The education of a speculator - Victor Niederhoffer

"With an original mind and an eclectic approach, Victor Niederhoffer takes the reader from Brighton Beach to Wall Street, visiting all stops of interest along the way. What emerges is a book full of insights, useful to the professional and layman alike." George Soros Principal Investment Advisor The Quantum Fund

"A riveting account of the games of childhood transformed into the obsessions of a contrarian winner!"
Dr. James D. Watson Nobel laureate and co–discoverer of DNA

"Speculation is part science, psychology, gambling, statistics, panic, and deception. This delightful autobiographical tour of the many facets of speculation by the most Galtonian of speculators introduces the reader to a Runyonesque cast of characters and to a wealth of ideas drawn from psychology, ecology, squash, chess, horse racing, and the author's unusually extensive experience. Readers will meet hoodoos and hoboes, scientists and musicians, champions and losers, hustlers and handicappers, George Soros and Francis Galton. An engrossing story that all will profit from, even those who prudently decide to remain on the sidelines of the markets."
Stephen M. Stigler Department of Statistics University of Chicago

"The Education of a Speculator is the first meaningful book on speculating. Successful speculating is as fine an art as chess, checkers, fishing, poker, tennis, painting, and music. Niederhoffer brings forth the best from each of these fields and shows the investor how their principles can enrich one's life and net worth."
Martin Edelston President, Boardroom Inc. publishers of Boardroom Classics & Bottom Line/Personal

"Victor Niederhoffer's The Education of a Speculator is an educational delight for all readers. The insight and interdisciplinary relationships he provides not only suggest lessons about financial markets, but how the world works. This book is a joy to read, a treat to muse over, and an endless source of provocative discernment."
Herbert London John M. Olin Professor of Humanities New York University

Warning: This book may permanently alter the way you see the world.

In the world according to Victor Niederhoffer, life is speculation and we are all speculators, except when we lose
then we are gamblers. We speculate on our careers, relationships, games, and investments. Life–changing decisions hang on our ability to read and anticipate turns of events. As a speculator in stocks, bonds, currencies, and futures, Niederhoffer's credentials are dazzling: he's been rated the best commodity trader in the United States, as well as being advisor to and investor for George Soros, and mentor to Monroe Trout and a host of other financial wizards. A Harvard grad and University of Chicago PhD in finance, he is a fierce and savvy competitor, a five–time U.S. National Squash Champion. Now, in this exhilarating ride of a book, Niederhoffer shares the insights of a lifetime of speculating, competing, and winning.

Successful traders are a breed apart; they owe their fortunes to more than just a strong trading system and the ability to follow technical indicators. Their markets sweep and swirl around the globe twenty–four hours a day, buffeted by forces of every size and shape imaginable: acts of God, acts of man, fluctuations in currency prices and barometric pressure, assassinations, insects, science, love, and revenge. In The Education of a Speculator, Niederhoffer opens the kaleidoscopic story of his life to show how he came to understand these fundamental forces. Offering a way of thinking rather than a "system," this powerful, remarkable book shows us how to speculate and win much more than we ever thought possible.

Growing up in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Niederhoffer's childhood was one of constant and intense competition, during which he learned both how to win and
equally valuable
how to lose. These early lessons became the basis of his successful approach to mastering virtually any arena, from music and sports to gambling, mathematics, and trading. Niederhoffer shows how, by distilling the lessons of board games, horse racing, and hoodoos, we can achieve the right mental and emotional state before, after, and during a contest.

In a colorful, compelling narrative account of his life and education, Niederhoffer emerges as a complex, eccentric, and fascinating individual, a man whose unique perspective combines the best inspirational messages of his father, who knew the psychological advantages of generosity as a way of defeating an opponent, with the humorous and often self–defeating behaviors of his hapless uncle. Along the way, we see the tell–tale indicators that would one day give him the edge in deals worth millions of dollars.

He tells us how he learned to psych out the SAT exam, skate through Harvard, and defeat hundreds of opponents in squash
using principles that can be applied to all kinds of personal challenges.

Of course, Niederhoffer's greatest fame (and fortune) is as an extremely successful trader, and here his tips, principles, and methods become most manifest. This is a man who never wears shoes inside his office, who makes the National Enquirer required reading for his staff, and never has sex right before a big trading day. (Niederhoffer's highly amusing views on the role of sex in human activity are alone worth the price of admission.) In chapters that are breathtaking in their leaps of imagination, and startling in their depth of insight, Niederhoffer establishes the relationship between stampeding elephants and market behavior, explores the use of musical structure as a guide to trading, and dissects the many roles of deception. In The Education of a Speculator, charts of stock prices are followed by pictures of paintings; the advice of cops, crooks, and Nobel scientists are all juxtaposed and synthesized
all in the service of successful speculation and investment. The Education of a Speculator is Victor Niederhoffer at his wittiest, wisest, and most articulate.