Where Are the Customers’ Yachts: or A Good Hard Look at Wall Street
Products for Sale — By Shopping Blogs on December 11, 2009 11:22 am
- ISBN13: 9780471770893
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- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Product Description
“Once I picked it up I did not put it down until I finished. . . . What Schwed has done is capture fully-in deceptively clean language-the lunacy at the heart of the investment business.”
— From the Foreword by Michael Lewis, Bestselling author of Liar’s Poker
“. . . one of the funniest books ever written about Wall Street.”
— Jane Bryant Quinn, The Washington Post
“How great to have a reissue of a hilarious classic that proves the more things change the more they stay the same. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.”
— Michael Bloomberg
“It’s amazing how well Schwed’s book is holding up after fifty-five years. About the only thing that’s changed on Wall Street is that computers have replaced pencils and graph paper. Otherwise, the basics are the same. The investor’s need to believe somebody is matched by the financial advisor’s need to make a nice living. If one of them has to be disappointed, it’s bound to be the former.”
— John Rothchild, Author, A Fool and His Money, Financial Columnist, Time magazine
Humorous and entertaining, this book exposes the folly and hypocrisy of Wall Street. The title refers to a story about a visitor to New York who admired the yachts of the bankers and brokers. Naively, he asked where all the customers’ yachts were? Of course, none of the customers could afford yachts, even though they dutifully followed the advice of their bankers and brokers. Full of wise contrarian advice and offering a true look at the world of investing, in which brokers get rich while their customers go broke, this book continues to open the eyes of investors to the reality of Wall Street.
Where Are the Customers’ Yachts: or A Good Hard Look at Wall Street
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Tags: financial columnist, jane bryant quinn, john rothchild
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5 Comments
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” [...]
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.
Rating: 1 / 5
In a supposed conversation between the writers Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, it is claimed that Fitzgerald said that the rich are better than the rest of us, to which Hemmingway replied, “Yes, I know. They have more money.” For me, this is and perhaps will always be the most humorous statement regarding the fundamental truth about money, class and human nature.
This was one of those leisurely reads on The Street that on occasion served the reader a laugh or two. Human nature remains the same then as well as now. Reading this book, I believe, will give you insight into the follies of today, which are on a grander and more pervasive scale than they were in the Roaring Twenties, because now with the internet, any fool can participate with his (often borrowed) money.
Rating: 3 / 5
For the author investing is nothing but a flipping contest where you have 50/50 odds…
Of course there is always a risk, and a possible reward, but if you are able to at least approximately calculate these risks and the reward outweights by a good margin the risk, then you are investing (which according to the author is impossible)…
It is funny, but if you are looking for a funny investing book “A fool and his money” is much more enjoyable…
Rating: 1 / 5
All I can say is READ THIS! READ THIS! READ THIS! Very amusing and very dry treatise by a pro (yes, Mr. Carl) who clearly has been around a couple of blocks in Lower Manhattan.
Rating: 5 / 5
The author takes a very humorous look at the people who do business on Wall Street, both customers and the people who work there. He illustrates how even most of these Wall Street ‘professsionals’ rarely know enough to prevent their customers from harm. The steroetypes portrayed in the book are valid even today. This book is well written and is wonderful reading.
Rating: 5 / 5
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