vice President, Merrill Lynch

Table of Contents:
Introduction xiii Jason Zweig Foreword to the 1995 Edition xxi Michael Lewis Introduction to the 1955 Bull Market Edition xxv 1 Introduction – “The Modest Cough of Minor Poet” 3 The Validity of Financial Predictions The Passion for Prophecy When the Bull jumped over the Moon II Financiers and Seers 23 Big Banking – Nice work if you can get it Some Assistant Tycoons The Fruit on the Blossom of Thought Wall Street Semantics Chartists The Pay The Difficulties of “Earning” Money An Art Without a Muse A Little Aptitude Test III Customers – That Hardy Breed 49 Varieties of Customers How to Get Customers Margin What to Do When the Dam Bursts Some Case Histories and a Diagnosis Churning Money as a Career IV Investment Trusts – Promises and Performance 67 Stop Making Your Own Mistakes Where is the Catch? The Hell-Paving Construction Company The Trouble with the “Best” Securities The $750,000 Bird By Way of Apology The Magical Investment Corporation V The Short Seller – He of the Black Heart 87 For the Defense A Different Defense With and Without Bears Bear Raiding VI Puts, Call, Straddles, and Gabble 105 What Options are (More or Less) In Defense of the Pure Gamble The Catch VII The “Good” Old Days and the “Great” Captains 117 The I.Q. of a Big Shot Speculation on Speculation A Brief Excursion into Probabilities Down will Come Baby “They” Manipulators A Bowl of Nickels VIII Investment – Many Questions and a Few Answers 135 Headaches of the Wealthy A Little Wonderful Advice Price and Value – Our Special Market Letter Cash as a Long-Term Investment Your Way of Life and the Basis Book IX Reform – Some Yeas and Nays 153 Was it Stolen or Did you Lose It? Nobody Loves a Specialist Horizons and Limits of Regulation Inconclusions About the Author 171

About the Author :
Fred Schwed, Jr., was a professional trader who had the good sense to get out after losing a bundle (of mostly his own money) in the 1929 crash. Some years later, Schwed published a children's book titled Wacky, the Small Boy. Wacky became a bestseller, and Schwed went on to draw further on his experience in writing Where Are the Customers' Yachts? His publisher said of him, "Mr. Schwed has attended Lawrenceville and Princeton and has spent the last ten years on Wall Street. As a result, he knows everything there is to know about children."

Review :
"wonderful book" (Evening Standard, 24 August 2001)