Stock Market Wizards: Interviews with America's Top Stock Traders [Hardcover]

Jack D. Schwager (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 2001

Acclaimed trading expert and bestselling author of the Market Wizards books, Jack Schwager, has returned with a new and fascinating collection of interviews with the best stock market traders and investors of our time.

Focusing exclusively on successful players in the stock market, Schwager delivers informative profiles and trading strategies from fifteen traders and investors who have ridden the most dynamic bull market in U.S. history to stunning success.

The past decade has witnessed the market-shaking introduction of the Internet, a collapse in commodity prices, and dramatic failures in some of the world's leading hedge funds. How have these traders managed to dwarf the already substantial gains realized by the stock market during the 1990s, while largely sidestepping the market's periodic downdrafts? What separates them from ordinary investors, and even the vast majority of professional fund managers? And what lessons can the average trader or investor learn from these exceptional traders?

Schwager gets the answers from phenomenally successful traders, including 

• Michael Lauer, an outspoken fund manager, who explains why he believes many of the country's leading mutual funds are following a flawed strategy and whose own fund provided investors with a 50-fold return in seven years
• Mark Cook, a midwestern farmer who registered back-to-back annual gains of 563 and 322 percent in national trading contests he entered in 1992 and 1993 and has continued to realize stratospheric returns in his own account since then
• Steve Lescarbeau, who developed a computerized trading model that has earned him an average of 70 percent per year with an incredibly low maximum drawdown of only 3 percent
• Steve Cohen, a modern-day trading legend who manages billions and who has averaged trading returns of 90 percent during the past seven years with only three down months (the worst, a minuscule 2 percent loss)
• Mark Minervini, a junior high school dropout, who has averaged a 220 percent annual return during the past five years, while keeping his maximum quarterly loss to a fraction of one percent

These are just a few of the traders you'll meet in Stock Market Wizards' all-star lineup of market masters.

In the final chapter, Schwager pulls it all together, distilling the essential advice and insights from all the interviews into a list of 65 market lessons, which are bound to be invaluable to both novices and market professionals.

Stock Market Wizards gives you the stories, tips. and an inside glimpse into today's vibrant market and the traders who can ride the bull, battle the bear, and still come out on top.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Newcomers to Jack Schwager's series on top traders, as well as fervent fans of his first two entries Market Wizards and The New Market Wizards, will find that Stock Market Wizards offers another revealing look at a wide spectrum of trading styles through the eyes of 15 extraordinarily successful individuals. Transcripts of incisive Q&A sessions between Schwager and traders--including Michael Lauer, Dana Galante, Alphonse "Buddy" Fletcher Jr., and Claudio Guazzoni--examine the ways each approaches their specialty, whether it be value stocks, mutual funds, short selling, options trading, or other market niches. After brief but interesting introductions that place the subjects' trading practices into perspective, Schwager coaxes from them penetrating observations on setting goals, finding opportunities, learning from mistakes, and operating on a day-to-day basis. While some participants refuse to divulge proprietary practices, and Anthony admits that many traders' activities hold little relevance to individual investors, the basic doctrines nonetheless contain nuggets of wisdom that can be applied by many nonprofessionals. And, in the final "Wizard Lessons" chapter, Schwager details the 65 overarching principles (such as Trade Your Personality, Be Willing to Take a Loss, and The Importance of Setting Goals) he culled from these extensive conversations. --Howard Rothman

From Publishers Weekly

In 1989, professional futures trader Schwager wrote the electrifying Market Wizards, featuring incisive interviews with some of the world's most successful traders, discussion of a wide variety of techniques and markets, and a detailed chronicle of various traders' track records. It quickly became a bestseller. Five years later, Schwager published The New Market Wizards, less detailed and with more generic interviews. Now, six years after, the third installment continues this unfortunate trend. The subjects of Schwager's new interviews are less than impressive, and his questions have gone soft. To make matters worse, subjects were allowed to amend their words later, resulting in many lifeless, boilerplate responses. Instead of analyzing specific trading decisions, theories or track records, subjects spend most of the interviews talking about their childhoods or disparaging ex-bosses and co-workers. Even this dirt fails to engage the reader, since Schwager has changed the names of the maligned parties. Only the author's brief, energetic commentaries on the interviews display the insight of Schwager's earlier work. Inexperienced traders may benefit from some of the platitudes in these interviews, but experienced traders already know to cut their losses. (Jan. 31) Forecast: Bolstered by an author tour (with guest appearances by some of the "wizards") to New York City, Chicago and Boston and a syndicated radio feature, Schwager's third book may get some initial sales from fans of Market Wizards and those looking for more up-to-date trading information. Poor reviews and word-of-mouth, however, probably will hurt this book's sales, as they did the previous sequel.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: HarperBusiness; 1st edition (January 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0066620589
• ISBN-13: 978-0066620589
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,091,420 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Alas, it really isn't as good as I and II, April 3, 2001

