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A Wealth of Common Sense

10 Great Lines From ‘Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?’

Posted February 15, 2015 by Ben Carlson

Where Are the Customers’ Yachts by Fred Schwed was written almost 75 years ago. I only read this book for the first time a few months ago and it’s remarkable how well it still holds up after all these years. It’s probably the funniest investment book I’ve ever read (out of an admittedly small set of competitors).

Here are some of my favorite lines:

1. On using statistics to your advantage:  “One can’t say that figures lie. But figures as used in financial arguments, seem to have the bad habit of expressing a small part of the truth forcibly, and neglecting the other part, as do some people we know.”

2. On the value of “I don’t know”:  For one thing, customers have an unfortunate habit of asking about the financial future. Now, if you do someone the single honor of asking him a difficult question, you may be assured that you will get a detailed answer. Rarely will it be the most difficult of all answers – “I don’t know.”

3. On the cyclical nature of the markets:  “When “conditions” are good, the forward looking investor buys. But when “conditions” are good, stocks are high. Then without anyone having the courtesy to ring a bell, “conditions” get bad.”

4. On the usefulness of theories:  “All of these theories are true part of the time; none of them true all of the time. They are, therefore, dangerous, though sometimes useful.”

5. It’s a little different every time: “History does in a vague way repeat itself, but it does it slowly and ponderously, and with an infinite number of surprising variations.

6. On the emotions of losing money:  “Like all of life’s rich emotional experiences, the full flavor of losing important money cannot be conveyed by literature. You cannot convey to an inexperienced girl what it is truly like to be a wife and mother. There are certain things that cannot be adequately explained to a virgin by words or pictures.”

7. On second-level thinking: “Those classes of investments considered “best” change from period to period. The pathetic fallacy is that what are thought to be the best are in truth only the most popular – the most active, the most talked of, the most boosted, and consequently, the highest in price at that time.”

8. On leverage: “A man who borrows money to buy a common stock has no right to think of himself as a constructive social benefactor. His is just another fellow trying to be smart, or lucky, or both.”

9. On short sellers before the Great Depression:  “Before October 1929, nobody objected to short sellers except their families. The families objected to going bankrupt.”

10. On who’s to blame for poor advice:  “The burnt customer certainly prefers to believe that he has been robbed rather than that he has been a fool on the advice of fools.”

Source: Where Are the Customers’ Yachts

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Where Are the Customers' Yachts?: or A Good Hard Look at Wall Street

Fred schwed jr. , peter arno  ( illustrator ) , jason zweig  ( introduction ).

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1940

About the author

Fred Schwed Jr.

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MoneyWeek book review: Where are the customers' yachts?

An entertaining look at the realm of finance in New York in the early twentieth century shows just how little has changed since then

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Sometime in the early 1900s, an out-of-town visitor was being shown around New York's booming financial district. After touring Wall Street, he and his guide arrived in the Battery, where they saw dozens of expensive ships riding at anchor. "Look," said his guide. "Those are the bankers' and brokers' yachts." The visitor who was either extremely naive or extremely astute responded with the obvious question: "Where are the customers' yachts?"

Whether it's true or not, this story was part of Wall Street folklore during the roaring 20s, and inspired the title of this witty and elegant memoir of financial folly. Its author, the implausibly named Fred Schwed Jr, was a professional trader and seemingly a rather unfortunate one: his career began in 1927 and spanned the final excesses of the boom, the Great Crash and the Great Depression. "Shortly after that I left Wall Street, and I believe it was the next day that stocks began going up; they have continued to go up, with all but negligible interruptions, ever since," he noted wryly, some 15 years later.

Fortunately, he was more successful as a writer. More than half a century on, Where are the Customers' Yachts? remains a fascinating read and a potent illustration of how little has changed in the markets. Computer screens may have replaced ticker tapes, but greed, fear and stupidity still rule the roost, making Schwed's cynicism about the entire financial profession as justified as ever. "Wall Streetis a street with a river at one end and a graveyard at the other," he writes, repeating another vintage 1920s joke. "This is striking but incomplete. It omits the kindergarten in the middle."

