This book's fame far exceeds the number of people who have read it. Almost every experienced stock investor will cite examples from the book, without even knowing their source.
The title refers to an ancient story (which the author finds is probably at least 100 years old by now) about a visitor to New York who admired the yachts that the bankers and brokers had in the harbor. Naively, he then asked where the customers' yachts were. Naturally, there were no customers' yachts.
Let me set the stage. The author spent two years on Wall Street in the 20s, but knew it better than that and continued to invest in stocks. He wrote the book in 1940 after the horrible bear years of 1929-1940. The memories of the 1920s were still fresh. Then he updated the book in 1955 in the midst of the 50s bull market with a new introduction in which he explained that the book did not need updating.
Although commissions are no longer fixed, and few spend the day sitting in a broker's office, many of the other observations in the book remain as timely as those in The Madness of Crowds. Human nature doesn't change.
Behind all of the hype about getting rich with stock investments is a sad reality. Over a lifetime, the vast majority of people get poor results from their stock investing. Around 90 percent of professionals will also underperform the market averages over their careers.
But the desire to "outsmart" everyone else is almost universal. Raging bull markets, like the one we had until March 2000 on the NASDAQ, only tend to reinforce these ultimately expensive urges.
I have been around professional investors for over thirty years and all the big scores I remember involving stocks came after someone who was a founder or worked for a company that went public cashed in their stock and stock options after many years of service. These are not stock-investing events, they are entrepreneurial compensation. In the Money Game, Adam Smith pointed that out, and it remains as true today as it was then.
One of the classic stories in this book is about what would happen if 4000 people started flipping coins against each other. You are eliminated from the competition after one loss. Although by definition, half would win and half with lose with each flip, those who had won ten times in a row (as must happen for some in this format) would soon start to give lessons in coin flipping techniques. That story nicely captures the folly of Wall Street. Even though some may win, it usually doesn't mean anything.
The book contains other investment classic stories that you must have in your repertoire. The book is brilliantly illustrated by the classy cartoons of Peter Arno. It is worth acquiring the book just for those.
The subjects covered include Wall Street's passion for prophecy, financiers and seers, customers (or the sheep to be shorn), mutual funds, short sellers, options, speculators and the bull market of the 20s, and the excuses handed out to those who are relieved of their money.
The writing style is urbane and witty. For example, there is the usual disclaimer on not following the advice in the book in the beginning. Except, it is illustrated by two hands with fingers crossed. And, the warnings are a just little different. The information in this book "while not guaranteed by us, has been obtained from sources which have not in the past proved particularly reliable."
The author had discovered that titles cannot be copyrighted, and he "had planned to have my book appear under a good title, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
The author's favorite review of the book contained this phrase, "If I were J.P. Morgan, and I have no reason to suspect that I am not . . . .", and was signed by the author of the review, Mr. Frank Sullivan. The subsequent witty correspondence between them is included in the introduction.
If you are a fan of Louis Rukeyser, you will find the humor here comparable with the badinage on Wall $treet Week during the opening comments.
Seriously, the humor in this book will help you to better understand the risks associated with stock investing. There is a wonderful quiz you can take that will tell whether or not you should be a stock investor. Most will not pass that quiz.
If you still want to own stocks, I suggest that you advance to John Bogle's book, Common Sense About Mutual Funds. It can make you some real money.
If you do not want to own stocks, go instead to Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Follow on to Cash Flow Quadrant.
I also suggest you think about where else folly is taken seriously. This will also put things in perspective for you. My favorite location is the Congress of the United States.
Keep looking for those yachts when you make your investments! To whom do they belong?
In essence, this books very entertainingly demonstrates the many advantages of having or gaining an independent critical thinking when facing the follow-the-pack mentality of Wall Street mobbers of all sorts (personally, people in a hurry always made me confused). Indeed, if you hadn't already discovered, the world of finance is probably one of the most implicitly and subtly coercive one there is ...
In these entertaining pages, you will discover that the vast supply of sheer mercantile marketing strategies of Wall Streeters of all sorts are only matched by the benevolent gullibility of a big deal to many Main Streeters. So if you might say there is a certain justice to it after all, you will definitively agree that there is a definite direction as to where the money flows, that is statistically at least... Check out those yachts!
In a broader context, the toll bridge of random walks leading (eventually) to so-called efficient markets does indeed feed on stocks being erratically transferred to and fro at whim, but you can be sure that Wall Street's marketers and intermediaries do have a vested interest in getting their (fair) share out of the (many transaction) deal(s), i.e. the more activity, the better (for them)... But keep in mind that these frictional and parasitic costs are totally non-productive in their ultimate economic end-result, apart from the fact that they provide a liquid (and sometimes efficient) market... a high price to pay for short-term inefficiencies, that also tends to favor a trading instead of an investing mentality...
People's biggest problem seems to be that they just can't sit still (cf. a 17th century author named Pascal...)... But just in case you believe this is another story altogether, let me quote the final words of Fred Schwed's Introduction to the 1955 Bull Market : "[...] my tendency has been to buy stocks, [...]. Then when they show a profit I sell them, exultantly. (But never within six months, of course, I'm no anarchist.) It seems to me at these moments that I have achieved life's loveliest guerdon - making some money without doing any work. Then a long time after it turns out that I should have just bought them, and thereafter I should have just sat on them like a fat, stupid peasant. A peasant, however, who is rich beyond his limited dreams of avarice."
If you are looking for a similar, but more recent, and probably a bit more sophisticated book on insular independent thinking in the face of interested so-called Wall Street and/or corporate professionalism, check out Lawrence Cunningham's fine collection of Essays on Corporate America, also a very worthy and enjoyable read.
To come back to Fred Schwed's book, you will probably enjoy it a great deal, and, 'tell you what, it might even make you richer in what you already have, instead of just making you richer in what you might have, if... to put it otherwise, five hundred dollars and some common sense are often worth much more than ten thousand dollars and the lack thereof, at least in the end result...
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" [...]
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 $[...] and an hour or so of my time..
Definitely not deserving of "Wiley Investment Classic" with the likes of Fisher and LeFevre.