Investing is all about common sense. Owning a diversified portfolio of stocks and holding it for the long term is a winner's game. Trying to beat the stock market is theoretically a zero-sum game (for every winner, there must be a loser), but after the substantial costs of investing are deducted, it becomes a loser's game. Common sense tells us, and history confirms, that the simplest and most efficient investment strategy is to buy and hold all of the nation's publicly held businesses at very low cost. The classic index fund that owns this market portfolio is the only investment that guarantees you your fair share of stock market returns.

To learn how to make index investing work for you, there's no better mentor than legendary mutual-fund industry veteran John C. Bogle. Over the course of his long career, Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group and creator of the world's first index mutual-fund, has relied primarily on index investing to help Vanguard's clients build substantial wealth. Now, with The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, he wants to help you do the same.

Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing will show you how to incorporate this proven investment strategy into your portfolio. It will also change the very way you think about investing. Successful investing is not easy. (It requires discipline and patience.) But it is simple - for it's all about common sense.

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Listening Length	5 hours and 7 minutes
Author	John C. Bogle
Narrator	Thom Pinto
Audible.com Release Date	February 20, 2007
Publisher	Macmillan Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B000NJXF6E
Best Sellers Rank	#13,708 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #38 in Stocks #67 in Commerce (Books) #155 in Stock Market Investing (Books)

Customer reviews

5 star		77%
4 star		13%
3 star		6%
2 star		2%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from the United States

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JayBob53

The Oasis Where Every Successful Investor Must Eventually Drink

Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2016

Verified Purchase

Since I first challenged an "investment advisor" to show me HIS portfolio of stocks many years ago (He would not.), I have been very reluctant to follow the advice of such people. After thirty years of investing, I have come back to my first impression: indexing is the way to go. I started out when I was very young, controlled my expenses, saved, and now I work whenever I feel like it. I have weathered all the recessions and have never panicked and sold; I live below my means and never look at my portfolio; you don't lose money until you sell. Indexing and remaining cool have paid off handsomely; now if I could just teach my two sons all I have learned ...

328 people found this helpful

Helpful

Tyler Mercier

Amazing things I did not know about the hidden costs of mutual funds

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2017

Verified Purchase

Common Sense Investing
I found a lot to like about the The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns by John C. Bogle. Mr. Bogle was the founder of The Vanguard Group and is famous for creating the world’s first index mutual fund in 1975, the Vanguard 500 Index Fund.
The logic of his index fund was to invest in a large number of stocks, all the stocks comprising the S&P 500, to make money from the combination of their growth and dividends. This is a departure from the more common view of investing in undervalued stocks to make money from an increase in their stock value.

Bogle makes a convincing argument that the best way to get the value from the stock market is to invest in all the stocks by buying mutual funds based on indexes of the market that invest in all the stocks.

The author points out that the real net income from stock investments is the investments’ gain minus the cost of the investments. The costs are relatively easy to determine in the case of retail brokers charging for a stock trade when buying or selling stocks. However, the costs are much more complicated for mutual funds because, in addition to the cost of the trade, in many cases there is an annual incentive sales fee for the broker for up to five years (up to 1.5% a year according to the author). I had no idea that there were hidden sales fees in addition to the purchase fee charged by the brokers. In addition to annual fees, most mutual funds typically have additional management fees of 2 to 3%. In comparison, index funds have low management fees (often .4% or lower) with no hidden sales fees.

What is more disturbing is that 99% of mutual funds significantly underperform the S&P 500 index. When the excessive costs combined with the underperformance of mutual funds are compared to S&P index funds, the long term income differences are shocking. The net return after taxes of $10,000 invested in an indexed fund from 1980 to 2005 would have been $76,200 versus $16,700 for other mutual funds (for those mutual funds that survived). This represents 456% more net income to the investor with far less risk.

If you are one of the 85% of investors who let their broker "manage" their assets, Bogle’s book may keep you awake at night. To sleep better, I switched to low cost, low risk index funds.

The author’s perspective is unique since he invented the very first indexed funds. It is a little like reading Thomas Edison's thoughts about the light bulb. Bogle knows the issues and history of investing in indexes versus other types of mutual funds.

This "common sense investing" book was easy to read and easy to understand. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting their investments to produce more income with less risk. Five Stars and hats off to the founder of index investing.

97 people found this helpful

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Jill Barger

SO helpful. I went over this book with my ...

Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2017

Verified Purchase

SO helpful. I went over this book with my money manager, and no surprise, he had all this BS to say about how Bogle is wrong. Needless to say, I fired the money manager. Investing has always seemed mysterious, which is what they want you to think! With this and a few other books, I feel just competent enough to do it myself (with a little help from friends and the Bogle website).