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But this is an amusing, almost affectionate book rather than an angry one. Schwed was fascinated by Wall Street, and particularly the way in which people delude themselves about their own abilities. "Pitifully few financial experts have ever known for two years what was going to happen to any class of securities The majority are usually spectacularly wrong in a much shorter time than that." And his barbed prose often worthy of Twain, Mencken or Bierce effortlessly skewers some of the more absurd notions to which markets are prone; witness an incisive section on the then-nascent world of options.

In what is obviously a zero-sum game, it's often claimed that "the buyer does well, the seller does well and it is not necessary to stress the point that the broker does well enough. Many examples can be cited to show all three of them emerging from their adventures with a profit. One wonders why the problem of unemployment cannot be solved by having the unemployed buy and sell each other options, instead of mooning around on those park benches".

Where are the Customers' Yachts? by Fred Schwed Jr is published by

John Wiley and costs £14.99

Cris Sholto Heaton is an investment analyst and writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2006 and was managing editor of the magazine between 2016 and 2018. He is especially interested in international investing, believing many investors still focus too much on their home markets and that it pays to take advantage of all the opportunities the world offers. He often writes about Asian equities, international income and global asset allocation.

Cris began his career in financial services consultancy at PwC and Lane Clark & Peacock, before an abrupt change of direction into oil, gas and energy at Petroleum Economist and Platts and subsequently into investment research and writing. In addition to his articles for MoneyWeek, he also works with a number of asset managers, consultancies and financial information providers.

He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and the Investment Management Certificate, as well as degrees in finance and mathematics. He has also studied acting, film-making and photography, and strongly suspects that an awareness of what makes a compelling story is just as important for understanding markets as any amount of qualifications.

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Book Summary of Where are the Customers’ Yachts

Key takeaways and quotes from a classic book on markets and the investment business.

Where are the Customers’ Yachts was written in 1940 by Fred Schwed, an investment professional. It’s one of my favorite books on markets and I’m sure it will still be timeless 80 years from now.

The origin of the title:

Here are my takeaways from the book plus some great quotes:

• Making money is different than sounding smart. “I don’t know” is the most difficult answer – but usually the correct one. Some financial professionals have invented a new language for saying nothing in a variety of ways.

• Knowing a problem doesn’t mean you know the solution. For example, some Canadian pension funds are leveraging their portfolios because low expected returns raise the likelihood of future deficits. They identified a problem – but I’m not confident the solution is to lever up ten years into an economic expansion with high valuations and low yields.

• The biggest problem for most investors is their own emotions. This is a trope in financial writing – but it’s so true. If you constantly jump between different strategies you’ll look up at 65 and have little to show for all your years of saving. The best portfolio is the one you’ll actually stick with.
• Safe investments can fall out of fashion. Canal bonds were considered safe until railroads upended the canal industry. Russian government bonds were staples of European investment portfolios until the 1917 revolution wiped out their value.

• The truth about most investors. Most  investors don’t admit they are expert rationalizers in finding profound reasons for hunches. “The inability to grasp ultimate  realities is the outstanding mental deficiency of the speculator.” Some investors would rather go broke than admit their guess was wrong.

• The ability to sit still is a superpower. Most people “suffer from the inability to do nothing.” Some investors want to own as many securities as possible. Occasionally I get asked why I don’t make satellite allocations to assets like REITs or gold. I wrote a post showing why. A 5% tilt might make an investor feel diversified but it doesn’t impact portfolio performance.

The book is a rare combination of wisdom and wit – I highly recommend it. You can find used copies on Amazon for $5.

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Where Are The Customers' Yachts?

Fred Schwed's iconic 1955 book "refers to a story about a visitor to New York who admired the yachts of the bankers and brokers. Naively, he asked where all the customers' yachts were. Of course, none of the customers could afford yachts, even though they dutifully followed the advice of their bankers and brokers."

Since then, how much has changed?

Do you know what your investments are costing you? If you’re not sure, you’re not alone. It’s not like you’re handed a menu of charges to choose from when it’s time to place your order. Even when you know where to look for financial costs, the information can be difficult to digest.

Let’s fill in some of the blanks by covering three significant sources of investment costs: fund management fees, (trading) costs, and advisor costs. 

Fair Fund Management Fees

We typically invest in a mix of funds towards efficiently capturing global returns without having to juggle thousands of individual securities at a time. With most client portfolios holding tens of thousands of individual securities, what a task that would be!

