Brief review on Hedge Fund Market Wizards (2012)

Have been busy in testing strategies lately. Will write a summary sometimes.

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It is a good book to some, but not a suitable book to most retail investors. The Conclusion is quite similar to my article “Review what we’ve learned”. I enjoy it but I do not find many I can use for my investing. First, it is for hedge fund market wizards (i.e. traders), not for retail investors. You can guess the volatility of one making thousand-fold return with his annualized return of less than 50% over the years. This is risky trading, not suitable to retail investors. The most famous trader in our generation committed suicide after losing millions and called himself a loser. Making millions to them is easy but keeping the millions is another story. This book did NOT interview losers and the losers will most likely not want to be interviewed.    

There are many pages on the wizards’ personal lives and/or their other ventures that have nothing to learn for retail investors. With so many rave reviews from known celebrities, I am not stupid enough to argue against it but want to remind myself of the real truths.

Most do not want to share how their current strategies in detail. Do you blame them? If the manager publicizes it in a book, the strategy either no longer works at the publish date or not too long after many follow the same strategy. At the meantime, the manager makes good money in the book; his/her fund is flooded with inflow money that causes the fund’s performance to deteriorate.

It does confirm that very few hedge fund managers beat the market and as a group, they have not beaten the market for a while. Most take care of themselves with hefty fees. You take care of your investment yourselves by buying an ETF or several ETFs that stimulate the market. Play with market timing described in my books for better but riskier return.  The book does have a few good ideas for retail investors that I have copied them shamelessly to this book.