How to Retire Rich: Time-Tested Strategies to Beat the Market and Retire in Style (Paperback)

~ James O'Shaughnessy (Author) "What is rich?..." (more)
Key Phrases: rich retirement, utility strategy, annual compound return, Reasonable Runaways, Dogs of the Dow, Social Security (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Some investment books claim only one true path to stock-market riches. Fund manager James O'Shaughnessy has five, and he has the data to back them up. He was the first independent researcher to be granted full access to a Standard & Poor's database containing computerized information on almost 10,000 stocks going back to 1951. From the data, O'Shaughnessy derived five portfolio-building strategies that, over the past 45 years, have consistently beaten the market average. How to Retire Rich also contains a wealth of useful information on mutual funds, online trading, and using the Internet to research stocks.

From Library Journal

The author, a statistical analyst and founder and president of O'Shaughnessy Capital Management, Inc., builds on his previous What Works on Wall Street (McGraw-Hill, 1996) to demonstrate how investing in the stock market can lead to wealth and security in one's later years: "The path to achieving investment success is in studying long-term results and finding a strategy or group of strategies that make sense." O'Shaughnessy offers strategies based on historical perspective that should beat the Standard & Poor 500 because they involve aggressive investing in not-so-well-known smaller companies. In addition to strategies, he covers good and bad points of mutual funds, making the most of 401k plans, market fluctuations, portfolio management, and a timely chapter on where to find information. This often-quoted author's opinions are presented in a readable style, with several family scenarios providing perspective.
-?Steven J. Mayover, Free Lib. of Philadelphia
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Broadway (December 29, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767900731
• ISBN-13: 978-0767900737
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #682,231 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't use the formulas--unless you want to get rich!, March 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: How to Retire Rich (Hardcover)

Jim O'Shaughnessey founded the Cornerstone Growth mutual fund. Subsequently, it was sold to Hennessey Funds and is going strong under new manager Neil Hennessey. The fund is strictly managed according to the "reasonable runaway" formula set forth in the book. For 2001, it gained over 12%, beating the S&P by more than 24%. It is now up approximately 8% for 2002. Morningstar now rates the fund 5-star. (I have no connection with O'Shaughnessy or Hennessey other than investing with them.) It is also easy to run the formulas, and buy the stocks online yourself. It just makes sense--buying value stocks which have appreciated over the past year. Jim's research shows that these stocks will continue to appreciate. Value + momentum = profits. The formula predicts 17% average gains over time and in fact the strategy has earned about 16.9% over the last 5 years, with no significant help from the tech runup. Run the numbers for yourself--17% will make you rich pretty darn fast. Highly recommended reading, and unique among the stock market books I've read for actually making sense and working.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Will motivate you to take investing more seriously, March 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: How to Retire Rich (Hardcover)

This book is now part of a series I will use to educate my children about the values of time and discipline for investment strategies. My plan is to get their attention and then lead them to long-term growth strategies. On the other hand, the strategies in this book are a bit difficult to follow unless you use the mutual fund approach. And, like some others, I also am very concerned about the 1.5% expense fees (or more) that the O'Shaughnessy funds charge. That just seems excessive especially in light of the narrowing spread vs. the S&P index over the last few years for each strategy as indicated in his data. Taking 1.5% or more off the top can change things a great deal. It seems to be a common fault with all such books to ignore trading costs or expenses in determining their returns. Try meshing these strategies with those of John Merrill in Beyond Stocks. Combining asset allocation and aggressive investing seems to be the way to go. Once again, I would love to hear from the author about those fees in his funds.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but..., March 3, 2000

By A Customer

I first read this book about 2 years ago and decided to put the Rational Runaways strategy to the test. After about three months, most of the stocks were up and the portfolio as a whole was up about 15%. Then, one by one, the majority of the stocks faded, then crashed. After a year, I was down about 15%. I decided to combine O'Shaugnessy's strategy with William O'Neill's, plus the considerable information available from Technical Analysis of Stock Trends, by Edwards and Magee. I pick stocks that meet O'Shaugnessy's criteria, that are also in solid uptrends. I sell them when they begin to trend down. Half of my stocks have gone up, half down. I've sold the losers for an average loss of 10%, the winners for an average gain of 25%. My average holding time is 3 months. I've been doing a bit better than 30% per year, and these are not net stocks or dot.coms. These are companies with real and growing earnings, reasonable pe ratios and low ps ratios. It's easy to mistake a bull market for genius, but so far, I believe I've found a strategy that will do well in any market environment.