Practical Speculation

VICTOR NIEDERHOFFER's storied career as a speculator spans more than twenty-five years. In the introduction to Practical Speculation, Vic describes the rollercoaster his hedge fund rode from No. 1 in 1996 to the debacle in 1997 that forced him to close his fund. Rather than giving up, he wrote this book "figuring that by trying to teach others, I might learn something myself," apparently with some success. Niederhoffer was ranked No. 6 for the year 2003 among 200 managed futures hedge funds in the TASS database, and is No. 4 in the performance rankings through mid-2004. Niederhoffer is the author of the critically acclaimed Education of a Speculator as well as numerous groundbreaking academic articles about markets. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard, he holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He is a five-time national champion in squash and claimed the world title in 1976. LAUREL KENNER has written several hundred columns on the stock market with Victor Niederhoffer for CNBC money, Active Trader magazine, worldlyinvestor.com, and TheStreet.com. She previously spent five years as chief U.S. stocks editor at Bloomberg News and five years as an award-winning aerospace reporter for Copley Newspapers.

• Introduction. PART ONE: MUMBO JUMBO AND MOONSHINE.1. The Meme.2. Earnings Propaganda.3. The Hydra Heads of Technical Analysis.4. The Cult of the Bear.5. "We Are Number One" Usually Means "Not Much Longer".6. Benjamin Graham: Mythical Market Hero.7. News Flash: Computer Writes Stock Market Story!PART TWO: PRACTICAL SPECULATION.8. How to Avoid Spurious Correlations.9. The Future of Returns.10. The Periodic Table of Investing.11. When They Swing for the Fences, We Run for the Exits.12. Boom or Bust?13. Market Thermodynamics.14. Practical Market Lessons from the Tennis Court.15. The Fine Art of Bargaining for an Edge.16. An Amiable Idiot in the Biotechnology Revolution.17. Earnings Impostors.18. Finale.Afterword.Notes.Index.