Where Are the Customers' Yachts?
The funniest book ever written about Wall Street. Schwed exposes the fundamental conflict of interest at the heart of finance: the advisors get rich while their clients don't. Written in 1940 and still the most accurate description of how the financial industry actually works. If you read only one book about why your financial advisor's incentives don't align with yours, make it this one.
A subset of readers call the book one-note: one reduces the whole experience to “170 pages of crying how evil wall street is.” Readers unfamiliar with 1940s American slang say they missed a good chunk of the jokes, and one admits flatly, “200 pages of 1940’s tongue in cheek—didn’t understand half the references.” Even sympathetic readers note the period banter takes patience, slower going than the reputation for a quick, funny read suggests. Ratings cluster more often at three and three-and-a-half stars than at either pole, which suggests the book’s fame outruns how consistently readers respond to it. Readers already versed in market criticism find the point obvious, since an industry that profits on commissions whether or not the client’s account grows is hardly news anymore, and one critic sums up the operation bluntly as being “in the business of generating transactions.”
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