37 people found this helpful

Helpful

I'm Just Sayin'...

Retire early or work forever, your choice.

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2019

Verified Purchase

The book could make the difference between retiring early or working for the rest of your life. Jack Bogle uses interesting stories and examples to make his case. The book opposes the business model used by most 401Ks and investment firms. It would be ridiculous to think these points could be made without stories, examples, math and historic review. Anyone that gives this book less than a 5 star rating is probably a stock broker or "professional" money manager. Jack Bogle is trying to keep them out of your pocket. So there's an entire industry in fear of this book.
Warren Buffett said; Jack Bogle did more for the individual investor than anyone he’s ever known.
Buy it, read it and pass it on.

6 people found this helpful

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fig

This is an eye opener to the support of the “investing institutions”

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2019

Verified Purchase

Anyone that wants to invest in mutual funds should read this little book. Everyone in the financial investing world gets paid. Find out how it doesn’t have to come from your investment money. (Investigate Fidelity Investments Zero Mutual Funds, no cost)

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Nic

True to it’s title... simple common sense

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2018

Verified Purchase

I can’t remember how I heard about this book, but am very glad I did and read it from cover to cover. Initially I bought this book as research for a work project and I’ve never been much of an investor other than my work retirement funds etc. The author really hammers the same ideas over and over again, and I am glad he does.

This book shined a new light and I have to say has made me a bit more of a savvy investor. I started looking at funds in a different way. I even took Bogle’s advice.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

K. Moss

Uncle Jack delivers

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2013

Verified Purchase

On one level, I would concur with other reviewers of this book. It is just a tad repetitive - Bogle makes his key points fairly early on (minimise costs, don't try to second-guess the markets, avoid the poisoned-chalice of 'timing', buy the appropriate risk-graded market exposure using passives etc) and then keeps coming back to them later on.

However...and it's a big however. In practice, I think the repetition is important. It is only superfluous for those who may have already learned the lessons, bought into the underlying logic. The fact is that the preponderance of investors (and, apparently, fund managers) still believe in an Alice-in-Wonderland world of investment which is all about special insights, market timing, leveraging and unfeasibly complex investment products or strategies. In the UK, many IFAs still attempt to 'pick the winners', akin to having a day at the races, except one's entire future wealth prospects depends upon the outcome. Bogle circles around, and comes back to his themes, but exploring them in different contexts, and with different examples.

The author deals with all of this. He writes beautifully, and clearly. He is always forthright, and the text breathes commonsense and belief in every sentence. He also very usefully handles the issue of fads - for instance, chapter 15 supplies some much needed clarity on the pitfalls of ETFs, which often appear to be embraced somewhat indiscriminately by investors and advisers alike. There are eighteen chapters, which may seem a lot for "The Little Book of...", but they are short chapters, and they provide access to the subject-matter in bite-size chunks. This is eminently readable, even for busy people with little time for reading.

Overall, this is a very useful book of practical guidance on the subject of investing. I would also recommend very strongly Jack's other seminal book, 'Enough': Enough True Measures of Money, Business, and Life by Bogle, John C. ( Author ) ON Jun-25-2010, Paperback

24 people found this helpful

Chris Downing

Good, but short and a little bit lacking

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

I've been trying to learn more about investing for quite a while, but this is the first book I've bought on the topic.

"The Little Book of Common Sense Investing" is focused on the use of index-linked funds, which are described as the ideal investment tool for people who don't want to get too involved in stock-watching, but want an investment which has a good chance of soundly beating the returns offered by cash savings accounts over the long term.

With the author John Bogle being one of the key players in the field of index funds (albeit now retired), one could easily anticipate a certain unfair bias in favour of these products. There does appear to be a certain element of this, as no mention is given of any potential disadvantages to index funds (other sources confirm that they do exist to some degree). That said, the book gives very clear examples of why an index fund can be generally expected to beat the alternatives, and provides an excellent argument for why this should be one of the main investment tools for everyone except die-hard gamblers.

I wish the book was a little longer, with some discussion of the disadvantages of these index funds and a clearer display of how level-headedness and the Dunning–Kruger effect contribute to people being so determined that they can beat the market.

5 people found this helpful

Mr. Andy Mcgowan

Genius from the founder of Vanguard

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

If you want to cut through all the financial pornographers in the investment management industry this is the book to buy

Cuculan

Worth Reading

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2016

Verified Purchase

Avoids the hype, the jargon, the wild promises of super wealth, just tells you how to make some decent money,

2 people found this helpful

Jon F.

Easy read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 30, 2018

Verified Purchase

Good book but could have been a bit shorter

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