Book: Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?
Author: Fred Schwed Jr.
Key takeaways: It’s a fun book to read. Not sure how much I learned from it. But, there are some tidbits that I found really thought-provoking/funny. See below.
“Accounting is not even art. It’s a state of mind.”
“Gentleman prefer bonds.”
“He begins cautiously, like an old maid trying out lipstick in the privacy of her room.”
“Your average Wall Streeter, faced with nothing profitable to do, does nothing for only a brief time. Then, suddenly and hysterically, he does something which turns out to be extremely unprofitable. He is not a lazy man.”
“The primary purpose of a business is to make money. Almost anyone knows this with the top part of his brain. But there are only a few valuable young men who also know this all up and down their spinal column.”
“Admittedly, it is preposterous to suggest that stock speculation is like coin flipping. I know that there is more skill to stock speculation. What I have never been able to determine is–how much more?”
There is a section in the book where Schwed talks about “fixed” investment trusts–ETFs of the old that roamed the street in the ’20s. Nothing is new under the sun.
Prasad Capital 