A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market

The book is a captivating life story of Edward Thorp, arguably the greatest Quant. He was a mathematician and academic to start with, who developed interest in casino games like blackjack and roulette. He mastered the art of card counting and proved that it was possible to beat the casinos at their own game. He was associated with great Claude Shannon, a father of information theory, which led to Information Technology. He used the famous Kelly principle in placing the bets. Ed Thorp got interested in investing after beating the casinos. He mastered the art of hedging by using long/ short positions in the same company's different types of securities. This was essentially a low risk strategy which produced index beating annual returns of 19.1 % compared to 10.2% for S & P 500 over a period of 20 years from 1969 to 1988. The book contains great investment advice from a very successful practitioner. A chapter on Financial Crisis of 2008 is an excellent exposition about what led to financial crisis of 2008 and how the governments, regulators and investors failed to learn lessons from the same. A must read for all serious investors and investment professionals.

Very interesting book for people interested in investing or gambling. Some moments are really gold in book while some can be skipped easily.

People seem to be disappointed with this book because they expect some unique insights from a genius like Ed Thorp. Here's the catch: if you were psyched about this release, you already knew of Throp's major contributions. This brings me to the problem with rating biographical texts. Biographies, individually read, are rarely that "insightful" (for the lack of a better word); the value of biographies comes from reading lots of them and finding patterns because they provide extensive context. If you want to explore Thorp's work more in detail, you'd be better off reading "Beat the Dealer," "Fortune's Formula," and the "Kelly Capital Growth Investment Criterion." Like any other biography, this one has both exciting and drab bits. The former make a (significantly) larger chunk of the book than the latter. Thorp's writing style is clear; his stories, thrilling.

This is a very readable book. It was written with enthusiasm and in a laymans language. Highly recommended but it is more an auto biography and understanding the achievements and way of thinking of Edward Thorp

Marvelously written. Practical wisdom and highly engaging. Highly recommended reading.

Edward throp, Professor of Mathematics, Co-inventor of wearable computer in 1962(along with Claude Shanon), Successful Hedge fund manager and the Man who gave Nevada Casinos a run for their money has lived an interesting and a bad-ass life. The book is dividend into three parts. Part one deals with his childhood. Part 2 is days in Nevada beating the Casino in their own game and Part 3 is basically this days in stocks and his views on the modern day crises. I was super excited about his memoir coming out this year. Unfortunately, you have to read between the lines to understand his brilliant mind and his methods. Offers little insights for a 400page memoir. A bit disappointed.

This is the autobiography of the celebrated mathematics professor Edward Thorp. This book will interest mathematicians, blackjack enthusiasts, card counters, and anyone interested in markets. The book begins Ed, two years old at that time, recalling his parents searching for a home. Strangely, he even remembers the exact words his parents spoke :) There are several chapters dedicated to blackjack and strategies to win in the game. These detailed theories can be boring for those who don't follow the game. The next chapters talk about horse racing, which can be even more boring. The following chapters are dedicated to wall street. There is an interesting chapter about the various ponzi schemes in the stock market. One of the most heartening chapters of the book is about Warren buffet and Berkshire. This talks about the history and journey of the stock price of Berkshire. Equally interesting is the way the stock was perceived by the market throughout this journey. In the following chapter, Ed blasts through the EMH (Efficient Market Hypothesis) and proves with ample examples that the markets can be beaten. He also provides the guidelines for you to beat the markets as an investor.

Insight into one of the best kinds of all time. Fascinating read and is engaging must read for all investors

