This is second great book on common sense investing after John Bogle's classic "The little book of Common Sense Investing". Here are my reading notes from the book. Generic The investment management industry is obsessed with studying past trends and using them to predict the future. Unfortunately - a good advisor or investor understands that the past has little meaning, and the future cannot be predicted. Asset allocation, as a result, is a sound strategy for all investors. The biggest risk of all is failing to diversify properly. The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable – John Kenneth Galbraith. When a broker calls suggesting that the price of a particular stock will rocket, what he’s really telling you is that he is not overly impressed with your intelligence. Otherwise, you would realize that if he actually knew that the price was going to increase, he would not tell it to you or even his own mother. Instead, he would quit his jo...
Are you delaying your investments waiting for the market to fall again? Here is why waiting for the suitable time to invest in the market can an expensive and irreversible mistake. When the Nifty crashed by 37% in March 2020, everyone feared the worse and with good reason. We expected a further crash or at least a sideways movement at that level (mid-7000). As usual, the market has a mind of its own and defied all expectations. The nifty moved up 53% since then and several mutual funds have registered healthy gains, many moving up by 75% after the market crash. Those who were waiting for “lower levels” to invest have to deal with rue and regret. We can only hope the regret is over the right reason: money lost in the market can be gained back but time once lost is lost forever. The market in an intractable beast and investor assume they can actually slip in between raindrops without getting wet. Dolly Parton could not have said it better: “if you want the rainbow, you gotta p...