<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: "Coffee House..." changed the way I invest!
Review: All serious investors, or those aspiring to be, should read this book next. Next check out Bernstein, Intelligent Asset Allocator.
Rating: 
Summary: GOOD, BUT MANY INVESTORS DO BEAT THE MARKET INDEX
Review: I read most every book I can find on investing in the stock market. Even when the stock market took a nose dive over the past few years, during the internet stock wreck craze, there was an author whose approach to investing exceeded most (if not all) the market averages. The author is R. Max Bowser, and he currently has three books available that I refer to constantly. To balance out the opinions in this book, I would recommend R. Max Bowser's books, "Making Dollars with Pennies: How the Small Investor Can Beat the Wizards on Wall Street" and "Guaranteed Profits with Small Stocks: The Only Stock Market Investment System that Comes with a $5,000 Guarantee." Many investors who followed his advice shared their stories in his third book, "Penny Stock Winners: True Stories of Successful Investors." I, as an investor, read all the books on investing that I can get my hands on. One great idea from one source can be its weight in gold.
Rating: 
Summary: A quick read
Review: If you are looking for a quick read and are really too lazy to do anything else to educate yourself, this is a good starting point. For those with a little more gumption, I prefer Paul B. Farrell's book, "The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing."
Rating:
Summary: How to be a successful investor--and still have a life
Review: Recommended by Morningstar as one of the "Best Books for Getting Started" as an investor, this little book is a very worthwhile use of three hours--not just for beginners, but also for investors who may be more experienced but may also have come to think of CNBC as something more than entertainment. Schultheis's main idea is that successful investing comes down to three basic imperatives: allocating assets intelligently, approximating (rather than trying to beat) the market average, and saving at a rate that can reasonably be expected to get you to your goals. While he emphasizes the use of index funds, he also includes a chapter on using a small part of your portfolio to indulge in the fun of picking stocks. Wisdom and good humor on investing, mountain climbing, and the unsuspected importance of pumpkin pie.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: THE COFFEEHOUSE INVESTOR is written for those of us who recognize the importance of the investment process to achieve our financial goals but don't want to take a lot of time from family, careers, and recreational passions to obsess on the matter. This is a book that can be easily read in a couple of sittings. In fact, the book's brevity is a function of its message. Commit to a few basic investment strategies and "get on with your life". For the author those life passions include cooking and mountain climbing, so you will want to indulge him a bit (bite?) to digest the book's message. Contrived, perhaps, but I for one will take my tips where I can find them. Schultheis' advice is to diversify our investments, approximate the stock market's long-term results by using index funds, and save. These are themes that other investment writers have worked in detail, but a 'coffeehouse investor' is not about overwhelming us with detail. Schultheis chooses his statistical references and charts sparingly, but they are persuasive. Charts showing the average annual returns of large company stocks over a one-year, rolling five-year, and rolling ten-year period in Chapter 2 clearly show how risk in the stock market diminishes over time. On the subject of savings, I recommend his 'retirement worksheet' in Chapter 7 as a good working model. Why index funds? The majority of actively managed funds under-perform the benchmark indexes, and that's before annual expenses, management fees, and taxes resulting from portfolio turnover. Investing as equity owners in the stock market is ultimately an investment in the "collective" creativity of our fellow human beings. The best way to participate is to 'buy the market', which is the collective sum of all our entrepreneurial efforts, mirrored in an index fund, and avoid single stock ownership except with the "fun" share (say, 5 to 15%) of our assets. No reason why investing shouldn't have a fun component too. Schultheis wants us to ignore Wall Street's muddled, self-interested message that tells us to be long-term investors, and then stimulates an environment of short-term "stuff", "hot stocks and cool mutual funds", and a "switch-to-get-rich mentality". Books by William Bernstein, Larry E. Swedroe, Charles D. Ellis, Richard A. Ferri, and others detail in greater depth the reasoning behind asset allocation, index investing, and saving for retirement, but THE COFFEEHOUSE INVESTOR will reach a large segment of the investing public who might otherwise be occupied with family, career, and recreational priorities and miss the opportunity to embrace these important investment ideas.
Rating:
Summary: The best graduation gift , solid, sound, & simple investing
Review: The words that immediately came to mind after reading this investment book were "Zen-finance" quickly followed by "simple sophisticated elegance" then "hum, interesting, a pumpkin pie recipe". A strange combination of descriptives but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The Coffeehouse Investor gets better with repeated reading for specific financial information, inspirational insights and the vicarious thrills climbing Mt. Rainier & Mt. McKinley. This investment package offers more than a how to instruction manual or food for thought, it also offers sustenance for the soul.Mr. Schultheis seems to understand first hand the organized chaos of everyday life and the energy we all infuse into our family and careers. However, he never loses sight of the importance of taking responsibility for our financial lives, planning our fanancial future and keeping sight of our personal goals. I value his direct and simple approach to savings, the understandable definitionn of the stock market average, and the concept of index funds. The notion of looking at your whole book of investments once a year to see how you've done in comparison to the market and to make small logical adjustments appealed to me. His subtitle says it all - How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street and Get on with Your Life. I like that. This book is probably one of the best graduation gifts any parent, godparent, or aunt can give. The fundamental principles, outlined by Mr. Schultheis, will give any young person the tools to start a bright and successful financial future. Along the way, she can learn about manaaged funds and fees, indexes, how to build a common stock portfolio, and the power of compounding interest. That section alone (Chapter 7) for many people, will prompt them to wish they had started saving in their twenties rather than in their thirties. Hah! So , I'll be sending my favorite graduate a copy of this book and making sure he completes the Retirement Worksheet before his first paycheck. Oh and one more thing. Try the pumpkin recipe. Not being a pie person, but fueled by my Retirement Worksheet success, I risked baking the pie. Very good pie. Extraordinary book. I think you'll enjoy this Zen investment book as much as I did.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: This is a great book for people who want to invest, but don't want to spend their lives doing it.
Rating:
Summary: Investing Can be this easy, Really! Read on and prove it!
Review: This review will be short... Simple, and to the point. This should be a must read for anybody even remotely looking at investing. Period. End of Review. You can stop reading now. I read it, and checked it against my portfolio and was horified to see that he was not only right, he was right on. Our Indexed funds consistantly aproximated the market average, while all my other funds were way up one year, way down the next one or more, while year for year, I did better with the indexed than with any other investment vehicle. It is common sense for all of us. Of course wall street doesn't want you to know this, if you did you would stop pissing money away buying into this fund or that one. More importantly the time I will save not putzing around with my investments, (usually to their detriment) I plan on investing in writing a book. In short, getting on with my life. Great advice, Heed it!
<< 1 >>
|