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Stock Market Wizards: Interviews with America's Top Stock Traders (Hardcover)

I think the first two Market Wizards books are classics, I really like Schwager as a writer, and I really really really wanted this book to be as good. I resisted coming to the same conclusion as the other 2-or-3 star reviewers as long as I could, but you know what? Sadly, they're right. The first Market Wizards book is completely indispensable. The second, it's true, was not as good overall - but half of it was. This book isn't in the same league. The best I can call it is light entertainment, for those of us who find books about the markets entertaining. To Schwager's credit, his writing is consistently clear and readable. (To appreciate this better, take a look at the slapdash Market Wizards knockoff, "The Best: Conversations with Top Traders", which contains a few insights scattered amidst a great deal of repetition and incoherence.) But not only do most of the traders interviewed here not have nearly the track records of the original Market Wizards; they don't seem to have the same substance or depth either. There are no minds here of the calibre of an Ed Seykota or a Jim Rogers, just to name two. (I mean, of course, judging solely by these interviews). Not only that, but several display a distasteful absence of class. (I'm not talking about social class, I'm talking about that elusive quality of graciousness which makes a successful person seem deserving...) Nonetheless, I did enjoy reading several of the interviews, for example those with Fletcher and Galante.

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unworthy of being associated with the prior "Wizards" books, December 31, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Stock Market Wizards: Interviews with America's Top Stock Traders (Hardcover)

Mr. Schwager apparently needs to keep churning out more "Market Wizards" books in order to pay for his swank Martha's Vineyard address. Other than a few nuggets of trading/investing strategy contained in a couple of the interviews, this book has virtually no value to the individual trader or investor.

The majority of the interviews are with fund managers who manage hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, and whose trading strategies and access to information and CFO's are not applicable to the individual. Many of the interviews are with individuals who practice arcane strategies involving financing packages or interest-rate hedges with corporations designed to essentially eliminate any market risk. These strategies are of absolutely no value to the individual trader/investor. In one interview, the person not only refused to discuss any of his trading strategies or techniques, but also refused to even discuss what markets he traded. This of course immediately begs the question of why this interview was included in the book.

The author could have easily found many stock traders who trade for their own account, and whose trading strategies would have been of significant interest to the average reader. He fails almost completely in this regard. What a waste.

43 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Cut Your Losses Short by Not Buying This Book, January 29, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Stock Market Wizards: Interviews with America's Top Stock Traders (Hardcover)

Unlike the first two "Wizard" books, which were outstanding, this book is uninspired and a profound disappointment. Almost immediately after starting the book, I got the feeling that Jack Schwager wasn't terribly interested in writing it, but couldn't resist the temptation to cash in a final time by doing a dozen or so "quickie" interviews with traders.

The stock traders interviewed this time around are younger, cockier, and generally a lot less likeable than the futures traders in the old "Wizard" books. The most interesting chapter, and the only one on par with the original books' interviews, is with Mark Cook, who isn't really a stock trader, but is in fact a trader of S&P futures. Several of the chapters are almost unbearable to read, not because Schwager's writing is bad, but because the traders themselves are hugely pretentious (Michael Lauer) or plainly arrogant (Ahmet Okumus). Most of the interviewees would best be described as short-term investors, not traders, and a couple of them are exclusively involved in private equity financing (Fletcher, Guazzoni), which has nothing whatsoever to do with trading (filler, Jack?). If you think that you will be able to learn something about day to day trading from this book, then you will be sorely disappointed.

Lastly, there are practically none of the penetrating insights or revealing comments (except for the Cook interview) that made the first two "Wizard" books so educational and even inspirational. It's a shame that Schwager wrote this uninspired book and sullied the reputation that he built with his original "Wizard" books. He should have followed his own advice about "not getting greedy," and declined the publisher's advance in order to keep his position as an interesting writer intact.