Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 91
 Common Sense Investing June 25, 2009
W. Bowditch (Waterville, Maine United States)
Excellent book & I would highly recommend it to anyone novice or expert, no matter what your investments have been. A little repetitious at times. A must for everyone
 BUYER BEWARE: Index Investors have lost money over 10 years... June 21, 2009
Macro Trader (Boca Raton, FL United States)
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
How is that considered safe? The S & P 500 was over 1270 in June of 1999, and is currently near 920, 10 years later...down, 20+ %
The fact is markets do go down, and often times stay down. If one owned the Nasdaq index in the year 2000 at 5000, they are still down over 60% 9 years later.
The Japanese Nikkei index is still down OVER 80% 20 years later.
There is no guarantee that markets rise over time. If it were that easy, we would all be stock market millionaires, but statistically few are.
INDEX INVESTING DOES NOT ADDRESS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF MONEY MANAGEMENT - RISK MANAGEMENT.
Before you scoff at the facts, do some research, google or wiki, on Bruce Kovner, John Paulson, Michael Marcus, John Henry (Owner of the Boston Red Sox), Monroe Trout, William Dunn, George Soros - all of them "market timers", and "stock pickers" - and all with net worths in the hundreds of millions and billions - literally.
It is a nice sales pitch to tell people that market timing doesn't work, just keep putting money blindly into the financial markets with no risk management strategy.
The financial markets are serious business, and the fact is that the uninformed majority's losses pave the golden road for the few who truly understand that markets do not always "go up".
The fallacy of "buy and hold" index investing has been exposed as ridiculous as the day trading tow truck driver commercials of the late 90's. What exactky is the plan of the index investing crowd for declining markets??
If one owned the Nasdaq index in the year 2000 at 5000, they are still down over 60% 9 years later.
The Japanese Nikkei index is still down OVER 80% 20 years later. Fact...so does index investing really work, or is it just a clever way to "sell" index funds.
Index investing is the King of all financial "sales-pitches" that mislead the uninformed majority...Index investing only works in bull markets, period...A superior investment strategy provides absolute returns, in all market conditions.
Index investing does not tell investors what to do when markets decline..."OK, sit tight, or buy more!" Are you serious. "Just hold on the markets always come back"...do they?
10 years later the S & P is down over 20%
The author has an angle to pitch, which has built Vanguard into a mutual fund giant, which is great for Vanguard, but how have their customers actually done?
Index investing is a great "sales-pitch" - don't let high priced brokers, etc. take your money, when the index fund company can take your money instead.
With the S & P index fund down over 1, 3, 5, and 10 year periods have the fund companies refunded the fees they charged investors to manage the funds? Absolutely not.
As a champion of the investor, why should the author's company make money if their investors are losing money.
It is comforting for the unsuspecting investing public to believe that index investing is a "better, nobler" way, but the numbers do not lie.
Market timing absolutley works, active management absolutley works, but then folks would have to admit that it isn't as easy as this author would make you think it is to make money investing.
This author would have people believe that markets are efficient and that buying assets on the way down is a wise investment choice...How is any investment with negative returns for the rolling 1, 3, 5, 10 year period a good investment? It isn't
Index investing is a bill of goods sold to the unsuspecting public...
If "stock-picking" and "market-timing" don't work explain that to hedge fund managers who shorted the indexes to gains last year, and are profitable again this year in a rising market...
To truly participate profitably in the markets one needs to understand how to profit in rising and decling markets...
Let's not confuse brains with a bull market..Let's see the stats for index investing over the last 10 years, not very inclined to sell alot of index funds...
Bottom line, if market timing doesn't work, ask where index investors would be if they sold 2 years ago, and more importantly didn't buy all the way down...
Not a very popular stance, but the facts are the facts - the author is right about one things - financial firms all have a sales pitch to get your money, including the author's company - they are all cut from the same cloth, some arrive in different packaging though.
BUYER BEWARE...
Layman Friendly June 1, 2009
Dave (Virginia, USA)
This excellent investment primer left me confident in my ability to invest wisely in both equities and bonds. Buy the haystack rather than trying to find ther needle and adroitly eliminate the middleman.
 A quick read with golden advice April 10, 2009
Nathan Beauchamp (Oak Park, IL USA)
This an investment book you can read in an afternoon. Essentially an argument that buying low cost index funds is more efficient and earns a better return over trying to beat the market 99% of the time, it is well argued and persuasive. It is not intended to teach you everything about investing. It is simple and to the point: buying low cost index funds is a superior investing model for virtually everyone. Weather or not you agree with the premise, this is a frank, funny, and well written guide to index fund investing, and aside from some plugs for Fidelity funds which are not overly distracting, it's a great little book. Don't use it as an investment Bible; that would be overly simplistic. Do, however, learn from Bogle's point of view even if you do steer towards being in more direct control of your portfolio.
4/5 Stars. Well worth the time to read.
A simple book and yet incredibly insightful! March 29, 2009
Scott nMilwaukee
I absolutely love this little book. It's what people like Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, and Peter Lynch have been saying for years (and Bogle too in other books). Basically it boils down to you'll make as much from your investments in companies as the companies earn in profits over the long-term less transaction costs, taxes, etc. Bogle points out the folly of trying to time the market, the costs of churning your portfolio, in both commissions and taxes. He also advocates broad based index funds, which I would say is probably right for every investor who doesn't have the time or interest to investigate individual stocks. He also encourages the use of dollar cost averaging which benefits investors so much over the long-term!
Bogle also points out the problems of forecasting the future exclusively by looking to the past. It's been used as a justification in housing that prices never go down, various hedge fund strategies, etc. The problem is back in the past, housing prices never went up by 10-20% a year nor did we have hedge funds moving money around by clicks on a keyboard like we do now. The past is a guide but not a guarantee by any means.
Overall, a simple book, a wonderful book, and if the investors of Bernie Murdoff had read this book, they probably wouldn't have lost $50 billion!
Showing reviews 6-10 of 91
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