safe-investments Books

The author did an excellent job of distilling a whole lot of information on a whole lot of topics and put it in one easy to read book. Although familiar with the subjects, I still managed to discover things I wasn't aware of and things I hadn't thought of. If you're looking for the short and sweet on "super-safe" options of investing, along with solid advice about which options to avoid, this book is hard to beat!

I inhaled this book at one gulp. The right book at the right time makes this the first I've ever read about moo-lah, $$,filthy lucre that is a page-turner. Passell delivers his advice in an engaging, user-friendly style. Best of all,though, he knows what he's talking about. I'm implementing his suggestions and anticipating sleeping way more soundly.

Passell has distilled the best advice for these times into a short, easy to read book. Also, he doesn't dwell on theory, but instead provides practical advice for today's changed economy. Packed with links to useful websites and resources for the do-it-yourselfer. A reassuring book for times of turmoil.

Great financial advice. Packed with useful information. Planning on going back to school and this was a great starting point for how I should be handling my finances. A wide range of financial issues are addressed and the author very helpfully provides an extensive array of quality books/websites where many of the subject are examined more thoroughly. Obv this guy doesn't f_uck around; he cuts to the chase. It's as if I'm getting advice from a trusted friend who also happens to be the editor of the Milken Institute Review. It's somewhat brief, I read it in two days, but it saved me a ton of time in that I didn't have to weed through the mass of popular pseudo-financial advice books and websites that are out there. WtPYMN clarified the issues that I should be truly concerned with, debunked a number of myths, and served as a great starting guide.

This book begins with a synopsis of what led to the Wall Street collapse of 2008/2009. The author does a good job of providing a succinct, accurate explanation. He then provides his recommendations for where to put your savings. I don't see, in these recommendations, fulfillment of the subtitle. None of the investments he discusses are super-safe, and few can do much to secure your future. In this review, I'll explain where the book falls short, and what you can do to make up for that.

Despite the fact the book doesn't deliver on its subtitle promise, it generally doesn't steer the reader wrong. In addition, the author pokes holes in some common misconceptions about saving and investing. The advice he gives in this vein is more valuable than the price of the book, several times over. It can prevent a person from making matters even worse, which most investors invariably do.

I was pleased to see that he tackles the "gold harbor" theory and explains why gold isn't a safe harbor. When you read the gold bug propaganda, these points are always glossed over or missing, and that's because if you understand those points you won't make the mistake of hoarding gold in an attempt to preserve your wealth.

This book consists of an introduction and six chapters occupying 138 pages. The introduction is unusual in that it wasn't just tossed in there per the normal tradition. The author had specific goals in mind when writing it, and I found it to be an excellent start to the book.

Chapter One explains how the panic of 2008 came to be. It doesn't explain what set the stage for that panic, and understanding that origin is instructive for understanding where you might invest. However, in subsequent chapters, he does address this but he doesn't go into much explanation.

Here's a short version of the explanation that should have been in the book. As a consequence of how the Federal Reserve operates our central banking system, inflation is inherent. That is, your dollars lose value over time. And it's not just a little value. During Alan Greenspan's 18-year reign of error, the dollar lost half of its value. So if you held $100 in gold when Greenspan took office, you could redeem it for $50 when he retired. Or if you had saved $20,000 in hard cash, you could buy $10,000 worth of goods with it. Or if your salary was X, you'd need to be making twice that just to be paid the same (in fact, people are working much longer hours in response).

Chapter Two discusses inflation, but in a way that seems abstract and barely relevant. For any investing strategy, inflation is a key problem to overcome. But the author seems to consider it of only minor importance. He also talks about the federal deficits run up during the Bush years, but not those of the Clinton years. He mentions the Obama spending spree, but doesn't explain it in terms that allow comparison. If you take Obama's trillion dollar hit on American taxpayers during his first two months in office as his spending rate and apply it to 6 months times 8 years, he makes Clinton and Bush seem to have behaved responsibly by comparison.

Chapter Two does a good job of discussing other factors, such as leverage and home ownership. But then he falters. He talks about accounting for taxation in your investment planning, but frames it all only in terms of the federal income tax. This is way down the list of taxes in terms of cost to the taxpayer. In fact, the cost of compliance far exceeds the amount of revenue raised (businesses pass compliance costs to their customers, thereby making it a tax in itself) by the income tax, which means the IRS serves no financial purpose for the Treasury whatsoever. If we abolished the IRS today and stopped collecting the income tax, the Treasury would have a net increase in revenue.

The largest tax you pay is the federal sales tax. Yes, we really do have one. You pay for the cost of federal regulations compliance every time you buy a product or service. You pay for the enormous cost of federal borrowing that crowds out business credit, every time you buy anything. You pay for quite a few federal follies every time you buy anything. Yet, Passell doesn't even mention this. It's fine to catch mice, but not when there are several elephants stampeding around in your living room.

