as i am aware of your baiting tactics, and confrontational nature--it is truly against my better judgement to engage--- but in the spirit of mutual betterment of the ET community, i'll answer the question: "educational of a speculator" teaches one how to think about the markets, not how to trade. it is a timeless book full of clever and insightful observations on the nature of games,markets,and life. the observations are presented in a very entertaining and witty manner making it a fun read on top of it all. surfer
The Education of a Speculator By Victor Niederhoffer. Illustrated. 444 pp. New York: John Wiley & Sons. $29.95. In a long and varied life, Victor Niederhoffer, a rich Wall Street speculator who once was the North American national squash champion, seems to have had exactly two responses to the world around him: scorn and servility. Everyone he encounters is either a brilliant father figure whose authority is beyond dispute -- his squash coach, his father, his mentor and former employer George Soros -- or a ridiculous irrelevancy. His strange insistence on having no equals, only superiors and subordinates, warps his judgment in all sorts of strange ways. You can dip into ''The Education of a Speculator'' at any point and find statements like these: ''Weather maps were invented by the ingenious English scientist Francis Galton, whom I consider the greatest mind to have graced the Western world in the past few hundred years.'' ''I was very fortunate, while at Harvard, to make the acquaintance of M. F. M. Osborne, a high-energy physicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He had more creativity and insight in his left pinkie than all the quants, Ph.D.'s in finance and professors of finance I've met in 35 years (with the notable exception of one or two of my friends).'' You might expect a bit of evidence to support these sweeping claims, but none is offered. The author magisterially assumes the wisdom of his authorities, leaving his poor reader to agree or be relegated to the category of fools the author has known. That category is astonishingly large. Clearly (and justifiably) proud of having gone to Harvard, Mr. Niederhoffer sneers at the many small minds who teach there. (Here is how he explains the difficulty he faced in making time for his college lectures: ''To me, the ideal educational forum has always been a walk with some erudite professor while we talked about areas of common concern.'') He claims the only newspaper worth reading is The National Enquirer, though he quotes often from other journals. He claims not to enjoy reading books less than 100 years old, but borrows liberally from newer ones. (In the old days, he explains, leaving Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov in his dust, ''the authors wrote for a much higher common denominator.'') When he casts his eye upon world literature he sees only pygmies not worth his time, and giants -- Voltaire, Homer -- with whom he can converse freely about areas of common concern. The relentless egomania is all the more extraordinary for the author's occasional loud pretense of humility (''Still, I am humble''). He doesn't seem to understand that this is itself a boast. It takes the reader a while to twig what is going on: a peculiar kind of snobbery, born of resentment. Mr. Niederhoffer sets himself up as a contrarian, a maverick in a world of sheep. This is the common pose of the winner in the financial markets. (I always wonder: How contrarian is it in this day and age to devote your life to accumulating money?) But Victor Niederhoffer applies it to the whole of his life. At one point he lets it drop that a prominent squash club's refusal to admit Jews caused him to quit his squash career in his prime. Good for him! But instead of rising above the culture he rightly scorned, he has created a kind of parallel universe and adopted a lot of the snobberies that once made him so unhappy. The only difference is that they are rooted in financial success instead of birth. Orwell once marveled that people can have the most interesting experiences and so little interesting to say about them. ''The Education of a Speculator'' is a case in point. Buried beneath the pomposity is an interesting life struggling to breathe free. From a working-class upbringing in Brooklyn, Mr. Niederhoffer got himself into Harvard, won the squash championship and speculated his way to a fortune. Obviously he is shrewd, but his shrewdness is largely obscured by his insistence on remaining aloof from his own character. The whole of his explanation for his success can be summed up in a single sentence: It's too complicated for you and me to understand. Instead of taking us through his dealings, for instance, he offers incomprehensible chapters comparing speculation to music, poker, horse racing and sex. The few times he deigns actually to explain the thinking behind his investment decisions his writing is noticeably less fancy -- and much more interesting. ''When the technology companies are out of favor,'' he writes, ''I avoid all companies with 'tech,' '-onics' or 'computers' in the name.'' Or: ''Whenever I make big money in a country I take out a map and look for the countries that are the nearest. . . . I have a big Rand McNally map posted in my trading room, and I frequently consult it in this regard.'' Similarly, the most curious facts about the author's life we learn almost by the by. On page 404, for instance, he lets drop that he permits a hobo to live in his cellar; in exchange the hobo provides him with data on the low life. Many of the games Mr. Niederhoffer claims as relevant to his success in the markets are games of perception: you must guess not only what your opponent is holding in his hand but what he thinks you are holding in yours. This makes it especially curious that the author has no sense whatsoever of what the average reader will make of him. As I read ''The Education of a Speculator'' I often found myself asking, how can a man so self-deluded survive, much less prosper, in the market? Is it possible that traits disadvantageous to an autobiographer -- shallow self-assurance, unreflectiveness, bullheadedness -- offer an edge to the speculator? Four hundred forty-four pages later I still don't know. But I can guess. My guess is that they don't, and that the story the author tells of his life in the market is very different from his actual behavior in the market. For whatever reason he does not want to explain the reasons for his rise in the world. He doesn't really want us to know them, or wants us to believe that they are something different and more complicated than they are. All those empty-headed Wasp's who kept him from joining their clubs have in the end exacted their pound of flesh. Beneath all the bluster Victor Niederhoffer remains ever so slightly ashamed of himself. Michael Lewis is the author of ''Liar's Poker.'' His new book, ''Trail Fever,'' will be published in May. http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/23/reviews/970323.23lewist.html?_r=1&oref=login
easyguru, Thanks for sharing that book review. Very thought provoking and refreshingly free of threadbare platitudes. Michael Lewis is both insightful and incisive.
None of these quotes are going to make anybody a better trader. I guarantee you if you were a loser before reading these you will still be a loser after reading them. VN stupid analogies are totally absurd and are just him showing off for his drooling admirers. The fact that you hold these words so dearly reflects badly on your intelligence. Every time I hear VN comparing trading to fishing or some other bull shit I laugh out loud that people actually believe it.
I wouldn't expect nor recommend anyone to read this in order to become a better trader -- that's far from the purpose. If that's why you bought the book then disappointment is deserved. One thing's for sure, I'd much rather read something along the same lines from other accomplished traders, as opposed to any "How to make MM's doing X" that's already outdated and hence published. EOAS is up there with the Market Wizard interviews on my shelf.
I agree with what you are saying, this book has no value as a trading guide. It is strictly entertainment, and critiquing it as entertainment, I think his book is rambling BS. I personally do not like VN's writing style or his content.
Gee Johnny, did I strike a nerve? You hang in there. With a little tenacity, someday you too can be a 4000 post veteran of, how you put it (?), rambling bullshit. Perhaps if you spent less time inferring and more time making a concerted effort toward containment at one-liners, you could get your count up that much quicker.
mr. lewis is an author who writes about others. vn is a money manager who writes about what he does, and trys to explain his evolution/thought process to the reading public. he walks the talk. vn is a trader among scholars and a scholar among traders. ml is an author, a writer---not a direct experiencer of what he writes. if you dont see the difference between the two, perhaps more visits to your local library would clarify. surfer
I have never read the book(s). I read the interview this weekend in the Bloomberg magazine and I thought it was a good interview, and may be of interest to posters in this thread. nitro