Reliance and Shamrock III at the start, 1903. Library of Congress, public domain
Wiley
Where Are the Customers' Yachts?
The funniest book ever written about Wall Street, and still the truest.
$25.00
Available · worldwide delivery
- Author
- Fred Schwed Jr.
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- January 2006
- Pages
- 0
- Format
- Paperback
- Size
- Standard
- Language
- English
The Library Essay
The Yachts Belonged to the Brokers
The title retells an old New York joke: a visitor admiring the bankers' and brokers' yachts in the harbour asks where the customers' yachts are, and there are none. Fred Schwed had worked on Wall Street and left after the 1929 crash relieved him of his enthusiasm, and in 1940 he wrote the joke out to book length, a wry examination of an industry paid handsomely for predictions it cannot make.
The book has stayed in print for eight decades, kept alive in Wiley's Investment Classics series and pressed on newcomers by professional investors, who recognise their trade in it with a wince. Almost everything about markets has changed since 1940 except the fee structure and the human nature, which are Schwed's twin subjects, and so the joke keeps landing.
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