Customer Reviews

The Unbeatable Market: Taking the Indexing Path to Financial Peace of Mind

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nobody can beat the market consistently, ron ross says, and so nobody should really try. go with the market and you'll stay solvent even in the worst of times. in clear, intelligent english, backing every argument with lots of evidence, ron ross, once a professor of economics and now an investment adviser, provides an overview of modern investment theory that actually makes sense. if the last couple of years have blown your confidence in the stock market, this book will restore your faith.

I am an author of three books on Modern Portfolio Theory and as the director of research for an investment advisory firm I read many books on investing every year---this is one of the best books I have read in recent years, doing a great job of explaining why the markets are efficient. Ron is an excellent teacher, using simple analogies to make often difficult concepts easy to understand.
Anyone interested in learning how the market really works, and not how Wall Street wants and needs you to believe it works, (and that should be everyone)should read this book

Wow, this book is simply a must have. I am the holder of an MBA, and am currently researching various aspects of passive investing towards a Ph.D, so am very familiar with the terrain. I bought the book thinking that it would trot out the same old arguments in favour of indexing. Prof. Ross does this, but in a manner that is lucid, unique in its approach and totally convincing. He does not pull his punches, and truly has a remarkable knack of conveying his message in a manner that makes the subject appealing. Even if you do not subscribe to the passive investing philosophy it would do you good to buy the book as it will challenge your existing thinking. If you are one of those that has been burnt by recent market events I encourage you to buy this book first before all others. The next in line would be Four Pillars by William Bernstein.

Are you frustrated by your investment mistakes? Do you have very little confidence that you will know how to avoid the same mistakes in the future? Join the club!! Here is a book that explains why you feel so helpless, and offers, in my opinion, the only sensible way to invest. Understand this: the best you can hope for is to achieve market returns while managing risk. You will not beat the market, and all the hype of the talking heads and investment magazines is noise, not information. This is a wonderfully informative book that has helped me understand why I have made poor investment choices in the past, and given me a plan of action for the future. If you think you know how to invest and beat the market, lotsa luck. If you want to invest sensibly, read this remarkable book.

Note: this is not a book that appeals to your greed with a get rich quick philosophy. Quite the contrary. Dr. Ross takes you on a guided tour of how and why the markets work, why all the hype of Wall Street can be so misleading to investors, and how you can invest efficiently. And efficiency, as Dr. Ross explains, means avoiding waste - wasted money, wasted time, wasted aggrivation. Work smarter, not harder, as I like to say.

The Unbeatable Market is the clearest statement yet as to why using index funds is the superior investment alternative. The Wall Street crowd will hate this book. It exposes their doomed strategies and uses devastating logic and scientific evidence to prove the case. This is a highly rewarding book to read and quite thought provoking. The Unbeatable Market is destined to become an extremely controversial book, although I feel sorry for anyone taking the other side of the debate.

Correctly understanding the securities markets and how the financial industry ticks is critical to one's financial health. No other book I know does a better job in wading through the patently false, unscientific nonsense that banks, brokerages, the financial media and nine out of ten book authors typically disseminate. Why to they do that? Simple. It maximises their commissions or circulations at the expense of investors' net returns. Why is it simple? Because a large number of investors believe the rubbish that Wall Street and the media yells at them since it sounds somehow plausible and sophisticated. Other "eductated" investors allow their greed and "overconfidence" to get the better of them and hence fall for the same hogwash. This book explains it all and it is surprisingly entertaining. Strong buy!!

Are you a trader, or even a gambler, without knowing it? In The Unbeatable Market Ron Ross shows you how a person who intends to be an investor is usually hoodwinked by the financial world into putting his money at unnecessary risk while forgoing even an average rate of return. Just a few simple, but extremely important concepts (which Ross thoroughly explains in plain enjoyable English) woven together quite logically and well supported with facts, are enough to expose how the brokerage business and the mutual fund industry, through their own self-interest and without malice, tend to guide the investor away from successful investing. If you read this book you will see behind the illusion that has been created by marketing. Then, if you really want to be an investor, you will be able to see where the true course of successful investing lies, as distinguished from the disguised trading and/or gambling into which most would-be investors have been lured. This is the best book on investing I've ever read.

The Unbeatable Market is a must read. You will discover why the Wall Street method of investing is the biggest obstacle to your financial peace of mind.

This book debunks the Wall Street myth of being able to consistently "beat the market". In reality, any attempt to do so generally results in uncompensated risk and surprisingly high costs. The more efficient method of investing uses an academic approach and asset allocation/index funds to capture equity premiums while minimizing costs. If you are going to read just one book on investing, this is it.

This is the best book I have seen regarding investing for retirement. Don't waste your time or money trying to beat the market, just understand Dr. Ross' basic principles for dealing with a volatile market. Forget the "get rich quick" models and come down to earth and use common sense and indexing. The first 2 chapters alone are worth the price of the book.

I just finished this book and it has completely changed what I think about the stock market. The author starts off with background information on basic economics which is then used throughout the book to prove why and to what degree the stock market is impossible to beat. Before reading this book I was an avid technical analyst and despite my horrific returns, I felt that beating the market just took some more talent, skill, and a bit of luck. After reading this book--and realizing how sensible each of the author's arguments are--I've decided to face the facts and hang up my trendlines for good. Although the book is quite frankly disheartening, I am glad that I read it before I wasted any more of my hard earned money trying to find hot stocks.
The only thing that I felt should have been more thoroughly covered in the book was the effect that emotion plays in the stock market. Clearly the market isn't quite as efficent as the author believes when we see stocks such as amazon and yahoo get bid up to such astronomical levels in the late 90s. And it would be tough to explain how efficient stock prices are to those who were smart enough to short those stocks in 2000.
All in all though, this is an amazing and eye-opening book to say the least. Anyone who tries to beat the market through actively managed mutual funds or through trading NEEDS to read this book. Well written, easy to understand, and convincing as hell. Take the commission fee from your next trade and use it to buy this book instead.