Trillionaire Next Door: The Greedy Investor's Guide to Day Trading (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It's hard to dislike any book that's dedicated to OprahAin the blatant hope that she will endorse it on her television showAthen blithely dismisses $9 billion as "chump change." Borowitz, a magazine writer whose humorous satires have appeared in the New Yorker and the New York Times, has captured the style that permeates just about every get-rich-quick book: a knowing tone coupled with ridiculous mathematical abstractions. "Five years ago, no one traded stocks online. Today, over one quarter of all investors are trading electronically. Do the math; at this rate, in 20 years, there will be more day traders in the United States than people." As in all these books, Borowitz presents "the essential 10 rules" of becoming a trillionaire, each of which is followed by a "real quote" from a day trader. Rule number seven is typical: "Control your emotions." The quote: "I try not to take this business seriously, but some of my stocks are really out to get me." Essentially a long magazine piece padded with graphics (such as an asset-allocation pie chart divided into segments marked "Day Trading," "Lotto" and "Poking Around on the Beach with a Metal Detector"), this is nonetheless an entertaining diversion.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A funny little book savaging the nation's obsession with making easy money in the market." -- --New York Post

"Day trading has been glorified and vilified, and now it's been properly satirized." -- --Online Investor

"If The Trillionaire Next Door were a stock, I'd buy it, sell it, buy it, sell it, and buy it again--it's that good!" -- Stacy Gellman, day trader

"Wall Street's version of humorist Dave Barry." -- Newsweek

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 103 pages
• Publisher: HarperBusiness; 1st edition (May 16, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0066620767
• ISBN-13: 978-0066620763
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,290,540 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HILARIOUS!, May 24, 2000

By	Lynn Snowden Picket (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

I've always admired Andy Borowitz's writing in The New Yorker, but I wondered how funny could Andy be about the stock market? Trust me, it's hilarious. Timely, witty and very fresh -- it's the kind of book that makes you want to read parts of it aloud to your friends, even if they're really, really busy and beg you not to. This is the perfect summer read -- and it would make a great Father's Day gift.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great investment!, July 1, 2000

By A Customer

The best investment advice you can get is to buy this book and read it instead of worrying about all those 16-year-olds whose stock options are worth more than the GNP of Portugal. It's hard to be funnier than the real traders, with their theories based on random walks, dartboards, hemlines, and the World Series, and it's even harder to be funnier than watching people lose money on flyer stocks with cute names like boo.com and Crazy Eddie, but this book makes it and then some, with completely hilarious discussions of making a stock go up by yelling at the screen, getting good investment advice (and a Big Gulp) at the 7-11, finding the right asset allocation model (don't forget the importance of lotto and combing the beach with a metal detector), and the crucial role of pizza in a day-trader's diet. The comparison of Adam Smith and Willow Bay, the description of Warren Buffet, "the myth of knowing what a company does," and some really wonderful graphs and charts are not only wildly funny, but .... amazingly insightful. This book is right on the money.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant satire from a very funny writer, October 13, 2000

By A Customer

When one of my friends told me that this was the funniest book he'd ever read, I was skeptical, but I bought it anyway. When I kept my wife up half the night as I read the book in bed, laughing like a fiend, I had to admit he was right. Andy Borowitz, a laugh-out-loud writer whose work I'd seen in The New Yorker, has taken as his target our current obsession with money, the stock market, and instant wealth -- and he's hit a satirical bullseye. From the hysterical charts (How Day Trading Works: Buy Stock--Visit Sex Sites--Sell Stock--Become Trillionaire) to the ludicrous "Hot Stock Tips" (...a personal favorite of mine) to the "first person" accounts of Mountain Dew-swigging, Maria Bartiromo-obsessed, bathrobe-clad daytraders, Borowitz doesn't take any prisoners in this book. For the record, my favorite humor writers are Steve Martin, Dave Barry, and David Sedaris. After reading this screamingly funny book, you'd have to put Andy Borowitz up there, too.