Where are the customer’s yachts is a great book to read. It criticizes investment gurus and brokers and defines the stock market as a casino where the only winners are the stock brokers. One of the classic stories in this book is about what would happen if 4000 people started flipping coins against each other in a competition. You are eliminated from the competition after one loss. 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 how to flip coins to maximize profit. That story nicely captures the folly of Wall Street. Even though some (experts, gurus, ect.) may win now, it usually does not mean that they know what they are doing. It means that whatever system they are using now is working but it might not work tomorrow or ten years from now. Systems need to be calibrated according to market conditions. In addition, systems that work in one security today might not work a year from now. That is why investors need to keep searching for new ideas and keep learning.
The title of the book describes a story about a visitor to New York who admired the yachts of the bankers and brokers. Naively, the visitor 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. You should read this book to understand stock market psychology.
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I read part of the book last year and I was surprised at how so much of the book could have been written today. At least in investing, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
Fear and greed never goes out of style.
It was the great question asked by a visitor to the wall street brokers and it inspired Fred Schwed to write this book. In this era we can imagine the meaning of this simple question is that broker always have profit and what about investors? The book has really uncovered some great points about investors and brokers.