Cost-effective diversification is a common strategy, and the basis for many popular investment options, including Vanguard's LifeStrategy Funds and more concentrated funds including the  iShares Core S&P 500 ETF . In exchange, the Vanguard or iShares managers seek reasonable compensation for their services. 

What’s “reasonable”? To discover how much fund management is costing you, start by looking for each fund’s expense ratio . You can find this information in the fund’s prospectus, or by searching online for its name or ticker symbol. Many broad market index mutual funds or ETFs have annual expense ratios of 0.02% (2 basis points) or less. If a fund’s annual expense ratio approaches 1% (100 basis points) or more, we advise caution - almost certainly, you should think twice about investing in it.

Some fund managers also pile on extra fees, or loads, beyond the ones reflected in their expense ratios. These should also be disclosed in the fund’s prospectus, and can include:

• A one-time front-end load when you buy shares of the fund
• A one-time back-end load when you sell shares of the fund
• Similar contingent deferred sales charges (CDSCs) and other redemption fees

Hiding and Seeking Fund Fees

Because fund management fees are typically bundled into each fund’s share price, you’ll barely notice they’re there. But they still cost you real money.

For example, in a recent working paper, “ Obfuscation in Mutual Funds ,” academics from the University of Washington, MIT, and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania compared the 2019 costs and performances of two S&P 500 Index mutual funds. Before fees , their gross returns were nearly identical at 31.46% vs. 31.47%.

But one fund manager charged a lean 0.02% (2 basis points). The other one charged up to an all-in 5.08% (508 basis points). Once you know that, it’s easy to tell which fund will leave more money in your pocket after fees .

Are you having trouble finding a fund manager’s fees to begin with? Consider this central finding from the same paper :  

“...we find evidence consistent with funds attempting to obfuscate high fees.” 

In other words, the study found that lower-cost funds usually provided short, easy-to-understand fee disclosures; the higher-cost funds often buried their costs in lengthy and complex legalese . 

Why complicate things? When searching for a particular type of investment, there are almost always funds available that do not  charge loads and similar add-ons, and do clearly disclose their costs.

Comparing Costs

Low costs are important. But they’re not the only  reason to favor one fund over another. Some investments cost more to manage because it’s more expensive to participate in their target market. 

For example, an investment in a U.S. market fund will usually have lower expenses than an investment in a non-U.S. market fund. So, first, identify available investments that fit your unique investment goals. Compare their expense ratios, apples to apples. Weed out any funds that charge loads, or bury their fee disclosures in long-winded blather. Then  select suitable funds with the lowest costs. 

(Trading) Costs 

In addition to your fund management costs, custodians, brokers, and trading platforms also make money off your investment activities. Take a step back from the mutual funds, ETFs, or other holdings you decide to invest in to consider where these holdings live and reside—and what does it cost to buy, sell, and hold them? 

An Account of Your Accounts

First, let’s define a few terms: 

Investment Accounts:

It’s easy to answer where your holdings live. They live in two main types of investment accounts: 

• Individual accounts, which you set up and manage on your own (along with your advisor).
• Employer accounts, such as 401(k) or 403(b) plans, which your employers set up and may manage for you. 

Custodians/Brokers: 

There are two places where your individual and employer accounts typically reside:

• Traditional custodians, like Schwab, Vanguard, or Fidelity. 
• Online platforms or “robo-advisors,” like Robinhood, Wealthfront Advisers, or Schwab Intelligent Portfolios®. 

All of these "places" are known as custodians. Just like a bank holds your cash, a custodian holds your investment assets. 

Your custodian uses brokers to execute your investment trades. Some custodians double-duty as the broker; others contract with third parties. 

The Cost of Doing Business

So far, so good? Now that you’ve got a lay of the land, here’s an important insight … 

It really doesn’t matter which types of accounts you’ve got, or where your holdings reside. You’re not the one trading in the market. You (or your advisor) places trading orders . Your account custodian takes it from there.  Therein lies additional costs: the costs of holding and trading everything you’ve got.

Those “Free” Frills Can Cost You 

Until a few years ago, brokers would almost always charge a commission whenever they executed a trade for you. In a more recent “ race to zero ,” many providers are now touting commission-free trading. But is that trading really free? If you take one thing from today’s piece, here it is: 

As an investor, whenever you’re being led to believe you’re getting something for nothing, your best bet is to assume exactly the opposite.

