Customer Reviews

Investing Made Simple: Index Fund Investing and ETF Investing Explained in 100 Pages or Less

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Great introductory book for index fund investing, asset allocation, and the importance of ignoring the market "chatter" that constantly tempts the investor to "do something" (even if that "something" is more likely to hurt than help). At about 100 pages, the entire book can easily be read in one sitting, and provides a great introduction to the topic.

Perhaps the most helpful message of the book is that simple investing is easy and generally beats complex investing. More activity does not necessarily lead to better investing results, and laziness (aka patience) generally outperforms efforts to produce higher returns.

By presenting this discussion in a clear, straightforward and easily-understood manner, "Investing Made Simple" lives up to its title. Easy to read, easy to understand, easy to implement - and with a good set of references for further ready, this book is a great launching point for someone interested in investing for themselves and with their own interests first and foremost. Thanks Mike!

If you are new to investing and want a short introduction this is an excellent book for you. It defines the basics concepts: stocks, bonds, mutual funds, index funds, IRAs, 401Ks, and asset allocation. It gives you solid strategies that are proven to work in the long run: avoiding taxes and fees, buying diverse investments, using an asset allocation plan, and annual rebalancing. Finally, the book warns you against common pitfalls that are hazardous to your wealth: Chasing hot funds, selling at a market low, and buying at market peaks.

What a fitting title. Finally, an investing book that doesn't try to confuse everyone and explains, in a clear and concise manner, how we can all make our money work for us.

This is a short read, but I actually applaud the author for it because if you can get the point across in 100 pages or less, why make it any longer? You'd be happy you got the book, because all you can think of after the entertaining read is why the book didn't come out before you started investing.

This is the ONLY book ANY of us needs on investing. If we have over $1000 welcome to Vanguard... if you have less than that and want to invest, well then he has the page in there with EFT's you can buy them from tdameritrade for $10 and just buy and hold.

Now all you have to do is figure out how much you want to invest in stocks and bonds, many quizes online to help you with that. Just google "asset alocation" then go out and enjoy life, because this is one area of life that really is simple. If you are better with charts (visual) like me and everyone I know... go to vanguard dot com - then click on " go to site" above the cups and below the vanguard ship you should see one of the colums says "insights", you will see a row below that starts with "overview" on the left side...

Go to the right where it says "Investing truths", there will be a box that says "the truth about risk" click on that... then scroll down the page to 3. "Are all your eggs in one basket" in those paragraphs you will see a link that says " view our model portfolio applications" click on there and you will see how stocks and bonds did, in a way that makes it look simple, with a graph etc.

Its all a matter of finding low fees and growing with the market (period) doesn't matter if you are type A or B, Tall or short male or female, this should be one of the easiest area of your life. ( I am suggesting that investing is easy, I am not suggesting that the market will do well, of course nobody knows that, but if the stock market does well, with his approach, you will do well without the extra fees most people endure).

I received this book for Christmas, and I have to admit, at first I was somewhat hesitant of this book because of its length. During a long flight home however, I decided to give it a read and I couldn't have been happier with the decision. As a young professional, I recognize how important it is to get started early in investing to one day meet my financial goals. This book clearly lays out a game plan to do so, while helping to understand/weed out much of the hype you hear about certain stocks, certain fund managers, and TV finance "guru's". The book is a perfect length, and well worth an afternoon read. The author's website ([...]) is also filled with great investing tips, and goes into further depth about many of the books topics. Highly recommended!

The perfect primer for anyone who wants to incorporate time proven investing techniques without having to become an "expert".

Written for the layman in simple, direct, concise language...if one takes the suggestions and recommendations of this book to heart, time and the proper asset allocation will take care of most of the rest.

Highly recommended, especially for those who thought they couldn't do it for themselves.

Great introduction for anyone new to the subject. Excels really in its brevity. Conveys the critical information and keeps free of jargon. Great for people new to the subject but probably not suited for more experienced investors. If you already know what fund TER and Portfolio Turnover are then you are probably not going to learn much.

This is a good overview of the widely agreed upon principles of investing. At the end, he lists 20-25 books and blogs as "Helpful Resources". I would describe this book as a short summary of the common points on investing between all those other resources.

This book is great for its intended audience (beginning investors). If you already know the benefits of index funds and a good asset allocation, you probably won't get much out of it though.

This is a great introduction to investing, from picking funds to picking retirement accounts. And at less than 100 pages, it's such an easy read. Mike Piper is great at explaining complicated ideas simply, which is what makes his blog, The Oblivious Investor, so great. Many gems of financial knowledge can be gained from this book. If you are panicking about what to do with your retirement accounts and have no idea where to begin, then this is the book for you.

This book is tremendously simple and straightforward and provides a great background for those that are interested in the topic but don't have much time to spend collecting all the research. This book puts all the pertinent information into a single short read that doesn't make you have to go elsewhere to look. Highly recommended!