Spencer Jakab has done it again. He’s produced a book that tackles a complex piece of recent history and yet makes it understandable and entertaining for those not familiar with Wall Street's ways. It’s hard to recommend this book enough, especially for new investors.
“The Revolution that Wasn’t: GameStop, Reddit and the Fleecing of Small Investors,” deals with the period when a group of small investors communicating via Reddit pushed up the value of some stocks of beleaguered companies and inflicted huge losses on seasoned Wall Street professionals who made bets that the shares would drop. Eventually, the pros got hit with massive losses.
This story screams “David versus Goliath,” only not in the holy land thousands of years ago but rather on Wall Street recently and with a twist. It’s clear that Jakab also knew that recounting and decoding the events would be a suitable lens to explain American finance's weird inner workings. It’s like an insider's guide for those who have never worked in the field.
The book will take you through the characters involved in the events of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. These include :
Keith Gill, a.k.a. “Roaring Kitty” and “DeepF*ckingValue.”
Vladimir Tenev, billionaire behind investing platform Robin Hood
Gabriel Plotkin, founder of Melvin Capital Management
Ken Griffin, founder of hedge fund Citadel.
Steve Huffman, co-founder of Reddit
While the story will keep you gripped, it’ll also soften readers for sound advice on making money on Wall Street, as did his last book, “Heads I Win, Tails I Win.”
Take, for instance, the following snippets, which impart much wisdom.
- “[A University of California Berkley study] showed that, even without the effect of commissions, the more people traded, the less they earned on average compared with just being passively invested in stocks.”
- “In the 1990s, dentists were the stereotypical retail investors who learned the hard way that they couldn’t translate their general smarts to making smart investments and outwitting Wall Street.”
- Technology and competition have made Wall Street a friendlier and more profitable place than in the bad old days for individuals as long as they play a different, less exciting game.”
To overly simplify Jakab’s message: Investing isn’t for entertainment. A buy-and-hold strategy generally beats frequent trading, and if your know-how isn’t in Wall Street savvy, forget trying to beat the house.
If you do those things, then you stand a chance of winning. But if you don’t, the house will. At least, that’s what I take away from the book.
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This is an edited version of a story first published on Forbes.com in 2022. Copyright 2022 CONSTABLE CONFIDENTIAL
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