my favorites: http://www.uglychart.com/?page_id=1534
Ask HN: Best books/source to learn about investing?
61–70 of 71 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best books/source to learn about investing?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I completely agree. The conventional wisdom of buy and hold a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds or index funds is simply bad advise right now. While stocks do tend to out-perform over the "long-term" there have been multiple 10 year periods when stocks lost big in terms of real inflation adjusted returns. (e.g. 1929-1960, 1971-1983, 2000-present) As a primer on the current financial crisis, I recommend firing…
I agree that the next 12 months will be an education in itself. I wasn't old enough to remember the 91-92 recession so this will be my first. Things don't look good. But, I'm curious, why would you not recommend investing in stocks/bonds/funds, even if the economy was going down? I mean, where else would you put your money besides 3% savings accounts? Sure, if your investments return 5% and inflation is 7% you are te…
Guns, gold, can food, and liquor - if you listen to the internet doomsayers. I'm thinking of setting up an ETF.
Re: Ask HN: Best books/source to learn about investing?
#63Highly recommend Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan. also http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_04_29_a_blowingup.htm
It is a great book. But the investment advice can be summed up as: "Put $ in T-Bills".
Either you didn't read the books, or I'm afraid you completely missed the point.
His investment advice is to invest most of your money (say 80%) in T-bills, and the rest in speculative investments (Taleb does it through derivatives). The rationale is that most of your cash is protected (short of a government default) albeit making modest returns. So you'll never spectacularly "blow up"... but you also have the upside exposure to good "black swan" events in your speculative investments.
Re: Ask HN: Best books/source to learn about investing?
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a great book. But the investment advice can be summed up as: "Put $ in T-Bills".
Either you didn't read the books, or I'm afraid you completely missed the point. His investment advice is to invest most of your money (say 80%) in T-bills, and the rest in speculative investments (Taleb does it through derivatives). The rationale is that most of your cash is protected (short of a government default) albeit making modest returns. So you'll never spectacularly "blow up"... but you also have the upside…
Well, I saw him give a talk in February at a Long Now Seminar, and I asked him: "How should people invest if they aren't derivatives traders?"
And he said: "Don't invest."
I have read his books and I am familiar with his barbell strategy. Are you really suggesting that he recommends the common man to invest in derivatives and such?
Re: Ask HN: Best books/source to learn about investing?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is some good to Rich Dad. For example: - the explanation of how the rich earn passive income by acquiring assets rather than making a direct trade of time for money. It may seem obvious if you know it, but it's a basic and powerful concept. - he recommends learning to read balance sheets and becoming financially literate which is, again, basic but important - his advice to consider the importance of taxes and l…
Problem is that if you're a newbie, and these books are targetd at them, you have no way of sorting out the wheat from the chaff. So the book as a whole is simply not suitable for those that it was meant for.
Yeah... I don't know. I'm hesitant to come across as a big Kiyosaki advocate (I'm really pretty indifferent) but while I was able to think of several "wheat" examples, I can't really think of any chaff. Can you (or anyone) point out some specific areas where his advice is dangerous or just wrong?
Re: Ask HN: Best books/source to learn about investing?
#66[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Best books/source to learn about investing?
#67Start here:
http://www.bogleheads.org/ (long-term investing)
http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=5033 (day & macro trading)
http://wilmott.com/categories.cfm?catid=11 (quant finance & algorithmic trading)
The single most important rule in investing or trading: don't lose money:
http://safari.oreilly.com/9780132213080
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/2008/03/pump-pump-pump-up...
Some additional sources:
http://fooledbyrandomness.com/
Finally, 90% of finance books you can read at Borders or Barnes & Noble and not need to buy and keep as a reference. Do that, rather than spend hundreds on them, and buy only the ones you think you'll want to reread or keep on hand for reference.
Re: Ask HN: Best books/source to learn about investing?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Index fund is the way to go for many people. In fact, it is the suggestion William Sharpe gave to (pre-IPO) Google employees. http://www.sanfranmag.com/print/node/3368
Yeah, but be careful, most index funds have gone down recently, suffering equity losses in the 10-15% range for the last year, before inflation. Just take a look at the Vanguard funds [1], which have one of the best reputations though. Of course, index funds simply followed the market downwards. Long term, they're still a great, trouble-free investment. I would also consider buying Berkshire Hathaway stock. Expensive…
The fact that index funds have gone down recently should not cause you to be careful. If you believe the long term value is still there, the best time to buy is in fact after they've suffered losses.
Re: Ask HN: Best books/source to learn about investing?
#69No one mentioned Dilbert's 9-point formula?
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7Bbe5...
Won't paste it here, but it's worth a look. The first bit of advice is make a will (yes, even if you aren't married - give it to the old hackers home).
Re: Ask HN: Best books/source to learn about investing?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Either you didn't read the books, or I'm afraid you completely missed the point. His investment advice is to invest most of your money (say 80%) in T-bills, and the rest in speculative investments (Taleb does it through derivatives). The rationale is that most of your cash is protected (short of a government default) albeit making modest returns. So you'll never spectacularly "blow up"... but you also have the upside…
Well, I saw him give a talk in February at a Long Now Seminar, and I asked him: "How should people invest if they aren't derivatives traders?" And he said: "Don't invest." I have read his books and I am familiar with his barbell strategy. Are you really suggesting that he recommends the common man to invest in derivatives and such?
Very interesting - I've often wondered what the rest of us can learn from Taleb's advice.
I've seen a slightly more watered down approach at use. Put 60-70% of your money in government bonds (regular and inflation-indexed), and the other rest in US small-cap value stocks, international small-cap value stocks, and emerging market stocks. These sectors have been more volatile, but with higher returns, over the last 80 years. Historically, this portfolio would perform about as well as an 80/20 stock/bond split. And if the market drops 90%, you still have 60%+ of your money safe.
I'm not convinced that this is the way to go, but it is interesting.