It stands to reason: Custodians and brokers must be profitable, or they’d go out of business. If they’re not charging a commission on your trades, they’re still making money somehow. It’s just not where you’d expect to see it, nor can you tell how much it’s really costing you. 

Tricks of the Trading Trade

Unfortunately, hidden costs usually mean higher costs. Following are a few tricks of the trading trade that often replace or augment more transparent pricing.

Cash Sweeps and Lending Practices:

Ideally, you actually invest most of the money you’ve earmarked for investing. But you probably also hold a little or a lot of cash in your investment accounts. Some custodians have been profiting handsomely by quietly sweeping this cash into their in-house, low-rate bank accounts, instead of paying you market-rate interest. They can then reinvest your cash in higher-rate holdings, or lend it out and earn interest on it—and keep the difference for themselves. Add everyone’s cash together, and the profits can pile up.

To illustrate, a 2018 San Francisco Chronicle piece reported average money market rates were around 2% at the time, while average bank sweep accounts were paying closer to 0.27%. The article described these practices as “similar to the way many airlines have cut fares and made up for it with fees for baggage, seat assignments and overpriced food.” 

Payment for Order Flow:

As described above, your custodian arranges for your trades to be executed. In theory, they’re required to seek “best execution” for your trades. In practice, one common technique is to use payment for order flow to seek competitive trading bids from third parties. Sometimes, this can generate more competitive pricing that benefits you. But it also can create conflicting incentives if an entity offers your custodian more payment (for them), without also ensuring best execution (for you). 

Platforms have been under scrutiny on this front, including a 2020 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charge that Robinhood was misleading customers about the true costs of their trades. Neither admitting to nor denying the charge, Robinhood paid a $65 million fine and agreed to review their payment for order flow and other best execution policies and procedures. 

Bond markups/markdowns:

If you’re trading in individual bonds, there are usually significant hidden costs known as markups and markdowns. When bonds are bought and sold, there is the equivalent of a “wholesale” versus “retail” price. The markup/markdown is the difference you pay above the “wholesale” price. This undisclosed difference typically goes to the broker, in addition to any disclosed commissions paid.

According to Investopedia, " The commission can range from 1 to 5% of the market price of the bond. "

Advisory Costs

Before we wrap, let’s talk about our own advisory costs.

These days, you don’t need an advisor to manage everything we just discussed. You can look up fund expense ratios on your own, and watch for loads and other fees. You can set up and fund your individual accounts, and decide how you’d like to invest your retirement plan assets at work. You can be diligent about minimizing uninvested cash in your investment accounts. 

That's why we suggest nine different commission-free options in the Costs section of our website at www.openwindowFS.com/costs .

As an independent, fee-only, fiduciary advisor, we certainly help our clients with all these logistics, and more. But more than that, we provide professional, objective advice on everything related to your total wealth:

We advise you on managing your wealth across your total investment portfolio, wherever your accounts may reside . If your only advice comes from a custodian or trading platform, it’s likely to only apply to your investments with them, without considering assets you hold elsewhere. Plus, if you could do better elsewhere, don’t expect to hear about it from them.

We advise you on your total wealth interests . Do your investments best reflect your personal financial goals and risk tolerances? How should you use insurance to protect your wealth? How can you spend safely in retirement, and which accounts should you spend down first? What about Social Security? Are your estate plans up to date, with accurate beneficiaries across your various accounts and policies? How can you effectively draw personal wealth out of your business? What about those corporate stock options? How can you integrate your charitable giving with optimal tax planning? These are just a taste of the areas we advise on. 

We advise you according to your highest financial interests . Even “free” trading can be horribly expensive if it runs counter to achieving your greatest financial goals. In our fiduciary relationship with you, we’ll show you how to minimize hyperactive trading, make the most of the market’s available returns, and manage the very real risks involved. A commission- or fee-based advisor representing others’ interests is unlikely to do the same. 

When you hire Open Window as your independent, fee-only advisor, you are purchasing our all-in fiduciary advice. Our costs are clearly disclosed and are our sole source of compensation. Our clients know the exact cost, with no commissions, no kickbacks, no surprises. Helping families illuminate and eliminate excessive investment costs is one way we strive to "pay our own way" as an advisor.

