Product Description
The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing is a slightly irreverent, straightforward guide to investing for everyone. The book offers sound, practical advice, no matter what your age or net worth. Bottomline, become a Boglehead and prosper! Originally just the chat-line ruminations of Boglehead founder Taylor Larimore, and Morningstar forum leading cohorts Mel Lindauer and Michael LeBoeuf, their trusted advice has been brewed and distilled into an easy-to-use, need-to-know, no frills guide to building up your own financial well-being – so you can worry less and profit more from the investments you make. Invest like a Boglehead, and let their grassroots investment wisdom guide you down the path of long-term wealth creation and happiness, without all the worries and fuss of stock pickers and day traders. If you face a financial crisis or problem, or simply want to know what is prudent to do with the money you save, the Bogleheads will have the answers you need to help you gain your financial footing and keep it.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 55 reviews)

A "Common Sense" Approach Confidence Builder

At first, I thought that this book seemed to be a bit short on text. However, after I read it, it said everything that needed to be said. Concepts were clearly explained with examples shown where appropriate.

This book is written independently of whether we're in a bull or bear market. It teaches you the basic principles of investing. Period. The point is not to beat the market, but to make a decent return. Stick to the guidelines in this book and you'll live comfortably in retirement.

The book teaches you about a lot of topics that aren't obvious to beginner investors, such as the many costs associated with running a mutual fund and its long term impacts on your investment's return.

It also gives guidance on how to handle retirement (how much do you need), putting your kid into college, and what to do when you win the lottery. Concepts normally discussed by financial planners are also included.

This book is a great confidence builder for me to do my own investing.

The book is written by supporters of John Bogle, the founder of The Vanguard Group. It does (somewhat) push Vanguard products, but that's about the only criticism I have.

I'd also recommend going to the Bogleheads' web site, but that's outside the scope of a book review.
December 31, 2008

Excellent

In short, get it, it's a very helpful book.

I am fairly new to investing and felt that I was uncomfortable making choices as to what to choose as investments. This book gave me a great explanation of the many different choices to make in investing and how to go about them. This book actually covers more than just investing though, it touches on retirement and how to plan for it, wills, trusts, powers of attorney, insurance and a few other subjects that I felt were great topics and they covered well enough for me to understand, but didn't go into so much detail that I couldn't follow everything. In my honest opinion, every single school should be using this book and teaching kids about all the topics in here in 12th grade before they are released into the world. I've never read a book so fast in my life. In fact, I think that I did more reading in this book than I did in all of high school. It kept me interested and I don't feel that any of it was a waste of my time.

For more experienced investors, I could even see this being a great refresher on topics, and I know that in the future I will be referring back to it when making choices in the future.

December 21, 2008

A practical book charts a clear course

This book establishes a set of basic principles for investing and, to a lesser degree, personal finance. The authors propose the principles, explain them, illustrate them and show you how to apply them.

The book glances on non-investment personal finance topics including adopting a net worth mindset, emergency funds, estate planning, and insurance. The insurance chapter was very valuable and exposed several fallacious rationalizations people apply to insurance purchase decisions.

The meat of the book is investing. Investing is covered in great detail, including in-depth descriptions of various investments, how they work, and how (or if) you should use them. The coverage of the effect of taxes on your investments is detailed and invaluable. The costs of investing are examined, and when you know where to look, you may find some nasty surprises in your current investments, especially your 401k plan!

The entire book is highly opinionated, and I found that refreshing. The authors know what they're talking about, have a good idea of what the average person saving for retirement needs to do, and never fail to call it the way they see it. The writing style is fact-based advice, with humorous sayings sprinkled about, and is best described as "grandfatherly."

The chapter on behavioral economics was an eye-opener. I thought that I was smart enough not to fall for any of those traps. I smugly read through the first half of them, then recognized myself in "Paralysis by Analysis." Oh my. That gave me some food for thought, and a new outlook.

I did find the chapter on Asset Allocation to be lacking in practical advice. It only glanced on how to make an asset allocation for yourself, and didn't address the difficulties of balancing an asset allocation over multiple tax-advantaged accounts that have contribution limits and withdrawal penalties. (But there's a list of recommended reading in the back, and maybe one of those books will have more information on this topic.)

Having just finished the book, I'm going back through it and making a list of information I need and actions to take. I finally have a direction to go in, and not just more conflicting details!

September 03, 2008

Bogleheads: A Book That Makes Sense Out of Wall Street

There is nothing like a Bear Market to get you to question a lot of things about the wonderful world of investing. Having said that, this book which focuses on the ideas of John Bogle is just the ticket to set you straight on a number of critically important investment concerns. Asset allocation, the importance of having the lowest costs, how the mutual fund businss really works, it's all here and it all makes perfect sense. I wish now that I had heard more of the wisdom that this man has been passing along for so many years while inventing index funds at Vanguard Investments. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to invest with greater confidence and success for the long term. It may well change the way you think about the world of Wall Street and investing. It did for me.
August 14, 2008

Best book to get if you don't want to invest by yourself.

This is absolutely wonderful. Bogle goes through everything to do with mutual funds and index investing. He points out that its a no-brainer to invest in an index fund if you don't actively invest yourself. One of the best books on stock investing i have ever read.
July 21, 2008

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