The Zurich Axioms

Harriman Classics with a new foreword by James P. O'Shaughnessy

If you want to get rich, no matter how inexperienced you are in investment, this book can help you. Its message is that you must not avoid risk, nor court it foolhardily, but learn how to manage it – and enjoy it too.

The 12 major and 16 minor Zurich Axioms contained in this book are a set of principles providing a practical philosophy for the realistic management of risk, which can be followed successfully by anyone, not merely the 'experts'. Several of the Axioms fly right in the face of the traditional wisdom of the investment advice business – yet the enterprising Swiss speculators who devised them became rich, while many investors who follow the conventional path do not.

Max Gunther, whose father was one of the original speculators who devised the Axioms, made his first capital gain on the stock market at the age of 13 and never looked back. Now the rest of us can follow in his footsteps. Startlingly straightforward, the Axioms are explained in a book that is not only extremely entertaining but will prove invaluable to any investor, whether in stocks, commodities, art, antiques or real estate, who is willing to take risk on its own terms and chance a little to gain a lot.