When done right, our cost is a small fraction of the value we offer: 

• By helping you make better decisions, make them earlier, and by avoiding costly errors.
• By seeking a long-term investment return that exceeds other comparable options.
• By seeking a lower lifetime tax burden, and the benefits of tax-efficient wealth transfer and charitable giving.
• By helping to provide peace of mind while saving you time and energy.

If you’d like to explore further how we can enhance your own financial experience, please be in touch with us today at www.openwindowFS.com/connection . 

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Fred Schwed: Where are the Customers Yachts? Summary

Post by captmorgan50 » Mon Mar 20, 2023 2:03 am

Re: Fred Schwed Where are the Customers Yachts? Summary

Post by captmorgan50 » Mon Mar 20, 2023 2:04 am

Post by David Jay » Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:12 am

Post by David Jay » Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:19 am

Post by er999 » Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:37 am

Post by captmorgan50 » Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:40 am

Post by Carol88888 » Mon Mar 20, 2023 4:11 am

Post by captmorgan50 » Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:24 pm

Post by Bill Bernstein » Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:57 pm

Post by captmorgan50 » Mon Mar 20, 2023 7:43 pm

Bill Bernstein wrote: ↑ Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:57 pm Not to steal the OP's thunder, but here's my fave: In 1929 there was a luxurious club car which ran each week-day morning into the Pennsylvania Station. When the train stopped, the assorted millionaires who had been playing bridge, reading the paper, and comparing their fortunes, filed out of the front end of the car. Near the door there was placed a silver bowl with a quantity of nickels in it. Those who needed a nickel in change for the subway ride downtown took one. They were not expected to put anything back in exchange; this was not money – it was one of those minor conveniences like a quill toothpick for which nothing is charged. It was only five cents. There have been many explanations of the sudden debacle of October, 1929. The explanation I prefer is that the eye of Jehovah, a wrathful god, happened to chance in October on that bowl. In sudden understandable annoyance, Jehovah kicked over the financial structure of the United States, and thus saw to it that the bowl of free nickels disappeared forever.

Post by Harmanic » Mon Mar 20, 2023 8:56 pm

captmorgan50 wrote: ↑ Mon Mar 20, 2023 2:03 am • Rarely will it be the most difficult of all answers---“I don’t know.”

Post by Bill Bernstein » Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:10 am

Post by captmorgan50 » Tue Mar 21, 2023 1:48 am

Bill Bernstein wrote: ↑ Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:10 am Thanks for the kind words. I assume you're referring to VDE/VENAX having near zero foreign holdings. I guess I'm fine with that, I'm not willing to pay 30 more bp to get the foreign exposure from say, IXC.

Re: Fred Schwed: Where are the Customers Yachts? Summary

Post by LadyGeek » Tue Mar 21, 2023 1:49 am

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Where Are the Customers' Yachts?: : A Good Hard Look at Wall Street Kindle Edition

It's amazing how well Schwed's book is holding up after fifty-five years. About the only thing that's changed on Wall Street is that computers have replaced pencils and graph paper. Otherwise, the basics are the same. The investor's need to believe somebody is matched by the financial advisor's need to make a nice living. If one of them has to be disappointed, it's bound to be the former." -- John Rothchild, Author, A Fool and His Money, Financial Columnist, Time magazine

Humorous and entertaining, this book exposes the folly and hypocrisy of Wall Street. The title refers to a story about a visitor to New York who admired the yachts of the bankers and brokers. Naively, he asked where all the customers' yachts were? Of course, none of the customers could afford yachts, even though they dutifully followed the advice of their bankers and brokers. Full of wise contrarian advice and offering a true look at the world of investing, in which brokers get rich while their customers go broke, this book continues to open the eyes of investors to the reality of Wall Street.

• Print length 208 pages
• Language English
• Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
• Publication date October 10, 2022
• File size 14459 KB
• Page Flip Enabled
• Word Wise Not Enabled
• Enhanced typesetting Enabled
• See all details

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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BHW54PXF
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wiley. (October 10, 2022)
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 10, 2022
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• File size ‏ : ‎ 14459 KB
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• Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
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• Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
• #2,160 in Stock Market Investing (Kindle Store)
• #4,241 in Satire
• #5,107 in Stock Market Investing (Books)

About the author

Fred Schwed

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