“A Man for All Markets” is at its core a captivating memoir on how Professor Thorp managed to acquire a fortune estimated at around $800-million. It’s dense, it’s detailed, it’s engagingly written, it’s a lot of fun to read and it’s full of valuable information. I would love to have read the chapters on markets some years ago when I was an active trader. I’d have made a lot more money! How did he do it? “Education,” he explains in a later chapter. He either taught himself or he learned from others. Indeed Chapter 1 is entitled “Loving to Learn.” He began as a poor boy in Lomita, California delivering newspapers in the morning and in the afternoon. He got into UCLA and graduated with a degree in physics and then went on to grad school to study mathematics. He became fascinated with challenges, most famously with the gambling card game, blackjack or twenty-one. He devised a point count system that, coupled with his ability to remember cards, allowed him to beat the casinos at their own game. And then he wrote a bestselling book, “Beat the Dealer” showing others how it could be done. I read that book when it came out in the early Sixties and was fascinated. Because my memory is only average I ended up playing poker instead of blackjack--but that’s another story. Following up on his success at twenty-one, Thorp, along with Claude Shannon, designed and built a mechanical and electrical device that allowed them to gain an advantage in roulette by predicting with some proficiency approximately where the bouncing ball would end up. That was quite a coup especially considering that it happened fifty-some years ago. This takes us through the first ten chapters. Then in Chapter 11: “Wall Street: The Greatest Casino on Earth” Thorp turns his attention to the financial markets. The titles of the next 14 chapters not only outline the story but could serve as something like a syllabus for a graduate course in investing. Viz., “Front-Running, The Quantitative Revolution, Swindles and Hazards, Buying Low, Selling High, Hedging Your Bets, Compound Growth, Beat Most Investors by Indexing, Asset Allocation and Wealth Management, etc.” There’s an illuminating chapter on financial crises and lessons not learned. Thorp concludes with Chapter 30 “Thoughts,” which I found fascinating. There are also five appendices, three on inflation and the dollar, historical returns, and the performance of his fantastically successful hedge fund, Princeton Newport Partners. I think it is important in accounting for Thorp’s extraordinary success to realize that he was very good with people and formed valuable friendships with knowledgeable and gifted persons including the afore-mentioned Claude Shannon, Warren Buffet and others. Additionally, his curiosity and love of challenges took him places others couldn’t go. Finally, there was the loving support of his very talented wife, Vivian. If I were giving out advice on how to be successful in this world I would say first pick your spouse wisely. Also, Thorp was thrifty. On page 86 we learn that when he was playing blackjack in Las Vegas he would call his wife collect and to save money would ask for “’Edward __ Thorp,’ the middle initial being a code we had devised to tell how many thousands of dollars we were ahead or, if the initial came before ‘Edward,’ how many behind…” “After hearing the name of the person being called, Vivian would politely tell the operator that Mr. Thorp ‘wasn’t here at the moment.’” I think it is a good lesson to understand that not only is a penny saved a penny earned but it’s worth more than that because what’s saved is untaxed and the money can be invested. Thorp elaborates on the value of thrift in building wealth elsewhere in the book especially on page 269. I want to say that I have a personal affinity for both this book and its author because of some similarities in the lives we have led. For those interested see my recently published memoir “If I Had Been a Better Man.” Okay now for some tidbits from the amazing professor of gambling and markets. “Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut were at a party given by a billionaire…Vonnegut asked Heller how it felt to know that their host might have made more money in one day than Heller’s “Catch-22” since it was written.” Heller replied that “he had something the rich man could never have.” Vonnegut wondered what that might be, and Heller answered, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.” (p. 213) Thorp actually discovered in 1991 that Bernie Madoff’s trades were fakes and that he was running a Ponzi scheme. See pages 213-219. A joke: “…pronounced MADE-off, as in “with your money.” (p. 217) If you haven’t heard of the so-called “secretary/marriage problem” in math turn to page 224. The problem is when to say yes to get the best candidate. Once you say no you usually don’t get another chance and you may find the remaining candidates not as good. On the other hand, if you say yes too soon you might miss the best choice. Thorp’s answer to high frequency trading: “a small federal tax…a few cents a share…” (p. 231) On the crisis in funding for the California university system: “To starve education is to eat our seed corn. No tax today, no technology tomorrow.” (p. 341) --Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

Love the book, in awe of what Ed has done. Easy read too.

Mr Thorp writes very engaging. He reminds me of Richard Feynman; he looks at the world with an open and scientific view. Added with a bit of mischief.

Um livro instigante. Leitura não muito fácil.

Damn fine book, really straight from the begging it's so entertaining and enjoyable to read , I originally bought it to help me with understand the markets and gamble Ng better but I have to say this mama story in general is just so good that I'd recommend the book to just about anyone.