Where Are the Customers' Yachts?

Introduction
Jason Zweig
Foreword to the 1995 Edition
Michael Lewis
Introduction to the 1955 Bull Market Edition

I. Introduction—“The Modest Cough of a Minor Poet”
-The validity of financial predictions
-The passion for prophecy
-When the bull jumped over the moon

II. Financiers and seers
-Big banking—nice work if you can get it
-Some assistant tycoons
-The fruit on the blossom of thought
-Wall street semantics
-Chartists
-The pay
-The difficulties of “earning” money
-An art without a muse
-A little aptitude test

III. Customers—That Hardy Breed
-Varieties of customers
-How to get customers
-Margin
-What to do when the dam bursts
-Some case histories and a diagnosis
-Churning money as a career

IV. Investment Trusts—Promises and Performance
-Stop making your own mistakes
-Where is the catch?
-The hell-paving construction company
-The trouble with the “best” securities
-The $750,000 bird
-By way of apology
-The magical investment corporation

V. The Short Seller—He of the Black Heart
-For the defense
-A different defense
-With and without bears
-Bear raiding

VI. Puts, Calls, Straddles, and Gabble
-What options are (more or less)
-In defense of the pure gamble
-The catch

VII. The “Good” Old Days and the “Great” Captains
-The i.q. Of a big shot
-Speculation on speculation
-A brief excursion into probabilities
-Down will come baby
-“they”
-Manipulators
-A bowl of nickels

VIII. Investment—Many Questions and a Few Answers
-Headaches of the wealthy
-A little wonderful advice
-Price and value—our special market letter
-Cash as a long-term investment
-Your way of life and the basis book

IX. Reform—Some Yeas and Nays
-Was it stolen or did you lose it?
-Nobody loves a specialist
-Horizons and limits of regulation

Inconclusions
About the Author