Gandalf, Merlin and co. Fri Dec 24

In spectacularly meaningless trading the index is down 9 points after an hour.
Just back from the gym, only the swim to go to make today feel productive and satisfying.

I've been planning to review Market Wizards by Jack Schwager but must have given it away or something.
Since, I can't find the thing, I'm going to paste in a summary from wikipedia.

Market Wizards is a book written by Jack D. Schwager and published in 1988 in which he interviews a wide range of traders with excellent track records of profitability.
The book contains four parts covering interviews with traders in a wide range of markets. The interviews contain a mixture of facts about the trading careers of the interviewees, their philosophy, and many trading anecdotes. After each of the interviews, Schwager summarises what he believes are the key things to be learned from that particular trader. The book also contains a fifth part on the psychology of trading and two appendices on program trading and basic options theory. If you want to get some insights, by way of verbatim interviews, into the thought processes and trading rules. [1]

Among thosed profiled in this book are Ed Seykota, Bruce Kovner, Paul Tudor Jones, Michael Steinhardt, Van K. Tharp and James B. Rogers.
 
I loved this book and read it a number of times, not because it gave me any specific trading techniques or hard and fast rules but because it was inspirational. In fact, what impressed me most was the diversity of styles - many of these traders were diametrically opposed in their approach, time frame, trading philosophy and world view and yet they were all successful and they all loved trading.
I was to see it again on the trading floor and in trading rooms where very different types could flourish in their own way.
 
Obviously there are constants of risk management, discipline, consistency, the ability to take risks etc. but this book is not telling you how you should do this but showing you how you might.
And, it's fun too; there are great trading stories as the old warhorses tell you about the slings and arrows.
 
It was very successful, so much so that Schwager wrote "The New Market Wizards" and then "Stock Market Wizards". I was hungry for all these stories and I consumed these too. I also bought and read two similar books called (I think) "Masters of the Market" and "Masters of the Market 2".
It's years since I've looked at any of them but they were terrific fun and great confidence builders for the budding trader.

2.17 Market fell 22 points.
Merry Christmas. More next Wednesday.