If Americans would stop voting for the Demopublicans (who control the ballot, by the way), this enormous taxation could be removed from our backs. The Demopublican Party is essentially in the business of taking your money and handing it to their real employers, which is why Demopublican members of CONgress are nearly all millionaires. How do you think they get that money? It's not by saving their nearly $200,000 a year salaries and living off their bloated perk packages.

Making a 5% return on some of your money when the govt takes 60% (or more) of all of your money is like bringing a squirt gun to a house fire. Yes, it helps, but it doesn't solve the problem.

Calculate your current portion of the $11 million million dollar current federal debt and $100 + million million of the unfunded federal obligations by dividing those numbers by the number of wage earners in the USA (about 75.6 million). Did that make you gasp? Now suppose you invest $5,000 at 5% a year, which after income taxes is 2% a year and after inflation is a minus 4% a year. Do you see the problem, here? None of Passell's recommendations overcome this reality.

Passell does mention, almost in passing, the value of investing in yourself. This should have been a chapter in itself. He mentions education, but fails to mention how you can eliminate health-related bills by adopting a healthy lifestyle. I have an immune deficiency, but because of the health practices I have adopted I haven't been sick since 1971. I've saved thousands of dollars and huge amounts of pain and suffering. Talk about a great investment!

He also fails to talk about investing in your brain power. People who watch television and people who read have such starkly different brains due to the adaptation response that any medical examiner can tell if the deceased was a reader or television watcher just by looking at the brain. If you want to be stupid (and disinformed), watch television. If you want a brain capable of dealing adroitly with today's problems, read instead of watching television. The value of this will manifest itself in real money, but also make you more fully human. What a great return on investment!

Chapter Three is entitled, "Bulletproofing Your Savings." I don't see that theme realized in the subsequent text. None of the investments he discusses can earn a high enough return to counteract inflation. He even talks about bonds in this chapter, despite the fact a bond is a guaranteed loss of wealth. I think if he'd entitled this chapter "Slow bleeding investments" then it would have been fine.

One place where he errs is his discussion of "inflation protected investments." These are all bonds. And the wealth in a bond is "borrowed" rather than owned. Thus, it can never create value or wealth. It can only store it. In our debt-based (as opposed to credit-based) monetary system, you can't get interest without inflation. Any interest paid comes from thin air, and thus must be paid by inflating the currency. Therefore, bonds cannot and do not outpace inflation.

When the govt issues its inflation figures, those figures are always understated. Sort of the way the warnings on cigarette packages understate the real costs by failing to mention impotence, bone cancer, disfigured skin, and a persistent personal stench. Like the tobacco companies, the govt has a vested interest in understating the damage it does.

To get the correct figures, you have to compare price data over time. And you can't cherry pick the data to get the results, if accuracy is your goal. The govt always cherry picks the data, so it can keep picking your pocket.

Passell does a good job in this chapter of exposing the reverse mortgage fraud. This alone more than justifies the price of the book if you were considering subjecting your parents or yourself to this kind of lunacy. The language used to sell this scheme comes straight out of the con man's handbook.

In Chapter Four, we get into investments that just might bullet-proof your portfolio. Those would be stocks, which are partial ownership of companies. Many "investors" don't understand this, and treat stocks like chips on a poker table instead of as the long-term ownership assets they are to wise investors. But don't take my word for it, just look at what Warren Buffet does.

Passell correctly points out that the average person doesn't have the resources to learn about a business before buying a piece of it. The solution is to buy shares of mutual funds. This, also, needs to be a long-term strategy because the fund managers are buying ownership in companies.

As we know, the trading value of a company can plummet dramatically in terms of dollars (share price drops). To a real investor, this doesn't mean anything. If you bought a company because you have done your homework and believe (based on solid evidence) in its products and management, then you own something valuable. What the stock exchange thinks is not relevant in the long term, because the stock exchange chases returns and stock prices instead of value and wealth creation.

This instructs how you should pick your mutual fund. An intelligent decision will take a little more time than picking an individual stock. The reason the mutual fund is a solution to the resources problem is you don't have to keep investing the time to keep picking stocks, you simply invest enough time to pick a mutual fund that invests in the kinds of companies you would pick. Passell doesn't mention this.

Passell once again discusses bonds, in this chapter. I guess if your goal is to just lose money more slowly one way rather than another, this information is worth reading. If your goal is to preserve your wealth, skip past it.

Passell ends this chapter with a concise but valuable discussion of gold and commodities. Right now, the gold scammers are sucking in victims left and right. Reading this last part of Chapter Four is required reading if you are considering putting yourself into that particular cattle chute.

Chapter Five is about various govt programs for saving for college and retirement.

Chapter Six is pretty much a "for more information" chapter. It lists various sources of information and gives you a thumbnail about each one. He lists a few financial writers also, but amazingly omits Jim Rogers! If you can read only one financial writer, Rogers should be it.

This chapter ends the book, and it ends with a subsection called "Calling the Cops." It lists a few resources for researching and reporting scams. Amazingly, it doesn't list the National Taxpayers Union, which reports on the biggest scams of all.

