Notes on What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars by Paul and Moynihan

I heard about What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars by Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan on Tim Ferriss's podcast. According to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, it is "One of the rare noncharlatanic books in finance." That was enough of an endorsement for me because I know how many BS "get rich quick" and "how to earn a million dollars" books there are out there, and I buy in to the idea of learning from mistakes and via negativa.

I enjoyed the book, though mostly the first half. I found it a bit odd how the first half was an entertaining narrative demonstrating how the author kept getting lucky in the markets (and in life) and attributing that luck to himself and how "special" and "different" he must be whereas the second half was a much more academic and dry overview of cognitive biases and the trading psychology issues that led the author to lose his fortune. That firsthand account had many lessons within it which were fun to read, whereas the second half seemed like it was almost a totally separate book; I would've wanted to hear more interweaving and a return to the author's original voice from the first half even while going over the lessons in the second half.

I also yearned to hear about how the author "changed his ways" and what he did after losing his fortune and learning all these lessons; how did that change his trading (or career) and what he does now.

---