The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need: Newly Revised and Updated |
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| Title: | The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need: Newly Revised and Updated |
| Author: | Andrew Tobias |
| Publisher: | Harvest Books |
| Type: | Book / Paperback |
| Publication Date: | 07 January, 1999 |
| ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0156005603 / 9780156005609 |
| List Price: | $13.00 |
| You Save: | $12.11 |
| Amazon Price: | $0.89 (via Amazon marketplace seller) |
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
Revised throughout and expanded with new information on Internet investment resources, this personal finance classic is “so full of tips and angles that only a boobie or a billionaire could not benefit” (New York Times). Index.
Amazon.com Review
Personal-finance guru Andrew Tobias slams online trading and praises the Roth IRA in his newly revised The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need. This investment bible remains as stimulating and meaningful as it was when it was first published 20 years ago. It's packed with ideas about stocks, living beneath your means, tax planning, retirement, and just about everything else in the financial world. And all of it is presented with Tobias's trademark brevity and ingenuity. Last revised in 1995, the guide takes aim at a new game in town--online trading. By all means, use the Internet for buying a car or for research, Tobias says. But avoid cyberspace brokers, he says. Point and click enough and you will get slaughtered by commissions, spreads, taxes, and human nature. "It's so easy to click 'OK' a few times and make a $10,000 bet," he warns. "Look how mesmerized we become on a stool in front of a slot machine. Internet investing positively teases you to play." Tobias's favorite new entry is the Roth IRA, which allows you to withdraw your money tax-free when you retire. It's far better than a traditional IRA, he asserts. "Save yourself the trouble of agonizing over the choice and go with the Roth IRA," he writes. "Forget the worksheets." Sometimes caustic and always a skeptic, Tobias believes readers can shape their own financial futures. Just stick to the basics, he says. "By and large, you should manage your own money, via no-load mutual funds," he writes. "No one is going to care about it as much as you." It doesn't matter if it's 1978, 1998, or even 2008. The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need still is exactly that. Some things never change. --Dan Ring
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Customer Reviews:
• How Could You Afford Not To Read This Book?
03 April, 2009
This book is everything there is for common sense spending. You can either read this book and avoid common costly mistakes or learn it hard way by committing those mistakes. Choice is yours. I have given this book to my son for as his 18th birth day gift.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Great Starting Point
06 January, 2010
This books an excellent starting point for someone trying to learn the basics of investing. I was expecting the book to be a little more advanced but I did buy this book for a senior level investing course most of which I have seen before. Nevertheless, this is still a great book. The author uses simple examples and is very humorous which keeps the reader entertained. The author mentions several times throughout the book that this is not "the only investment book you will ever need"! However, many people agree this is a good starting book. In the text Tobias makes you realize how much money people waste or do not use to it's full investing potential. He covers the basic investment instruments and what levels of risk you will be taking with them. The author really feels strong about taxes too. He talks about taxes a lot and how to avoid paying an arm and a leg on them. Overall it was an excellent book that I did not learn as much as I would have like because I have seen many of the topics before, but I really enjoyed reading the book.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Pays For Itself With The First Chapter
05 February, 2010
I decided to pick up this little gem of a book after reading John Train's The Craft of Investing for a third time. Mr. Tobias's book was cited in The Craft as recommended reading. Having enjoyed The Craft (and a few other books by Train), I took a lark and put this book on my reading list. After reading it twice, I can safely say that Mr. Tobias knows of what he speaks.
There are three principal demerits to the book. First, it seems that author went to Harvard (pronounced Hah-vuhd, for those in the know). Second, it appears that he studied business at Harvard. Third, it also appears that he graduated from Harvard. Ad hominem attacks aside (with regard to his studies at the Harvard Business School, Mr. Tobias engages in a fair bit of witty self-deprecation in the Preface of this fine little book), there's really nothing wrong per se with the book.
I am of the opinion that the book pays for itself with the first chapter. The key to investment success is the perspective one brings to bear on the activity. Other, more erudite folks have written on the difference between investment and speculation, formulating an investment policy, and investment strategy, but here, in this book, you have a very funny guy, writing in a down-to-earth fashion, telling you that it's not about choosing which game to play or how best to play the game- it's really about deciding whether or not you should be playing any of the games at all. That, in a nutshell is the heart of the book.
