In these absorbing interviews with star performers in the financial markets, Schwager ( Market Wizards ) humanizes the mechanics and psychology behind billion-dollar daily world trading in such sophisticated instruments as currencies, stock options, commodity futures, and mutual-fund accounts by individuals, investment firms and group-trading computerized "money machines." One trader focuses on market response to news events, another calculates mathematical probabilities — one even cocks an ear to the noise level on the exchange floor. All rank assiduous research, self-confidence, a specific plan and the courage to cut losses among essentials to success. Few consider their work gambling, but Schwager entertainingly argues that a successful trader needs many of the qualities of a good poker player. Though the subject matter is esoteric, there is much here to attract the general reader, and Schwager appends a "primer" of technical basics.