Hedge Fund Market Wizards: How Winning Traders Win

Foreword ix\ Preface xiii\ Acknowledgments xvii\ Part One Macro Men 1\ Chapter 1 Colm O’Shea: Knowing When It’s Raining 3\ Chapter 2 Ray Dalio: The Man Who Loves Mistakes 47\ Chapter 3 Larry Benedict: Beyond Three Strikes 77\ Chapter 4 Scott Ramsey: Low-Risk Futures Trader 103\ Chapter 5 Jaffray Woodriff: The Third Way 129\ Part Two Multistrategy Players 159\ Chapter 6 Edward Thorp: The Innovator 161\ Chapter 7 Jamie Mai: Seeking Asymmetry 223\ Chapter 8 Michael Platt: The Art and Science of Risk Control 261\ Part Three Equity Traders 285\ Chapter 9 Steve Clark: Do More of What Works and Less of What Doesn’t 287\ Chapter 10 Martin Taylor: The Tsar Has No Clothes 323\ Chapter 11 Tom Claugus: A Change of Plans 359\ Chapter 12 Joe Vidich: Harvesting Losses 385\ Chapter 13 Kevin Daly: Who Is Warren Buffett? 405\ Chapter 14 Jimmy Balodimas: Stepping in Front of Freight Trains 423\ Chapter 15 Joel Greenblatt: The Magic Formula 451\ Conclusion 40 Market Wizard Lessons 489\ Epilogue 507\ Appendix A The Gain to Pain Ratio 513\ Appendix B Options—Understanding the Basics 515\ About the Author 519\ Index 521

\ From the Publisher"A must-read for all would-be traders...while the book's focus is clearly on trading and investing, there is more than enough human interest on offer for the general reader.... Like Schwager's other works...Hedge Fund Market Wizards looks set to become a classic." (Money Week, June 2012)\ "Offers valuable guidance and timeless insights for both investment professionals and market enthusiasts looking to improve their trading abilities by learning from the best." (trade2win.com, July 2012)\ "This book is destined to be a classic just like the others by Jack. But the latest goes one step further, these traders aren't just at the top of their game, they have defined it. What can I say? This book was so good it almost made me want to get back into the game again!"\ —Paul Wilmott, mathematician and ex-hedge fund manager\ "Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant! Another book about true traders by a true trader. Jack Schwager has become the official author of traderdom for this and future generations. Not only does Hedge Fund Market Wizards deserve a spot in every respectable trader’s book collection, but the entire series should be read annually by both professional and aspiring traders. Timeless wisdom, priceless concepts!"\ —Peter Lewis Brandt, Futures Trader, Stableford Asset Management, and Author of Diary of a Professional Commodity Trader\ "I read Jack Schwager's first Market Wizards book when I was just starting out as in investor more than 20 years ago. It put into brilliant focus the importance of trading psychology and knowing thyself. His latest work is yet another masterpiece. It brings to light new concepts in the world of investing that apply to all investors in today's markets. Anyone who reads this work will immeasurably enrich themselves on many levels because trading is life and life is trading."\ —Dr. Chris Kacher, Founder of www.SelfishInvesting.com, and Author of Trade Like an O'Neil Disciple\ Author Jack Schwager seems to have built his career on the market wizardry of others. Based on this fourth wizard book—interviews with 15 hedge-fund managers who recount their careers and strategies—Schwager's long experience with wizardry has served him well. Readers captivated by the hedge-fund mystique won't be disappointed. Readers looking for insight into exactly how successful hedge-fund managers achieve success will have plenty to chew over. Schwager attempts to boil down the interviews into 40 "Market Wizard Lessons." Examples: Value investing works. Position size can be more important than entry price. Sometimes it's useful to do nothing. But the one that may ring truest is this: There is no Holy Grail in trading. What works for one may not work for another, or for you. Fortunately for us, there's a wide enough variety of portraiture in Hedge Fund Market Wizards that at least a few lessons should resonate.\ —Barrons.com\ “Determining how great traders acquire and use their special skills has been an elusive quest. We have no shortage of cookbooks on how to trade, but only a limited number of books describe the decision processes of those who speculate as a profession. Trader confessionals exist often as testimonies to egos, but few focus on the details of decision making. Material that does successfully capture the essence of how speculators think is the Market Wizards series by Jack D. Schwager…. Even in the interviews of well-known traders, Schwager’s probing questions extract many new insights.”\ —FAJ Book Review\ \ \