I thumbed through the book and was not impressed. However, perhaps I will buy it after the previous review. But lets call a spade a spade. His first book was condescending and his interview from what I read here was more of the same. Since the average investor is an idiot, he must buy and hold because surely he will not be able to trade like me. (After all wasn't the point of his first book that only brilliant people who were trained in the use of musical intruments and capable of understanding esoteric statistical concepts worthy of trading.) Now, let us question his beliefs. Buy and hold, a questionable belief suffering from survivorship bias and a recent bull market. Two his superior, trading skills. No one who has gone bust twice with others money is a good trader. Three, do his statictics mean anything or are optimised, Larry Williams type garbage. (If you look at relationships long enough you will find something that worked in the past, but it will mean nothing in the future, I compare his work with the crap the Motley Fools put out) Four, as I have stated before, if I were running others money, I too could take large trades and whenever I had drawdown I could start to sell premium, risking/expecting/praying? for a reversion to the mean. I would have a great track record for a long time, until I blew up. This is not good trading ,nor is it a good use of statistical modeling, it is just good fee earning, until you screw your clients in a big way. So, he may be a good friend and a smart guy, but he is quite arrogant and he is a "poor" trader. P.S. I realize I do not know that much about his statistical modeling, and perhaps it was legit, I just got carried away because I have too much respect for real traders who make money by respecting risk and grind it out like the guy in rounders. I find it a shame that a guy like VN can pass himself off as a trader as opposed to a gambler.
Well put Jem. I haven't read any of VN's books but after combing through the references on this thread can only conclude that VN is an arrogant gambler whose trading style has brought him to the highs and lows on multiple occasions. I say arrogant because he has gotten plenty of quality advice along the way. He has always known better, but chosen to ignore any measure of prudence. I'll be reading his books, more to learn about the demons of poor decision making - to learn what not to do rather than what to do. Other than a book's purchase price, I wouldn't trust him with a wooden nickel.
It is so funny to hear so many people complain about the arrogance of Mr Niederhoffer. The question isn't whether Niederhoffer is arrogant, humble, tall, short, nice, horrible, attractive, unattractive or whatever, so much as whether there is any valuable knowledge to be gained from his books. I bet that most of those oh so critical people will be falling overthemselves to buy the book. freealways
I read this book last weekend. Half the book is the guy trying to make himself look better by telling us how dumb and crooked the media, accountants and academics are. The guy then tries to discredit TA, thank you very much for diseminating further misinformation to the public. The guy even makes fun of Marty "Buzzy" Schwartz, what an idiot... but it is understandable, elitist condescendent snobs like VN usually hate and are afraid of people like Buzzy who overall are more successful than they are because they're the living proof the snobs are not better than everyone else. BTW I enjoyed PitBull thousands of times more than this pseudo-intellectual self-important piece os. Also I think PitBull gives you more insight into what's the right mindset to approach the markets, even if you're not a scalper. The second part of the book contains his "investment" advice. I just can't see how I could outperform t-bonds with this stuff. I mean, there is a lot of common sensical advice like watch for boom and busts, and that earnings reports don't mean sh*t, but nothing specific that you could use to crunch some numbers and dramatically increase your monthly P/L. Psychologically this book is poisonous. The guy is too negative, he thinks he's a genius with bad luck. Maybe he's just an idiot with a lot of luck. The key for trading profits is knowing when to go with the flow and when to fade the crowd. I you're always a contrarian you're going to lose and if you always follow the crowd you're going to lose too. You have to be flexible and opportunistic. You go to the markets to make money not to prove you're smarter than everyone else. People do dumb things trying to look smart. Boring book for the professional, so-so, possibly damaging for the beginner.
Niederhoffer interview in Active Trader May Issue. What? Niederhoffer interviewing for a TA magazine?
Flipped through it for 1/2 hr at bookstore and left it on the shelf. Wouldn't buy it, wouldn't recommend it.
niederhoffer new book unequivocally addresses the reality of the financial markets. the naysayers are obviously in denial of incontrovertible market truths. i strongly recommend both of his books to anyone with more than a passing fancy in the world's greatest game. best, surfer
its funny, he thinks he has had bad luck. I think its more likely that he had good luck to ever become famous. Maybe if I borrow a bunch of money from a few hundred people and bet it all on black, I will be as famous as he is and people will think I am a genius.
by the way, his whole method is just selective data mining. First he makes up his mind, then he does his pseudoscience to try and justify his idea. Then he has the gall to trash TA when his crap is worse and most of the picks in his column are in the toilet.
niederhoffer was the world's number one ranked hedge fund manager for years. he was also george soros' head trader. yes, if you could do this, you would be a genius. best, surfer