The Missing Chapter. There isn't a chapter on the proven method of buying items you need when they are on sale and stocking up. Yet, this is just about the only way to make a super-safe investment and secure your future.

The key isn't to buy things just because they are on sale. Do that, and you merely accumulate clutter. The key is to buy things you'd use anyhow. For example, there's a sale on motor oil, 20% off. You buy the oil. If you use it 6 months later, you've made a 20% annual profit. If the price goes up in that time, you make an even higher return.

Inflation may not stay within reasonable bounds. So even if you were able to buy everything with, say, an annual profit of 20% you could still lose wealth at an alarming rate. Of course, your 20% return is much better than the 5% return someone else is making via a financial investment.

Most people will not do the math on investing. There is no broker's statement showing you made 20% on it. So you might not understand that you made that kind of return on the investment. Plus, you are going to use the oil and then it's gone so all you see is that they spent money on oil. Yet, you made a bullet-proof

If you think about it, this example is actually a leveraged investment. It's money you were going to spend (not have) anyhow, and so you make 20% on someone else's money but do so with real goods. Pretty hard to lose in that scenario. Do this for anything you can reasonably stock up, you've made a nice return on money you otherwise would not have invested.

Conclusion

Obviously, this smallish book is meant to be a quick read rather than an encyclopedic treatise. It doesn't deliver on it subtitle, and one chapter is simply misnamed. Yet, it does provide solid advice with few errors (if you skip the stuff about bonds). Where it really falters is in its glaring omissions. This writer took the "write what you know" adage to heart, and didn't look at things from a perspective informed by the current (and classic) literature.

His list of suggested references contains exclusively periodicals and Websites, most of which are in the "mudstream media." He even mentions the New York Times, a publication that any serious analysis will show to be horribly biased and seemingly allergic to editorial integrity. It astounds me that anyone would suggest relying on it when it comes to deciding your financial future.

I think if you read this book along with others, it's helpful. Just don't consider it complete or authoritative.

Chandan Sengupta is a genius. The way he guides one through the investment jungle is unparalleled. With precise and carefully supported arguments on almost all aspects of investing, Sengupta does a magnificient job. I keep coming back again and again to this book whenever I am attracted/confused by the latest/new(and may I add dangerous?) investment fads which the investment community(and media) propagates. The words in this book at once dispel any doubts in my mind and put me back on "The Only Proven Road to Investment Success".

PS. I REALLY REALLY wish and REQUEST the author to PLEASE keep updating new revisions of this CLASSIC continuously with updates(warnings?) on new investment products - even within the index family e.g. emerging market indexes, Dimensional Fund Advisor-type enhanced index funds etc.

Most investment advice books are not well written. They are often clumsily organized and filled cover to cover with clunky, pedestrian prose. Nevertheless, you can acquire useful information from some of them, provided that they are half-way intelligible. I know that I have. A tiny few are written in a style that is almost as good as such writing gets. Chandan Sengupta's new book is as good as such writing gets. If you took all the investment advice books aimed at the general investor that have been published during the last twenty-five years and piled them on top of one another, with the worthless,the worse than worthless, and the least distinguished of them at the bottom and the better ones towards the top, Sengupta's would occupy the pinnacle. As an advice book written for an intelligent layman, "The Only Proven Road to Investment Success" is a masterpiece.

Well before Sengupta wrote his book, the results were in from the debate between active management (relying on tips, stockbrokers' advice, mutual fund managers who buy and sell on hunches and buzz and try to time the market and who charge you excessive fees for their dubious efforts) and passive investing (buying and holding very low-cost index funds which insure that you will earn a return on your investments virtually equivalent to that of the overall market). In every credible study the indexers have clearly won the day.

While some of the books on indexing are quite good, none can hold a candle to "The Only Road...." It is carefully organized, comprehensive, lucid, and very, very well written. While no book can be the be-all and the end-all, Sengupta includes nearly everything of importance in his cogent and elegant presentation. The book is not overburdened with graphs and tables, and these tools, when he does employ them, are always illuminating. (In fact, if you are not acquainted with the insidious dangers of active management, a couple of his tables surely will startle you.) Sengupta gives you precise, unambiguous instructions on how to realign your portfolio, after you have achieved an understanding of the superiority of passive investing. He even recommends specific mutual funds, rather than leave anything to chance.

No one has ever made a more persuasive case for indexing and against active management. If you are a confused investor, as I was just a couple of years ago, and are floundering around the market buying and selling without rhyme or reason, lacking a systematic approach to what you are doing, and dissatisfied with your portfolio's performance, Sengupta can set you straight. If there were only one book you could read for financial guidance, it would be impossible to find one any better than his.

