tjreed15's review

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informative fast-paced

4.0

rachelellyn's review

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5.0

Excellent advice.

bbuss's review

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3.0

TL;DR: It's a good book if you don't take Phil's advice into how to start a portfolio and don't try to "time the market", focus on "time *in* the market" :)

The core concepts of Phil's investment strategy is sound, although a bit cheesy: Don't loose money.
Phil expect to do this by getting into companies which value will quadruple in 10 years on average (~15% compound annual growth rate) while also buying them when they are cheaper (or in Phil's words, buy a dollar bill for 50 cents). In the end, the goal is to even if your company don't growth with the perfect case you had in mind, you built enough margin of safety to be ok with it.

The way he find those companies is also reasonable, from getting a company that has meaning for you, to looking at a few (5) statistics from them - to either gauge if they are solid and if they can keep growing as expected - to finally doing a bit of research on their CEO to have a sense if it's someone you can trust or not. (As you can see, there is more here than what you can pack into 15 minutes a week, but I hope this don't turns anyone down from the book.)

I also really appreciate when Phil's goes on to explain why an individual private investor can actually get better results than professional fund managers. I think all of the reasoning here is pretty good.

Now, for the not so good parts there is two main ones that really bothered me:
1) Phil's advocate to time the market. Not only when to enter, as you are looking for a good price (and you can see how much Phil is passionate about *not* believing in the Efficient Market Theory, which I think it's fair to have opinions on theories) but also by moving in and out of your positions based on a few (3) technical indicators.

The second part bothers me, and everyone should be aware that "time *in* the market" beats by miles "time the market" by now. Unless your goal is to become a trader instead of an investor.

A last remark here is that it's highly dependent on the taxation regime of where you're investing, so take this with a huge bag of salt. For example in UK, one would need to pay 0.5% everytime they want to re-enter the position, not counting the capital gains realised of exiting them... which could kill any profit observed.

2) Phil really don't believe in diversification. For him, you use this super Rule-1 technique, find one good company and put all your money there (unless you have a lot of money). Sigh... this hurts.

What makes it worse is the example of a couple that wanted to retire in 20 years and realised they don't have enough money (their pot was something like 20k USD). And then Phil's advice was to put all 20k on a single good company (Cheesecake Factory) as the couple used his technique, it passed the checklists, the indicators, etc.

Now, imagine if for some crazy reason this particular company goes broke or something horrible happens (black swan events). This couple, will go from 20k to 0k. Really undermining their chances of building this up for their retirement.

I just cannot agree with this. I would prefer that they invest in 5 companies, maybe with a bit lower expected annual return rate (10% instead of 15%), that still passes all the Rule-1 checks, then putting everything like this into a single company.

bootman's review

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5.0

I read this book immediately after I finished Invested, the book Phil wrote with his daughter, and I binged this book in a day. I am more risk averse than most people, which is why I primarily invest in S&P 500 index funds. After learning more about Phil, I realized he's an individual stock trader, but he's just as risk averse and conservative as I am. That's why I grabbed this book. Phil Town gives you some formulas to use to make sure you get stocks at a good price while also having a decent buffer (margin of safety). As long as you do your research on companies and don't invest in what you don't know about, it's hard to see how this strategy will fail. 

My only criticism with this book is a personal one. Even though Phil says he hates math and the math for this process is "simple", it definitely wasn't for a guy like me. I had to re-read sections a few times and take extensive notes. It was definitely worth it though. I have much more confidence now in purchasing individual stocks. But if you're like me, make sure you're ready to read this book like it's a course. Take notes, practice, and you'll be fine.

bookchic71's review

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5.0

Step-by-step investing process to invest like Warren Buffet. Great read. Makes you want to follow through.

mayur's review against another edition

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4.0

I love personal Finance, so this book kept me glued due to the interesting topic. I feel that it could have been more concise, instead of 313 pages, it could have been done under 200 pages.
The key message is simple, it makes you think like a business owner before you invest rather than an investor.
I would suggest this to be a starting point for someone who is looking for Value Investment and Fundamental approach like the Buffet. I like how the author has also spend some time on Technical analysis and combining it with the Fundamentals.
A good read, but not the only read to be influenced with and Jumping right into investing.

kmo4040's review against another edition

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informative inspiring medium-paced

3.5

 Great advice, moves way too slow. The whole book is summarized in chapter 13. So to save time just read chapter 13 and if you don't understand a concept just find that concept in the book or google it. Everything after 13 is general financial advice taxes, debt etc. 

aarcy's review

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5.0

This book contained the level of detail and conciseness that I craved from an investment book (as a beginner). What I really liked about this book is that it included the exact locations and websites to use to do the calculations for ourselves. Also, the authour provides all the mentioned tools free on his website for free which is incredible. It was interesting to see his perspective on not diversifying a portfolio and it did change the way I see my portfolio. A very honest, clear, concise, and detailed book that could get anyone started in investing and also let you know what to look for and how to find it.

orlandom1188's review

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informative lighthearted medium-paced

2.5

This was a pretty typical read. Wasn’t a lot of new information I grabbed from it. 

octoberdad's review

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3.0

This is one of the first investment books I read. At the time, I thought it was great, but since I have read a few others I have revised my opinion and now think it is merely good. The strengths of the book lie in the introduction of key concepts of fundamental analysis. Of course, as an intro, it is not very in-depth.

I would recommend this book to someone who does not have much investment experience. If you've already read a book or two and done some of your own self-directed investing, you likely will not learn a whole lot from this book.