Rating: 
Summary: Tremendous respect for market opinion
Review: This is a very good follow up to "The market wizards" published a few years before this one. One finds precious lessons from great traders like William Eckhardt, Randy Mc Kay, Victor Sperandeo, Tom Basso, the Ritchies, etc. One could argue that, deliberately or not, many other legendary traders have been left out of this book and its predecessor. Be it as it may, it's probably better to judge this book for what it is and not for what it could have been, and as such, I must say I find it really very interesting.
I can understand some of the criticism by the Amazon reviewers towards some of the traders methods or concepts. Every trader interviewed in this book represents a particular case, whether you agree with their methodology or not. And I guess everyone of them may be prone to criticism. But I won't be so pretentious to criticize any of them. After all, there are many ways to make money, and this is the main reason why these guys do what they do.
One trader that really stands out (in my mind) from the others though is Jeff Yass, and maybe that's because the part I was really interested in was option trading. The guy is a mathematician and a strategist. I was particularly impressed by his new (to me) insights, like "you can learn more about option trading strategy by playing poker than in all the college economics courses combined...the primary object being maximizing your gains and not winning most hands", "your senses deceive you...you always have to double-check the pretty obvious situations, cause there is never any money to be made in the obvious conclusions", "have a great deal of respect for the market opinion, since there's no way you can construct a model that can come close to being as informed as the market itself", "the market's pricing of an item is the best measure of its value", "information doesn't exactly flow perfectly, like they teach you in finance school...frequently the information will show up first in the option market", and many other gems of the like.
All in all a very good book on trading, maybe not as good as the first one, but frankly, what sequel ever is?
Rating:
Summary: Good book if you like to read interviews...
Review: What is this book?Jack D. Schwager interviewed some of the best traders in 1992 and compiled edited transcripts in this compelling book. --------------------------- Who is interviewed? From the currency market: Bill Lipschutz . In Futures: Randy McKay, William Eckhardt, The Turtles, Monroe Trout and Al Weiss. Various market times and fund managers: Stanley Druckenmiller, Richard Driehaus, Gil Blake and Victor Sperandeo. Traders who play several markets: Tom Basso and Linda Bradford Raschke "The Money Machines" such as: CRT (Chicago Research and Trading), Mark Ritchie, Joe Ritchie, Blair Hull and Jeff Yass. Psyschology: Zen and the art of trading (person didn't want his name mentioned), Charles Faulkner, Robert Krausz. --------------------------- I didn't recognize many of those names, probably because of these reasons: * The book was written in 1992.
* I'm not into really into trading. --------------------------- Nevertheless I think the book is a great learning experience. You won't learn how to trade from this book but it gives you insight into the trader's psyche. I like learning about people who have been successful, (think Leader's & Success page, of IBD) since I feel it motivates me to learn more and work harder towards reaching my goals. My favorite chapter in this book is entitled "Closing Bell" and it is a recap of all lots of trading advice mentioned over and over by these trading experts. I feel reviewing this chapter over and over is worth the price of the book. Reed Floren
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