Although I was already an indexer before I read Sengupta, I have never encountered a more accessible introduction to the only correct method of investing. What Sengupta has to say about retirement planning, however, is what especially impressed me . In Chapter 7, which could almost be considered a book within a book, he offers a stunningly original approach to dealing with retirement. This is exactly the type of analysis that I'd been seeking for a long time. All of the issues concerning retirement planning that I've been grappling with for so long find their resolution right here. He provides a framework within which you can rationally plan for a secure retirement. There is nothing remotely like this in any of the literature I've read. He does not shy away from problems that all the books and articles I've read leave unaddressed. For example, he even tells you which portion of your annual income in retirement should be taken out of the stock side of your portfolio and which portion out of bonds. I can't begin to describe all the brilliant insights contained in this chapter. It simply bowled me over.

Accompanying the book is a CD-ROM called "Guru," which is an extremely user-friendly program that enables you to do calculations on how much you need to save for retirement or for other specific purposes. It provides you with a wealth of pertinent information that I lack space to describe here. It's worth more than the price of the book.

If you read "The Only Road," absorb its rich contents, and act on the author's advice, you will achieve investment success. Of that, I have no doubt. If you have any fears or uncertainties concerning your retirement, you can't afford not to read his magnificent Chapter 7, where he breaks important new ground in the realm of retirement planning. I've never before published a book review. So impressed was I by Sengupta's book, I feel I owe a debt to the author. Moreover, I'm happy to alert those investors who are groping in the dark to the invaluable advice Sengupta has to offer you. Once you've read "The Only Road" and used Guru, you will abandon all the fake gurus you've been relying on and embrace the real thing.

I've tried it all ; dividend investing, momentum trading, market timing, scale trading, you name it!!! I only wish I'd started on this system long years ago...
But no matter. Fortunately, I still have time. This book will give you a proven, safe way to plan for retirement or other financial goals. It's full of common sense, and I highly recommend it if, like me, you're ready to stop losing money and get serious about your financial future.

I wish I had read this book years ago when I started with a company that offered a savings plan. I think this book could have helped me save and make more money in my 401(k).

This book is very useful and practical. It defines the terms for all the parts of and the key documents relating to your 401(k) or savings plan. It also lists lots of useful resources and websites.

I also like that this book is easy to read and has lots of interesting stories from the authors experience helping people. This is not a dry, dull book. The author has a fun, easy style that helped keep my interest.

Crista Boyles does a great job in helping people to become more aware of their financial options and decisions they can and need to make in her book, "Enron Proof Your 401(k): Steps to Keep Your Money Safe". I have felt for a while now that I needed to educate myself in order to enable me to make healthy decisions
regarding my finances in general and particularly in regards to my 401k. Reading this book is a GREAT starting place to becomming informed about the options an individual has in regards to making important financial decisions.

After hearing great reviews regarding Ms Boyles work and regrettfully missing out on an opportunity to attend one of her workshops, I aquired her book. I was so excited that I read several chapters in it that night and continued reading every spare moment I had. It is very easy reading with very useful information. With the information learned from this book I will be able to make better decisions that in the long run that will benefit my future.

Most investors want a simple formula for making reasonable gains in the stock market. The authors have done just that. Early in the book they tell you what their five simple steps are (in one paragraph) then proceed to explain why their method works. My only criticism is that the book is 1/3 text and 2/3 performance tables backing up their research. Does dividend investing work? My stock portfolio has beaten the S&P 500 for the last 2 years since I began using their technique.

Never got this item do not know why but im still waiting for it. i would love to have it cause i think it might be helpfull if anyone can help me get my item are a refund plx let me know.

This is the best book I have read on tax lien investing to date. The author is very realistic with his approach and what to expect out of it. Tax lien investing seems like a very lucrative way to invest your money. I have read 4 books on the subject and have yet to invest. Once I get through my wish list of books I will invest. Make sure this book is on your list as you learn about tax liens.

After searching through the internet and other content for tax deeds and tax certificates, I finally found a reliable and step by step guide on how to really invest in tax certificates.
Very helpful to read about the author's personal experience and his tips. I was able to follow his advice, page by page and within a short time of reading his book, I was able to participate in my first tax deed sale. The book made me feel comfortable knowing what to expect every step of the way. I highly recommend this book.

I bought Profit by Investing in Real Estate Tax Liens: Earn Safe, Secured, and Fixed Returns Every Time and Complete Guide to Real Estate Tax Liens and Foreclosure Deeds: Learn in 7 Days-Investing Without Losing Series (Investing Without Losing. Investing in Real Estate Liens was a better book with more detail.

I have not read this book, nor do I plan on doing so. I am a legal aid attorney who has represented numerous low-income folks in these kinds of tax lien matters in the District of Columbia. Most tax liens get redeemed. People don't pay their taxes because of estate issues, divorce, etc. Their delay just causes them to pay a terrific premium. In my experience, most of these investors (institutional or otherwise) are not interested in acquiring properties, especially in a market like this, but in getting the excellent rate of return. This is not the problem, and tax liens can sometimes causes families to sort out property ownership issues that are beneficial for everyone.

However, there are two problems with the law, which can result cause you as the investors causing undue problems to elderly and/or disabled folks. Please be aware of these issues and ask if yourself if you can sleep at night if you are causing homelessness. And it makes no difference morally if the next guy would do it or it's really the homeowner's/government's fault for not paying taxes or having punitive laws. You are contributing to the problem.

