Stock-market

Jack Schwager is a great author. He asks very intelligent questions and seems to have a deep though un-intuitive knowledge of the futures game. (See the CRT interview, overly analytical people mask intuitive traits). The William Eckhardt interview is incredible and should be re-read many times over. This interview alone is well worth the price of the book. I have one major gripe with the author however. Schwager seemed to have had a serious lapse in judgement by including some of the traders that he did. There is no doubt that all the traders interviewed in the book are of high caliber but some definetly cannot be thought of as "Market Wizards". Who am I talking about? Linda Raschke, Tom Basso, Charles Faulkner maybe even Trader Vic. Who is very underrated? Jeff Yass, the man is the best options player around. Druckenmiller, Trout, and Eckhardt are as good as it gets.These legendary names should not be sullied by the inclusion of the above mentioned traders. Schwager left out some amazing traders, what about the people at Kenzie, Niederhoffer ( I know he blew out), Louis Bacon, John Henry, Willem Kookyer and Grenville Craig? Anyone ever heard of Jullian Robertson? Please Jack, if you ever write Market Wizards 3, try to include all or even some of these people. Not traders that you speak with at "Omega" conferences.

If you don't want to spend twenty years and untold sums learning about trading by doing it yourself, learn from the experts in the time it takes to read this book. A great companion to Schwager's FUTURES series, all three should be in any trader's or wanna be trader's library. THE NEW MARKET WIZARDS has what it advertises... market wisdom.

Great read. I've read this book so many times the pages are beginning to pull from the binding.

Great read.

"The New Finance" has basically everything going against it.

First, Haugen's writing style is annoying and childish. An engaging use of humor and metaphor are apparently beyond his skill.

Second, Haugen's story is unconvincing. The case against the efficient market hypothesis has been made much more rigorously and interestingly by other authors (e.g. Andrei Shleifer, Hersh Shefrin, and Richard Thaler, among others). Haugen in some case makes mountains out of statistical molehills and misses vital information in others. In short, Haugen is neither convincing nor complete in his critique. The field of economics covered here has a name, by the way, which Haugen never once cites: behavioral finance.

Third, in many cases Haugen is just plain wrong in his assertions. The cases are too numerous to count, but I'll give two examples from page 12. First, Haugen asserts that if no one uses the CAPM to construct their portfolios then markets cannot be efficient. This is not true. The efficient market hypothesis can hold, as Milton Friedman pointed out, if people act AS IF they use the CAPM, even if they don't really use it. Second, of evidence that markets generally react to new information quickly and without bias, Haugen says "Not true." Which is overstating the case, if not outright misrepresenting it. While there is some evidence of investor overreaction and/or underreaction, the case is far from closed. Moreover, anecdotal evidence of occasional over- and under-reaction does not prove the efficient market hypothesis to be a "Fantasy," as Haugen claims.

Fourth, and this point is somewhat related to the third, Haugen is far too full of himself. Assertions of his own intellectual superiority cloud his arguments and reasoning. This can be dangerous when dueling with men like Eugene Fama, Harry Markowitz, Bill Sharpe, and Milton Friedman. More importantly, it leaves Haugen apparently very comfortable making blanket, absolute statements about financial economics that no self-respecting, respected, or respectful economist has any business making. And I say that not only because Haugen is very frequently wrong. It also isn't very becoming. And since the material in this book is reviewed in far superior books, there is little reason to pay much attention to Haugen and his rantings.

The author's humor is not always funny and is mostly used to fill up the pages, but the contents are interesting and enlightening. It gave me courage to continue what I was already doing in the stock market, buying "losers". A must read for everybody interested in investing or finance !!

Only a courageous professor willing to really find truth would write this insightful book. The fact that he also has a great sense of humor is to be greatly commended. This man deserves a Nobel Prize. It APPEARS THAT HE WILL BE ABLE TO FUND IIT!

If you are just beginning trading, I cannot recommend this book. Tom has pretty good ideas on his books, and this one is no exception! The thing is, this book won't be easy to grasp if you still don't have the basic know how about this business.

Tom explains a lot of indicators (how they are calculated and variations about the way you can use them) on this book, including his own - If you use Tradestation, you'll love using his indicators on a backtest of your favorite markets - but won't teach you how to build a trading plan. But there other books for that chapter!

He also doesn't write in the most clearer of ways - sometimes you'll find yourself rereading several paragraphs back to completely understand some concepts. All in all I consider this to be a valuable book to add to your library with fresh and innovative ideas on some old concepts.

the secret to trading success resides in the practice of discipline and in the adherence to a sound, basic approach to a rigid trading plan. the author ignores the former but discusses in great depth the latte almost to the point of obseession. i'm not criticizing his preoccupation(or fascination) with all variations and aspects of trading models--some simple others more complex--but no one can say they are incomplete. in conclusion i believe a reader can draw value from this book in direct proportion to the amount of time he devotes to learning these priciples. no one said that making money is easy but it is obvious that once the principles the author presents are understood, they should become second nature.

I was surprised when my fellow trader on the desk told me that the DeMark indicators were prevalent throughout the industry and that the Bloombeg, ILX Thomson, CQG, and Reuters machines include these with tgeir services. I have read the authors' bools and have tried to pogram the formulas myself and now realize i could have found them on the machine in front of me. What a pleasant surprise! I love them and they do help my trading and timing.