Of course, there is the usual investment advice and standard fare that any introductory investment text would include (which doesn't apply to me so I won't elaborate on it). This is the book that I would give to someone who knows absolutely nothing about investment, and that is in need of a sound and safe perspective to guide him or her.
I did find one little problem in the book, having to do with his example dealing with buying wine in bulk as opposed to buying it by the bottle. His calculation of the annual interest rate (APR) achieved by buying in bulk is almost correct (the actual interest rate works out to be about 3.6% per week; he implied an interest rate of 3.4% per week or an APR of 177% per year); he simply erred on the timing of the cash flows, given the way he posed the problem. That minor error aside, the example, as well as the greater text, serves as a wonderful reminder that the safest investment moves are usually the ones closest to the budding investor.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Practically Required Reading--even In 2010.
05 June, 2009
This was the first investment book I read, and it still stands out as one of the most commonsensical, though I'm afraid at a later stage of life--when questions about social security, annuities, Roth IRAs, ETFs, medicare and health insurance, wills and estates loom large--it's especially suitable for a youngster or someone just looking to get their feet wet. One of the charms of the first edition was its singular compactness and economy--by the time of the 2002 edition, however, it had begun to pack on some weight at the expense of what made it unique in the first place. It's continued to get lengthier, though it's still a bargain.
Since the first edition of this book, the markets have become so complex and media-blanketed that a lot of the Benjamin Graham practical advice no longer applies (just ask someone who invested huge sums in mutual funds at this time a year ago, only to see it all sliced in half just several months later). On the other hand, people who follow CNBC and the second-by-second gyrations of the markets still tend to labor under the old illusions about how to "beat" the market--and indeed some do, whether due to chance (most likely) or some magical formula or insight. But win or lose, these latter-day market mavens become so absorbed in the moves of the exchanges, they're apt to miss out on the more significant changes in their personal lives and the world around them.
But controversial though the title may be, "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need" is a statement that's closer to the truth than not. Tobias has a remarkable nose for all of the "fat" when it comes to managing money. People spend countless hours fine-tuning their investments on a daily, obsessive basis, wasted hours that will never be repaid by a slightly lower mutual fund fee or a lucky "hot stock" pick. If you "know" what your doing--not simply in terms of playing the game but that what you're doing "is," in fact," a game (especially now that the internet bombards us with more information in a single second than can be registered in a life-time), then fine. Set up 3 computer screens in addition to a television monitor with Jim Cramer hollering away--and have fun. But be aware that it is a game, that one-click trading quickly becomes a form of addiction, and that you're not doing much for humanity or your own social life--in fact, the isolation that many people feel is merely increased by this sort of illusory "action."
On behalf of the "opposition," I would partly refute Tobias by pointing out the drastic reduction of fees for most stock transactions (from $55 when I started in the early '80s to $10 or even less per transaction in 2010). I would also hold up the year 2008--when the financial systems and banks fell apart, with the consumer taking the biggest hit, losing half of his 401K or mutual fund investment--as a time that understandably changed thinking about the way the game is played. You lose 50%, and it's not going to be easy to gain 100%, which moreover will accomplish no more than bringing you back to even. As a result, greater vigilance, along with "cost-averaging," makes more sense than when Tobias wrote his book.
Still, for the most part Tobias is on the money--even in 2010--and the modest price of his book suits his philosophy of not throwing money around heedlessly or wasting all of your time trying to make money out of money. instead, make "something," or make the world a better place. Or, instead of putting all of the emphasis on "making a living," how about simply "living" for a change? In short, the beauty of Tobias' book is that it provides an example of how to step back, put finances in perspective, and acquire a "big picture." For those who feel they are no longer in control of a manageable world or who experience non-stop stomach-churning and incessant tweaking of numbers when it comes to investing and money, Tobias' little book is to the world of finance what Strunk's classic "The Elements of Style" is to grammar and the English language. We could all profit from more books like it.
- Amazon Customer Review
• My Financial Bible
23 September, 2009
I've read a lot of financial books over the years, but this one is the basis for my whole orientation on money. Fun and easy reading for becoming financially healthy.
I bought this copy for my brother in law... it's maybe the 20th copy of the book I've given away. My kids will all get one when they are older. I just wish someone had given it to me when I was 18!
- Amazon Customer Review
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