First issue: attorney's fees. In D.C. the attorneys representing these individuals have plenary power to charge outrageous fees for negligible services. Attorneys charge homeowners over $400 for their "services." I have seen much double-billing and out right fraud. While D.C. law, for example, only permits reasonable attorney's fees, the homeowner is punished for asking for information about the fees, as he or she is charged by the attorney for justifying them. And if the fees wind up being proper, the homeowner just dug themselves a bigger hole. Thus, the homeowner (to a large extent) is prey to the avarice of some of these attorneys. This increases the cost enormously and may result in homelessness, because of the greed of the plaintiff's attorney. While these homeowners should have paid their taxes in a timely matter, there is no excuse for causing punitive penalties that bear no relationship to the services rendered.

Second issue: the only homeowners (apart from estate purpose) who lose their homes are the elderly/disabled. They can lose their entire life savings for a few thousand dollars worth of taxes. Some mentally disabled folks are paranoid and don't understand the tax system. Is it really worth it to get this house to find this person homeless? Would you evict an elderly woman from her home? Is the money really that good?

The solution for local governments is programs for the elderly and tax liens that are only redeemed upon the sale of the property for certain low-income homeowners. The result would be robust collection of taxes by local government without causing homelessness (which has its own collateral costs that could exceed the "benefit" of collecting the taxes from an investor).

I bought this book because I had read a bunch of great articles in magazines by Tharp. I expected to hear a bunch of stuff about psycology in trading and that kind of stuff, but Tharp spends most of the effort telling about how to create a trading system that will guide your trades. He covers money management, risk management, and how to develop trading rules for your personal style.
I wish I had read this book years ago when I began trading, but hey, I've got it on the shelf now. Great reference for both new and experienced traders.

For the serious student in the field of personal finance, this book is actually written for someone above a 3rd grade reading level. Well organized, it is a progressive study of the various areas of personal wealth building, calling upon the expertise of authors for different topics. This is a must for any investor's personal library.

Safe Strategies for Fiancial Freedom is by far the best book that I have found on the process of achieving/preserving wealth and finding financial freedom SAFELY. Virtually all of the other books on these topics are Ra-Ra pep talks with few substantial tools, or they are directed at giving you a Holy Grail system. If you are looking for a Holy Grail then you need to realize that there are no Holy Grail Systems, purchase Dr. Tharp's other works, work on yourself, develop your own systems, and read this book. If you are looking to take control of your personal finances, protect and grow your capital then start here.

Of Dr. Tharp's many works, this is the most approachable (and is very approachable) for the average person, and it is very informative for the sophisticated investor. It provides a great foundation in assessing your financial picture, your responsibility for yourself and how your beliefs effect this, the components of a complete system for investing, risk control, assessing your system, the big picture of finance, and approaches to different investment catagories. At the core is Dr. Tharp's belief that whatever you trade or invest in needs to fit you. Fitting you means matching your beliefs about yourself, money, and the markets be they stock, bond, curreny, real estate, or baseball cards. If you do not believe that you can be financially free, you are not going to be. There are extensive tools provided to assist you in developing a target and game plan, continually assess where you are, what the big picture is doing, and where to find opportunity.

Unlike Dr. Tharp's previous books, this book gives you systems (sets of rules) to use. You need to decide if these fit you and your goals. If these recepies are not quite right for you, you can adapt them. Back testing of systems is discussed, and the limitations of back testing systems are elucidated. There is an extensive discussion on how to improve this limited information through simulating your system and how the information gleaned from this exercise can inform your decisions regarding Risk and Position Sizing. Risk and Position Sizing are also thoroughly discussed as these are THE KEY to reaching your goals in terms of gains and smoothness of your equity curve. The classic Tharp marble game is presented and gives you a true feeling and experience of how position sizing can dramatically effect the results of your system. These concepts are critical to turning your investing (or non-investing) into something "safe" instead of "risky".

The information in this book will repay you many times over the cost of the book and your time to read and implement its information. Read this book! Have your kids read it. Give it to family and friends, and you will be doing something to improve all of their lives. Safe Strategies for Financial Freedom Deserves a 7 out of 5.

Great book for starter investors or for those who want to understand the market!!!

I have read Van Tharp's first book, "Trade Your Way To Financial Freedom" and made a glowing review of that book....this book isn't a trading book (even though it introduces the concepts of Position Sizing, and Expectancy) ..but more of a general personal finance book...Instead of teaching you how to trade stocks...it teaches you how to trade mutual funds, and general real estate concepts (that you should look into more if you want to go that route, it'll be foolhardy to jump into real estate learned from only that book). It also tells you how to get yourself more familar with today's economy. Not only it teaches you how gets your finances in order with debt reduction and asset reallocation techniques, it shows how to protect your growing wealth and teaches your children how to start saving as well!! I wish this book was written decades ago...I'd be so much ahead...

