Kenneth L. Fisher

Overview:
Investing is difficult, otherwise many would be investing and earning a lot. Even long time profession investors and advisors, make a lot of mistakes. Financial markets are really complicated, making investing based on probabilities rather than on certainty. Although the book’s focus is on debunking myths, which claim to be more certain than reality shows. The book’s lesson, is error reduction. By not following myths, the error rate can be reduced. Not completely, but less errors means more successes. The way the myths are debunked is by challenging the myths, by checking the history and data of the myths. Questioning the myths, then testing and verifying claims made. For the myths presented, and many myths not in the book, the reader and investors are asked to challenge them. To challenge not only the myths, but also the author’s own claims.

Caveats?
Although the arguments express complexity of the ideas, the claims from the myths are sometimes dismissed too eagerly. Dismissing potentially valuable lessons. Reducing the errors of the myths, can turn them into a better source of information.

This is not an introductory book. To get a lot of value out of reading the book, the reader needs to know a lot of the language, the jargon of finance and investing. As the book tries to be a guide on what to avoid in investing, the idea is to consider how the debunked myths influence the reader’s participation in financial markets.… (meer)