tim_ohearn's reviews
382 reviews

The title is misleading and the book fails to reach concise conclusions. The first half reads as if it is building up to a major, revolutionary breakthrough in psychoanalysis, however the book progresses in the same vein- tacking on facts of diminishing importance until the bitter end. Instead of analyzing IQ test results, genuflecting to Google, and dedicating a section to his pilgrimage to Colorado, the author should have focused on the sharp rise in diagnoses of ADD/ADHD among young people. Especially since tech companies and researchers were mentioned so frequently, I can't understand why the relationship between jobs requiring employees to spend long hours on the computer and the tendency of those workers to exhibit patterns of thinking and common deficiencies related to attention span and memory was not explored.

Much better than the first book. The responses are more varied as are the traders' backgrounds. However, most of the success stories boil down to discipline, contrarianism, and superior knowledge of pricing models in an era where nobody knew how options pricing worked. An interesting look at a point in history but, don't be fooled- it's history.

An entertaining light read. Easy to consume, laugh-out-loud hilarious, and written much better than The Wolf of Wall Street (but that's not saying much). LeFevre's writing style is perfectly suited for the year 2015. However, I suspect a large amount of embellishment if not outright lies. For example, the Wayne Rooney "story" has been pegged as a complete fabrication, in fact the team hadn't been to HK since more than a year prior to when the incident supposedly occurred.

Taleb's writing style and methods of presenting facts & figures are best described as brash and in-your-face. I liked the book, loved the parallels between it and Thinking, Fast and Slow, but thought the "neighbor" theme that propagated throughout the book was contrived and poorly executed. Also, Taleb loves to mention that he isn't an expert on certain subjects (but has read about them!).

Michael Lewis without a whole lot of Michael Lewis. There are some remnants of Liar's Poker, but it's missing quite a bit of flair.

Fantastic book. Should be a required reading in most colleges.

An unbelievable story. The conciseness of the narrative blew me away. Not a dull moment yet I still learned a lot. Fantastic.

An informative light read for the absolute beginner. It was written/published in 96 or 97 and though many tips are no longer relevant due to technological advances, most are still valuable. There are a couple that are essentially previous tips reworded, and there are a few that I don't agree with. I discuss a few interesting pages below.

P59: This contradicts my notion of portfolio rebalancing. It is more logical to sell winners and rebalance the portfolio such that a certain distribution is maintained, that way gains can be realized in the appreciation of the portfolio as a whole while keeping risk factors constant since the balance is constant. Edit: selling losers is more advantageous from a tax perspective.

P63: Selling losses doesn't take the emotion out of the decision process. It, in itself, is an emotional move. Selling big losers contradicts the advice later in the book that says even after the Black Monday crash of 1987, virtually all losses were recovered within 12 months.

P163: After discussing the benefits and low risks of money market funds and bonds, why would someone want to put money in "a jar" on a regular basis? Might as well be going under your mattress as you lose purchasing power from constant inflation, not to mention lost opportunity costs.

P200: Ah, the nineties.

Basically a religious text for runners. Opened my eyes to many interesting topics and then managed to blend it all together while simultaneously endorsing my purchase of ten pairs of Nike Frees over the years.