A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel

It draws on behavioral finance, the field that studies the psychology of investment decisions, here is the best-selling, authoritative, and gimmick-free guide to investing. Burton G. Malkiel evaluates the full range of investment opportunities from stocks, bonds, and money markets to real estate investment trusts and insurance, home ownership, and tangible assets such as gold and collectibles.

This book includes new strategies for rearranging your portfolio for retirement along with the book's classic life-cycle guide to investing, which matches the needs of investors in any age bracket. A Random Walk Down Wall Street long ago established itself as a must-read, the first book to purchase before starting a portfolio, and it remains the best investing guide money can buy.

This is a classic book, first published in 1973, with 416 pages publish by W. W. Norton, In December 24, 2007 this book has been released 9 edition. Every investor, whether you believe in market efficiency or not, should read this book at least once. This book does a very good job reconciling between market efficiency and perceived inefficiencies such as bubbles at different times. The author believes in a weak form of efficient market theory. Simply put, the market may not be perfectly efficient at all times, but it's efficient enough to make it very difficult and costly trying to beat it. In the end, an investor is better off holding a market index fund that invests in everything under the sun. It's not worth the cost and effort trying to find the undervalued stocks or high-growth mutual funds.

The book begins with two basic stock valuation models -- Firm Foundations and Castles in the Air. It goes on with a review of bubbles and manias throughout history, from more ancient history -- tulip craze in the Netherlands, the South Sea bubble in England, the 1929 Great Crash in the U.S. -- to the stock market anomalies from the 1960s, 1970s, all the way to the late 1990s dot com bubble. The book then introduces two basic camps of stock valuation analysis: Technical Analysis and Fundamental Analysis. It shows how both Technical Analysis and Fundamental Analysis fail to identify outstanding investment opportunities more than what an efficient market already provides. Not that you can't make money with Technical Analysis and/or Fundamental Analysis, but you can't make more money than what you already can with investing in a market index fund.

It reviews how investors often become their own worst enemy when it comes to investing. The book "Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes And How To Correct Them" The final section of this book is the practical part. It gives practical advice on insurance, tax deferred accounts, saving for college, different vehicles for cash reserves, bonds, real estate, and stock mutual funds. Finally the book lists specific portfolio and fund recommendations for people in different stages of their lives.

Overall, this is a great book, a must read for every investor.

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