I too read this book (1956 printing from a university library) given the influence it has had on the writing and investment philosophy of William O'Neil. To a large extent, conceptually speaking, if you've read O'Neil's major works, you've already read Loeb. The benefits I gained out of reading Loeb were: 1) Finding that time-tested investment wisdom does exist, and that O'Neil (and even Loeb) are simply restating those pearls. 2) A laugh here and there. A couple of anecdotal sections regarding Loeb's affinity for sweets were a nice diversion. But these are few since he sticks to the point. You have to dig for the humorous gems. 3) Realizing again that whether you are a business or an investor or a financial consultant, serving your client 112% and maintaining strict integrity still works. The Biblical principles upon which this country was founded didn't fail Loeb as he developed his customer base.

The internet and the availability of info has changed tons of what Loeb has written, however. Reading a few reviews of his book a few decades later may well give you the meat with less effort.

This is a book that was out of demand for a long time, it seems, and is much needed nowdays. Most investment guides that became popular in the last 10-15 years were about the bull market, obsolete now.
This outstanding work of Gerald M. Loeb sums up his experience of an active investor all the way from the bull market of 20ies, then the Big Crash, the gloomy 30ies, WW2, until 1965. He managed to survive all major market mishaps and he shares his thoughts with the reader. His preferred audience is perhaps the intelligent investor in tough times. What I learned from him (and it was the first time I ever read these things) - losses should be cut promptly, diversification is usually poor tactics, fundamentals can sometimes be ignored. This is just his opinion of course, read the arguments yourself.
A must read on how to survive the recession, IMO.

Like many of the other reviewers, I read this book after seeing it in the bibliography of a Wm. O'Neil book. While the observation that "if you've read O'Neil's major works, you've already read Loeb" has some truth to it, I would argue that there is at least one point that Loeb expresses even more clearly than O'Neil, i.e. the fallacy of holding a declining stock because "it will come back." Suppose you were forced to sell the stock today, he asks. Now, suppose you were trying to figure out the VERY BEST investment to try to recoup your loss. Would it be to repurchase your loser? Almost certainly not. To me, that question crystallizes the argument for ruthlessly cutting losses better than I have ever heard it expressed.

The same point is recast in a number of different ways, e.g. the excellent chapter on "Sound Accounting for Investors", in which he advocates always "marking to the market", rather than ignoring "paper" losses or focusing on current income. "Gaining Profits by Taking Losses" and "The Ever-Liquid Account" bring additional perspective to the same theme.

In fact one of the nicest features of the book is the way it is broken up into almost 80 chapters. The main themes are repeated several times, but with different emphases. As a result, the more one browses and rereads selected sections, the more one appreciates the strength of the iconoclastic theory of investment that Loeb advocates.