The Little Book of Market Wizards
Lessons from the Greatest Traders
Little Books. Big Profits
1. Edition April 2014
208 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
An accessible look at the art of investing and how to adopt the practices of top professionals
What differentiates the highly successful market practitioners--the Market Wizards--from ordinary traders? What traits do they share? What lessons can the average trader learn from those who achieved superior returns for decades while still maintaining strict risk control? Jack Schwager has spent the past 25 years interviewing the market legends in search of the answers--a quest chronicled in four prior Market Wizards volumes totaling nearly 2,000 pages.
In The Little Book of Market Wizards, Jack Schwager seeks to distill what he considers the essential lessons he learned in conducting nearly four dozen interviews with some of the world's best traders. The book delves into the mindset and processes of highly successful traders, providing insights that all traders should find helpful in improving their trading skills and results.
* Each chapter focuses on a specific theme essential to market success
* Describes how all market participants can benefit by incorporating the related traits, behaviors, and philosophies of the Market Wizards in their own trading
* Filled with compelling anecdotes that bring the trading messages to life, and direct quotes from the market greats that resonate with the wisdom born of experience and skill
Stepping clearly outside the narrow confines of most investment books, The Little Book of Market Wizards focuses on the value of understanding one's self within the context of successful investing.
Preface xv
Chapter One: Failure Is Not Predictive 1
Chapter Two: What Is Not Important 9
Chapter Three: Trading Your Own Personality 15
Chapter Four: The Need for an Edge 23
Chapter Five: The Importance of Hard Work 27
Chapter Six: Good Trading Should Be Effortless 35
Chapter Seven: The Worst of Times, the Best of Times 41
Chapter Eight: Risk Management 47
Chapter Nine: Discipline 61
Chapter Ten: Independence 69
Chapter Eleven: Confidence 73
Chapter Twelve: Losing Is Part of the Game 77
Chapter Thirteen: Patience 83
Chapter Fourteen: No Loyalty 93
Chapter Fifteen: Size Matters 103
Chapter Sixteen: Doing the Uncomfortable Thing 115
Chapter Seventeen: Emotions and Trading 125
Chapter Eighteen: Dynamic versus Static Trading 135
Chapter Nineteen: Market Response 145
Chapter Twenty: The Value of Mistakes 157
Chapter Twenty-One: Implementation versus Idea 163
Chapter Twenty-Two: Off the Hook 167
Chapter Twenty-Three: Love of the Endeavor 173
Appendix: Options--Understanding the Basics 177
Notes 185
About the Author 189
Mr. Schwager is the inventor of the Jack Schwager Commodity Index (JSCI) family, a set of dynamically adjusted commodity indexes that incorporate spread structure, systematic inputs, and volatility-based risk adjustments. The indexes are scheduled to be launched in early 2014 in cooperation with Aquantum AG and UBS.
Mr. Schwager is perhaps best known for his best-selling series of interviews with the greatest hedge fund managers of the last three decades: Market Wizards (1989), The New Market Wizards (1992), Stock Market Wizards (2001), and Hedge Fund Market Wizards (2012). His latest book Market Sense and Nonsense, a compendium of investment misconceptions, was published in November 2012. He is also the author of the three-volume Schwager on Futures series and Getting Started in Technical Analysis. Mr. Schwager is a frequent seminar speaker and has lectured on a range of analytical topics including the characteristics of great traders, investment fallacies, hedge fund portfolios, managed accounts, technical analysis, and trading system evaluation.