This is the only personal finance book that gives you all the tools you need to help you go in the right direction..

One rarely reads any investment advice or book this honest and straightforward, yet easy to understand and effective. I wish all regular folks, particularly those with 401k or IRA, read this book and take charge of their own financial and retirement future. The financial and investment advisory service industry is just full of sharks, crooks, and liars, sadly the public is only too trusting and constantly feeds those sharks with hard-earned money.

This is a must-read for majority of honest, hard-working folks. The advices in the book are common sense but timeless.

I found this book very interesting and insightful. It's not really an "ABC" book to financing or anything, and I do think it's probably good to have some idea of economics and financial terms before reading. That said, the book's really pretty easy to follow and understand, and Browne does a good job of explaining concepts in various ways so you'll understand.

Mainly this book talks about ways to invest and protect your money without having to spend sleepless nights worrying about if you've invested in the right something. It outlines how to create a Permanent Portfolio, which should keep steadily growing through all economic swings.

While I can't say I can totally agree with absolutely everything Browne suggests, the majority of it I can. It's best to judge his advice for yourself, but at least he writes and discusses his ideas clearly enough so that you can evaluate it.
In short, if you're not too keen on speculating and risking (or even if you are!), this is a great book!

Browne describes a sensible and simple plan for making money with your investments. I waited over a year to review this book so I could actually try his method and build my portfolio around his idea. So far so good. You won't get rich overnight with this, but it's clear that you can maintain your asset value as well as earn money on at least one portion of your "permanent portfolio" at all times.

I'm not your average reviewer. I think it's largely a waste of time so I just pass on it.

But this time it's different. Before I met Harry Browne (through his books and radio shows), I was addicted to all sorts of financial pornography. Experts, books, forums, investing clubs, technical analysis, fundamental analysis, trendlines, P/E, book value, blah, blah, etc.

Always tweaking, never happy. I was always up at night wondering how I was going to make a mistake that would wipe me out. Then I met Harry and his wisdom.

He makes the case that no one knows what's going to happen. No one. Even the cockiest hot-shot fund managers suck over the long run. Turns out, he's right (with the notable exceptions of guys like Buffet and Templeton--but are you as good as they are?)

So I asked myself: what am I doing trying to beat the market? Over the long run, I just can't. So you should probably come to that realization too. You can't beat the market. Just let it go........

So if you can't beat the market, how do you get solid returns year after year with very little volatility? The Permanent Portfolio(PP).

Inflation, deflation, prosperity, recession. Dollar up, dollar down. No matter what's brewing, you're covered. Let everyone else debate (because they don't know anyway).

Harry's PP has returned an average of 9.9% (roughly 5-6% over inflation) with extraordinarily low volatility for nearly the last 40 years. It will do equally well in all investing climates--which puts your mind at ease.

I'll let novice investors chase the "hot" funds while I sit back and relax knowing that I'm always covered no matter what happens. That level of "peace of mind" has no value--it's priceless. Thanks Harry--you've changed my life--may you rest in peace.

Every book written by Harry Browne is worthwhile, and this is no exception.

'Fail-Safe Investing: Lifelong Financial Security in 30 Minutes' should be required reading for anyone considering investing their funds with 'hot' fund managers, 'winning' advisory services or 'can't miss' trading systems. It also lays out a solid, common sense foundation for lifelong fiscal responsibility and profitability, and should be required reading for all high school students.
Harry passed away last year at the age of 73, and he will be dearly missed by those of us who treasure his legacy of liberty, independent thinking and personal responsibility. His life was a one of a kind gift that God blessed our world with.

I'm sorry, but I put this book down after reading the first three chapters. This book takes into account strategies that only work if the individual stock or market continuously goes up. If a stock hits a new high or low, taking this books advice, you should buy ignoring all other market conditions. This will hedge your profit or loss while investing blindly into the market. No wonder why the majority of individual investors will end up losing in the stock market.

With the housing boom coming to an end, interest rates artificially being kept low, and inflation on the horizon, the book will lower your net worth for years to come.

For a man with an MIT PHD and the Managing Director of Morgan Stanley, this book is a big disappointment.

I have been utilizing the value averaging approach for about 3 years now, and am impressed with the ideas behind it. Before buying the book, I was very curious about how relevant it would be for a young accumulator like myself. I had the impression that it was a strategy geared towards people that had a lump sum to invest. I also wondered whether it was relevant for those who have already developed a well-diversified portfolio.

I found that this book is extremely useful for those that are accumulating as it helps you develop a value path that includes periodic investing. It also makes adjustments for expected growth of contributions (as your wages hopefully increase throughout your career).

As far as the second question I had: I initially believed that this value averaging approach needed to be performed on specific funds in isolation. For instance, I thought that I would need to set up separate paths for each of my funds. However, I found that the value averaging approach can be used towards the entire portfolio as a whole. The first step is to develop a portfolio with a suitable asset allocation. Then you feed money into the portfolio according to the value path. This effectively creates two layers of risk-management:
- First, you manage your risks by making sure the portfolio itself is well balanced between asset classes.
- Second, you manage your risks by adjusting the amount of money you feed into the portfolio based upon its value path.

