A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing FROM THE PUBLISHER
Here, in the newest edition of a perennial bestseller, Burton G. Malkiel maps a clear path through the post-dot-com financial minefield and gives individual investors the information they need to manage their money with confidence. Now more than ever, this sure-footed, irreverent, and vastly informative volume is the best investment guide money can buy. In A Random Walk Down Wall Street you will learn the basic terminology of Wall Street, how to navigate its turbulence, and how to beat the pros at their own game -- with a user-friendly, long-range investment strategy that really works. Skilled in the ways of Wall Street, Malkiel shows why a portfolio of securities that simply buys and holds all the securities in a broad index is most likely to exceed the performance of securities carefully picked by professionals using sophisticated analytical techniques. Investing is too murky a venture to be undertaken without first reading this time-tested guide. You'll learn how to assemble a basic portfolio; the role that your portfolio should play alongside other financials of interest vying for your attention, such as home ownership and life insurance; and how to estimate the potential returns of the stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate trusts, and other items you will consider for your investment portfolio.
Savvy to irrational exuberance, deceptive sales pitches, and institutional change, Malkiel brings his characteristic clarity to this completely revised and updated edition, illuminating key decisions facing contemporary investors. Overwhelmed in choosing a fund? Decode the rating game for mutual funds, and discover the unique advantages of index funds over the wide range of riskier -- and more expensive -- alternatives. Concerned about the global economy? Learn the benefits that come with the risks of international investing. Feeling battered by the taxman? Capitalize on the latest opportunities for reducing, and even eliminating, the tax bite from investment earnings. This latest edition also includes an update of Malkiel's invaluable "Life-Cycle Guide to Investing," showing how to match an investment strategy to each stage of your life. Sound advice for the wary but ambitious investor, A Random Walk Down Wall Street proves once again that it is possible to be smart and rich.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
The eternal truth of this updated investment classic, originally published in 1973, is simple: you can't beat the market. Well, technically, you can beat the market, but not profitably, because the transaction costs of your brilliant trading will eat up the extra returns. You can also beat the market by pure luck-but you can't deliberately beat the market, because you can't predict future stock prices. You can't predict them by divining Wall Street's crowd psychology; or by charting trends in stock prices; or by doing lots of research on companies' business prospects. You can't predict them from hemlines (though there's been "some evidence" for correlation between skirt length and market prices in the past, Malkiel poo-poos future possibilities) or Super Bowl winners (this, he says, makes "no sense"). In fact, according to the efficient market theory, which states that all knowable information about a stock's value is already reflected in its share price, you can't predict them at all. Malkiel, a Princeton economist and professional investor, backs it all up with statistics, charts and studies, and gives an entertaining review of the sorry history of market bubbles, panics and delusions of omniscience, from the Dutch tulip craze to the Beardstown Ladies. This edition looks at new wrinkles (it seems you can't beat the market by buying companies with ".com" in the name), and provides a lucid overview of novel investment vehicles. Standing by his notorious claim that "a blindfolded chimpanzee throwing darts" at the NYSE listings could pick stocks as well as the Wall Street pros, Malkiel advises investors to "buy and hold" a diversified portfolio heavy on index funds that passively mirror the market, which usually out-perform actively managed funds. His witty, acerbic style and persuasive arguments will delight readers but, alas, leave Wall Street unmoved. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Why would anyone want to invest in the stock market today? Malkiel (economics, Princeton) was trying to answer that very question when he first published this book in 1973. Over the years, the work has proved to be a hardy perennial among amateur and professional investors alike-and it's gratifying to see it bloom once more, offering ample updated information. Malkiel takes an academic, no-nonsense attitude toward Wall Street, emphasizing a more random approach to stock selection and thereby debunking a lot of the more technical methods people use to decipher the stock market. He advocates sticking to index fund investments, as well as diversifying one's portfolio, frequently reminding the reader that a "buy-and-hold-strategy" has higher returns. Of course, it's only human nature to want to make a killing in the stock market and "throw your money away on short, get-rich-quick speculative binges." But Malkiel argues that this makes no sense, and he dramatically emphasizes his point by examining the various historical investment bubbles and their staggering losses. Malkiel has a somewhat didactic style-he occasionally sounds as if he's shaking his finger at the reader-but his message continues to resonate. Recommended for all investment collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/02.]-Richard Drezen, Washington Post/NYC Bureau, New York City Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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