Customer Reviews

Wizards of Wall Street

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I expected to find some "insights" on how to manage a "top-performing" mutual fund from this book, but most of the dialogs are not to the point. A lot of the questions the author asked are not relevant to the "strategies". This book is not technical enough either. It's a plain book with a big title. The reason I still give three-star rating is the book provides some biography of those managers, which is fun to read.

I really enjoyed this book. It's full of valuable investment insights, and covers all forms of investing, including growth and value. It's full of sage advice every investor can learn from.

I expected more insights into the manager's philosophies...

This new book from personal finance author Kazanjian profiles 18 managers who have outperformed all others in the Standard & Poor's 500 index for the past five years. Each receives an interview about the elements for personal and professional achievement, examining how the managers came to work for Wall Street and lessons learned in the investment world. Recommended for any dabbling in the market who want a serious, practical education in what makes a winning stock.

In Wizards Of Wall Street: Market-Beating Insights And Strategies From The World's Top-Performing Mutual Fund Managers, investment expert and stock and mutual fund analysis Kirk Kazanjian draws upon his many years of professional experience, expertise, and market contacts to present a series of engaging and informative interviews with eighteen successful mutual fund managers to reveal their insightful and sometimes surprising secrets for building wealth in a volatile and global market. Kazanjian distills the techniques, strategies, and market considerations drawn from these experts into a special section called "10 Keys to Beating the Market". If you only have time to read one book on portfolio management and investment strategy, make it Kirk Kazanjian's Wizards Of Wall Street!

As I read this book, I wondered if the interviews with the so-called "wizards" were done in a booth at a local Denny's.

Unlike the 5-star reviewers, I really didn't feel that the writer distilled any key information that was impactful or strategic in relation to investing.

Much of the book focused on how the mutual fund managers entered the financial business and how they play the market. This is all well and good, but I was expecting specifics as to what made these guys "wizards". I wanted to see specific picks and pans and the rationale behind them. I wanted to see how these funds fared against their respective benchmarks over time. Charts and tables would've helped validate their expertise.

It certainly didn't help matters that these interviews were done prior to the dot-com bust/bear market of 2000-2, but I can't hold the author responsible for the timing. I guess seeing how naive many of these managers were during the actual dot-com bubble makes me wonder if the "smart money" are better at picking quality stocks than chimpanzees throwing darts against a newspaper stock table.

I felt like the book contained a lot of hyperbole and haphazard thinking. For example, some of the investment styles presented in this book like Neal Miller made me NOT want to put my money in his fund. Mr. Miller admits in the book that he doesn't care about valuations, earnings, etc. How is this guy a mutual fund manager let alone a "wizard"???????

While Howard Ward and Robert Torray provided good insights, I was taken aback at their attitude towards commodities, bonds, options and asset allocation. If they are indeed "wizards", wouldn't they have the wisdom and foresight to realize that commodities would eventually have to go up as the emerging markets became more industrialized?

I understand that the investing public were wearing rose-colored glasses in 1998-9, but shouldn't these guys (the "smart money") have more insight than the hoi polloi?

To be fair, I did find good tidbits of advice here and there especially from Glen Bickerstaff, Christopher Davis, Kevin Landis, Rick Lewson, Bill Miller and Frederick Reynolds. I liked James Oelschlager's philosophical advice of "not confusing motion with progress".

The section entitled, "What The Wizards Have In Common" was helpful, but you can get that advice from reading Yahoo Finance or Money magazine on any given day.

If you do decide to read this book, save yourself a few ducats and borrow it from the library. There are better keepers out there.

because this book covers so much current information, it may have been useful when it was written (around 1998), but no longer.

This is by far the best of the interview-based investment books out there. Kazanjian is a great writer and has gathered together a bunch of real pros. It's full of great wisdom about picking stocks and funds, and includes a lot of interesting anecdotes. I highly recommend it for investors at all levels.

This book is full of great and timely investment advice from some leading investment managers. I also really enjoyed how the author took the best advice and put it all together to form specific strategies every investor can use to manage a profitable portfolio. It will be an insightful read for investors of all experience levels.

I bought this book hoping to learn some real insights. What I learned is that this author doesn't understand the business.