It is important to understand the reasonings behind value averaging. For me, the use of value averaging has two important objectives:
- The first objective is a behavioral one. It allows risk averse investors like myself to find a systematic way to put money into the volatile financial markets. Because behavioral issues have a major impact on returns, I believe that this is a very important objective.
- The second objective is to dynamically adjust your asset allocation to better reflect an investor's NEED to take risk. The maximum risk you should take should be defined by your risk tolerance, and this is determined by your asset allocation (i.e. when you are feeding money into your portfolio, the money still needs to be going into the right funds to maintain balance in your desired asset allocation). However, when you are exceeding your goals, by going beyond your value path, the value averaging technique actually forces you to put more money into riskless securities (the "side" fund, which is usually a money market fund). This has the effect of temporarily reducing your equity allocation. This coincides with the idea that when you are exceeding your goals, you can afford to take less risk. I find this to be superior to the static asset allocation technique, as I do not believe in taking unnecessary risks if you are on a path to reach your goal.

I am very impressed with Edleson's ideas in this book. I think it will be very useful for any investor that has experienced anxiety putting money into the market. I give it an enthusiastic 5 stars.

Simply put, this book talks about how to continuously (and
systematically) keep investing money to reach your end goal.

After reading this book I've become a huge fan of value averaging over
DCA, primarily because of the following deficiencies with DCA:

* DCA never tells you went to sell (aka: rebalance your
portfolio). For that you need to make a market timing decision
or pick a random date to do it (suboptimal). If there was a
mechanical way of saying, its time to sell, which was optimal,
that would be good.

* If you invest $100/month in asset A; the $100 you invest in
(month 1, year 1) != the $100 you invest in (month 12, year 10),
because of inflation and the fact that over the long run the
asset A has a non-zero expected return (which is the reason you
are investing in it in the first place!)

* During severe market corrections. Think 1987 -23% style
corrections, DCA will let you buy more shares for the fixed
amount but makes no mechanical suggestion to actually buy a lot
more shares

So essentially, VA is the following:

VA is basically a formula based investing strategy like DCA but it
tells you when to sell (Think rebalancing). Here you make the value of
the fund that you own go up every month and not the actual market
price. Lets take a simplistic form of VA: Say you contribute $100
(=contribution amount C) every month to fund X. In month 1 the NAV was
$1 and you bought 100 shares. In month 2 you want the value of your
fund to go to $200, but it turns out the market price of what you own
is now $127, then you contribute only $73 in month 2. In month 3 the
fund tanks and value has gone to $150, then you need to put in $150 to
keep your value in line to $300. If in month 4 the fund goes crazy and
becomes $700 and your target was to get it to $400 you sell $300. No
other mechanical strategy tells you when to sell.

I strongly recommend fellow DCA-ers to pick up this book!

I had not heard of this technique until the book was featured on my Amazon page. I immediately purchased the book based on William Bernstein's review of the book in the foreword.

Value Averaging is a type of Dollar Cost Averaging recommended by many writers but is an improvement in that it also is a rule based dicipline for selling off portions of your portfolio on the way to your final objective. It is a buy low/sell high set of rules. The formula will be a little complex to those who abhor math, but just stick with the system to achieve superior returns.

I also recommend a little book titled How to Make Money in the Stock Market-Buy 2,500 different stocks for $1000 - Pay no Commission This book is a must for those wanting to find out about indexing (passive investing) and why it is the superior method for the small investor (and big one too). This book is an outstanding guide to personal investing. It will be useful to all investors from novices to highly the highly experienced. This book prepares the reader to approach investing from the standpoint of the underlying science. It is the antithesis of a 'get rich quick scheme'.

All aspects of Modern Portfolio Theory and passive (index) investing are explained in a through and easily understood manner. The aspect I like most is that as well as a solid theoretical foundation the book is very practical and shows the reader how to create (and more importantly) and manage over time a successful portfolio. This is a great book- for the beginning investor, it's a great place to start and for the experienced investor there are many valuable suggestions. I wrote this little book so I believe that it contains all you need to know about investing.
How to Make Money in the Stock Market-Buy 2,500 Different Stocks-Pay no Commission

While I believe the concepts in this book would work to enhance returns, (certainly the data shown in the book indicates that it does work), I think it would be hard to actually pull this off.

With conventional dollar cost averaging, you invest a pre-set amount of money (say $100 a month) on a regular basis, an agreement you set up with a mutual fund company in advance. With the Value Averaging approach, you are supposed to invest an amount that will get you a specific amount of money each month, say $100 the first month, $200 the second, $300 the third, and so on. If the market has gone up, you would need to invest less (or perhaps nothing at all, or even have to sell), if the market is down, you would need to invest more. This would likely amount to odd amounts of money invested each month. Certainly, it would help to have an accompanying cash account to pull fund from that is held through the same provided as the fund(s) being invested in, which the author recommends. In prolonged bear market, increasing amounts of money would need to be invested, perhaps eventually more than the investor could afford. In addition, you are supposed to gradually increase your monthly investment as your portfolio grows so the new money coming in continues to be meaningful. The author explains how to do this.

