Winning On Wall Street

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Summary: Kind of dated....
Review: ...Martin Zweig had a good run and then (as with most stock market "gurus") his investment ideas sort of lost their magic. This book isn't terrible, but neither is it the best. If you are interested in investing, it's worthwhile to read, as you will gain the benefit of seeing how Martin Zweig views the markets.

Nothing in this book really stuck out for me (except for his ideas on the importance of The Fed to the markets)... that's just the kind of book it is. Not to take anything away from Zweig, but "Beating the Street" by Peter Lynch is a much more useful book.

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Summary: a classic text on how markets work
Review: A basic work that every investor should read. The best source for simple explanations of the mechinisms that drive bull and bear markets. "Outdated and misleading" says one reviewer who did not find it applicable for trading the .com mania in Feb 2000, but why that market crashed a month after the review was written can be found in Mr. Zweig's work. The fact is the theories and applications found in this book have correctly called every major market move since the mid 1980's. You can find books that can help you make more money during bull markets, but if you want to KEEP the money you make this is the best place to start.

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Summary: My first investment book
Review: Although you don't hear too much about Marty Zweig anymore, in the late 80's and early 90's he was the authoritive voice in investing and in my book, still is.

This book was my first investment book. Showed me how to make money in any market and how to do it on my own without listening to pitched from brokers and other commissioned financial people.

This book is still a winner. Highly recommended.

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Summary: A Phd who deserves the respect he gets
Review: As a matter of fact Martin Zweig is one of the few Phds who's "able" to explain even somewhat complicated subjects in plain words. The same thing can't be said about the contemporary authors of various market, finance or economics books published over the last years.
Hands down, this is one of the best and one of the most (again) simple books ever written on Wall Street. It provided me with new insights on different aspects of trading and economics in general, like the Four percent model indicator, the Monetary model, the Mutual Funds cash/assets ratio, the three crucial conditions for bear markets. There were also other brief and concise ideas which seem to stand the test of time, like "It's ok to monitor the crowd and go against it, but you only want to do so when the crowd is extremely one-sided", "Recognizing the relationship between trends and the industries that might benefit from them can lead to above normal returns", "If you could just eliminate the worst 10% of all stocks and choose even randomly from the rest, you would certainly beat the market". And the most surprising of them all (at least to me): "There seems to be some inborn reasoning in Wall Street that better profits mean higher stock prices, but this simply is not true in aggregate. The best gains made in bull markets tend to come in the first six months of a fresh bull market, when profits are usually declining".
But when it comes to the brass tacks of his methodology, I think the best part of this book is the one about scanning the financial section. His method of picking the winners by simply checking the latest quarterly figures in company sales and earnings in the daily financial section of The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times and the process he goes through afterwards, until deciding in the end which ones to buy is simple, yet very powerful.
I don't know why, but almost every single page of this book reminded me of the legendary Jesse Livermore and his valuable and immortal lessons. After reading M. Zweig's book you'll never invest the same way as before. "Winning on Wall Street" is an intelligent and insightful investing book, yet simple to understand. Rather than trying to razzle-dazzle the reader, this book explains why it is so important to stick to simple concepts and rules such as " buy strength and sell weakness, stay in gear with the tape, the trend is your friend, etc"; rules you have read and heard about a gazillion times before, but which are so easy to violate! As a trader once said: "The market is the train, so be the caboose".

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Summary: Mostly works,,,but needs a tune-up
Review: Marty is a genius in his simplicity. The books shows the clarity of his thought process and deep market experience. The book's highly effective techniques would mostly be relevant in a non-deflationary enivronment. The book's monetary model timing techniques would work in say 90% of the situations but could cause major financial demage in relatively rare defaltionary situations such as 2001/2002 when the monetary model (and the overall super model)gave a buy signal. My humble advice to any follower of these models would be to increase the 4-percent model weighting to 50% of the overall super model during uncertain times. That should ensure that one enters/exits only when the tape mandates it (along with the monetary indicators) and thus limitng any major damage when the monetary model fails as it did in 2001/2002. Perhaps Mr. Zweig should update this book or even better write a completly new book as the markets have evolved a lot since the early 90's. He owes it to investing humanity and should further share his god-given talent for the common good.

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Summary: Quick Read; very informative; not boring
Review: This book is a quick and interesting read, and Zweig does a good job of demonstrating and describing his strategies and models to the everyday, stock market layman. This book, and others by Zweig, have been and were recommended to me by several money managers, whom I know to be very successful in their careers. The thing I will take most from this book is Zweig's instruction on how he uses contrarian indicators (specific ones that he finds the most critical) to predict market behavior.

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Summary: Just the 4% rule will pay for this book a hundred times over
Review: This is a great book.

Zweig tells you what to look for and what not to get distracted by.

I keep his 4% rule (Buy when the market closes up 4% and sell when it closes down 4% on weekly closes) as one of the indicators to look at when thinking of buying and selling a stock.

That rule alone should make one more money than a buy and hold approach.

Fine book.

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Summary: a good piece of common-sense
Review: This is a seductive book since it appears to provide useful guides that will enable the investor to time the market. It is by no means a simple scheme, and based on the information provided, seems pretty foolproof. Trouble is, the data stops at 1990, just when things got interesting in the market, and has not been updated. The other troubling and puzzling thing is that Zweig's own mutual funds have not been star performers and his market letter was discontinued years ago.

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Summary: A good investment book
Review: This is not for daytraders, but it will show you the best times to be in the market and when to get out.Zwiegs model shows you how to catch the upside of the markets.

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Summary: Make the trend your friend - Zwiegs system works
Review: Very simply this system is all about following the trend and followin interest rates.In 2000, when Allen Greenspan was raising interest rates that identified a sell signal. When interest rates go up, stocks go down.Zwieg is not a "buy and hold" man. His system works. I've been following it since 1989 when I bought this book along with Winning with New IRAs and Wealth without Risk. To wit I caught the big stock market boom in late 1990 through 1991 and again in 1995-1996 and in 1998-2000.I also missed the selloffs in late 1989-1990, 1994-1995, and 2000.The Zweig system works. Try it, you'll love it.