It certainly would take some effort to determine what to do each month, which is vast contrast to the simplicity of traditional dollar cost averaging, which is automatic. In other words, a very good concept, but it would be difficult to make it work in the real world. If you are willing to accept the extra effort involved, and could find a mutual fund company willing to accept odd amounts of money, this book could enhance your investing returns.

Although I'm a veteran investor, I enjoyed reading this well-written updated third edition by two highly qualified authors. Everyone involved in investing in the stock market, mutual funds or separately managed accounts will glean useful information from this book. Composed of 22 chapters and three appendices, this 300-page paperback covers the key basics of investing.

This no-nonsense easy-to-read text explains the importance of determining your risk tolerance before you invest, understanding the difference between asset allocation and diversification so you don't make foolish mistakes, knowing how to determine your retirement income goals and capabilities, and investing for your children's education.

Many investors do not have a clear idea of the riskiness of the stock market. Perhaps after the the Nasdaq Composite Index fell from 5048 in March 2000 to 1100 in October 2002, investors learned the hard way that risk really matters. That is why one of the key discussion points that the authors hammer home is the comparison of investment risk vs. reward. The authors cover the risk-to-reward spectrum with numerical examples, the meaning of the efficient frontier, beta, and the standard deviation. One chapter provides a blueprint of how to build a diversified portfolio in five easy steps.

Additional chapters cover the basics of investing in active and passive mutual funds, their share classes, stocks, bonds, annuities,separate accounts and company stock options. Also provided is a 17-page glossary of investment terms.

If you have never invested in the stock market or have a minimal knowledge of how to play the game, then I highly recommend that your read this book before you place your hard-earned cash in the market so that the odds are in your favor. You need at least a basic knowledge prior to investing, otherwise your may lost a large portion of your capital without realizing what happened to you, and that would be a shame.

An easy read yet full of useful info. The authors explained some concepts I'd heard often but never fully understood. I'm excited about applying the concepts to my personal portfolio and my 401k.

I was thrilled to finally get some serious and safe " how to" information on investing. I thoroughly read and enjoyed Peter Lynch's book " One Up On Wall Street", which is the true ABC guide to investing, but never felt confident enough to put my money in any sort of investment vehicle. This book helps the reader to diversify and thus reduce risk. Simple explanations and data to back up the authors' claims makes this an excellent guide for the first time investor.

A strong 5 stars!

OK, I am not a woman, so I am probably not supposed to have read this book. But I thought I would check it out. And I was pleasantly surprised.
The ladies involved in the writing of this book were involved in starting a 'Money Club' investment group. In the course of running this group, they learnt and taught about all the basics of personal finance, including (from the title headings):
* Investment Basics.
* Where To Put Your Money And Why.
* Retirement Planning.
* Buying Insurance.
* Planning Your Husband's (And Your) Estate.
* What To Do When Things Change.
Cover of the topics is fairly thorough. But, as many readers would now, the content of the majority of entry level personal finance books is all pretty standard. So, in the end it is the format and style of writing that makes a good one worth the read. Thankfully, this book is well written - relaxing and interesting to read. The inclusion of lots of personal anecdotes (especially by the members of The Money Club) makes alot of the points easier to understand and absorb. And it really drills home the importance of applying the message of the book.
All in all, a fantastic book for women, especially those 30+ worried about the state of their financial affairs. For those males (or women younger than 30), I might recommend 'The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance in Your 20s And 30s' by Sarah Young Fisher and Susan Shelly, or 'The Wealthy Barber' by David Chilton.

Melt away your fears of finances with THE MONEY CLUB. I have read a bunch of these index books about wealth, and this one is serviceable, covering most of the basics. What this book has that others don't: it reaches women on a personal level and lets us know WHY we need to start paying attention to our money and our financial futures. The ladies on the cover (members of the NYC based money club) are described just enough so that you get to almost get to know them. Interspersed throughout the text, you read about mistakes that they made before they joined the club and took back control of their lives. This personal touch made me think twice about some subjects which had made my eyes glaze over when I read about them in other books. I found the book very motivating and extraordinarily revealing. We can make a lot of mistakes in our wills and in the way we title assets: these can come back to haunt our heirs if we don't think of certain consequences. I appreciate the concrete illustrations of what can go very, very wrong! There were only a few tidbits that I did not agree with. I do not agree that a woman is helped by thinking of a diamond as a future re-sale item. On the other hand, I liked the suggestion that women who don't have their own sources of income might "ask" their husbands for a few shares of a mutual fund instead of jewelry or whatever is a fashionable marital gift these days. Whether you are a working woman or a Wife with a capital W, this book is full of eye-openers and good advice. Reading The Money Club can be a giant first step to building psychological security about your financial future.