No comments about Warren Buffett: Estrategias del inversor que convirtió 100 dólares en 14 billones de dólares.

5 comments about Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week! (Unabridged).

1. Phil seems like a nice guy and I'm glad he is sharing his investment knowledge because it appears by all accounts rock solid. But this book could have easily been cut in half in terms of number of pages to reduce the number of times he repeats himself. It seems like he mentions the calculators on his website every other page. It's almost as if the book was written so that if you picked it up in the bookstore and opened it to any random section there would be a mention of his website or the term "Rule #1". In addition, he dangles the carrot in front of you forever before getting to the goods. Folks this gets VERY tiring when you just want to get to at least a morsel of pertinent information. This book would get only one star from me had the strategy laid out not been so enlightening. I am not an author and I have never written a negative book review before...



2. This is by far one of the best books on personal finance I have read. It's written in a way that everyone can understand. At one point in the book, Phil makes a suggestion that people give this investment advice to their children at 15 years old and let them start to use the Rule #1 investment strategy; I completely agree. I think the principles are easy to understand and provide sound advice. This book teaches two fundamentals that are commonly lost on people when investing in the stock market: (1) Know the value of what you're buying, (2) If you become "financially literate", you will no longer need people to invest for you.
   
   I loved the book and I'm telling everyone about it!



3. For the first time, i feel like i have the tools to start looking at stocks, individually. I am already well invested in work retirement plans with mutual funds, and am, of course, unhappy wiht the results of the past 8 years. But, with these tools, my son and I are venturing into investing on our own as well. THanks Phil for demystifying the process.



4. I just finished reading this book.
   Everybody who does not have time to read and understand Warren Buffet's methodly for investing should read this once.
   I would call this as 101 in investing.
   I have several years of experience in trading.
   When I started reading this I marked the interesting lines/para.
   Finally I found out I had marked almost the whole book.
   He could have been a very good teacher.
   I am thinking of buying several books to give as gift to some of my friends and relatives.
   
   One little criticism in general:
   Either this book or random walk on wall street finally conclude saying trade. That is what most of us are doing. The biggest differnce is that; This book says that pick a fundamentaly great stock then trade it until .... you find out.
   
   How to pick a great stock? Buy and read it you will be happy you did it.
   
   Very good value per dollar.
   
   Thanks Phil Town.
   Rasappa Palaniappan.



5. I don't recommend this book at all. I have read many books on investing recently, and they all agreed on one point - don't invest in a company just because you like the product. Town's advice is the opposite - make a list of things you like, and choose companies that are involved in those things. He also is against Dollar-Cost-Averaging, which every other book I have read tells you of the value of that.
   
   He tells you that he took $1000 and turned that into $1,000,000 in only 5 years. But he doesn't explain how. That raises a red flag for me. He also promises you that you will do better than the best fund managers out there, and promises that you will beat the market. Statistically, only a very small amount of professionals beat the market. It is a absurd to presume that you would be able to out perform all the people who do this for a living (and most of the other books I've read specifically warn against such promises).
   
   He offers calculators on his website to figure out the value of a company. Personally I found them difficult to use (poor design).
   
   There seems to be a lot of overlap between this book and Pat Dorsey's The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing. I would recommend that you read that book instead. Dorsey explains the concepts so much better than Town does, and you can easily import the calculations into excel for ease of use later.
   
   All in all, there's some good advice in the book, but he's put in a lot of lofty assumptions and exaggerations to advertise his book. Even the title is misleading. The title comes from one page in the book where he tells you that once you've done your initial research (hours and hours), then you might be able to get by on spending a quick 15 minutes a week keeping up on your stocks. But the title comes off as in the book is going to teach you how to invest by spending only 15 minutes a week.

3 comments about The Book of Investing Wisdom.

1. Well conceived and organized with keen insight into how some of the best investors attained their success through intelligent financial investments.



2. Krass' style creates an easy to follow, easy to understand narrative of some of the best business minds and their approach to financial investing.



3. An exceptional collection of essays by 46 great names business such as Pickens, Baruch, Moody, Buffet, Lynch, Forbes, Soros, and Trump. Key themes include: basic of analysis; attitude and philosophy; strategy; cycles; views from the inside; and more. Each essay includes a biographical sketch of the writer.

   This collection of essays proves to be interesting, entertaining, and filled with informative thoughts. This is not a 'how to get-rich-quick in the stock market book'; it is more of a solid, conservative investment for your reading portfolio. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and the Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

No comments about Buffettology: Warren Buffett's Investing Techniques.

1 comments about The Warren Buffett Portfolio.

1. I'm not sure what this is about after reading it. Actually I'm even more surprised noone has reviewed this (or read this?) or maybe I shouldn't be? Some chapters are written to reinforce the idea that a focus investment approach works. There is a chapter on the history of modern finance, another with mini-biographies of the Buffet roster. One on probabilities, but very vague at how to apply this for our own use. Then there is a chapter on behavioral finance and a chapter on proving why short-term forecasting does not work. How all this have to do with Warren Buffet, is anyone's guess. The author tries hard to associate these ideas with Buffet, but fails miserably. Ultimately, it is just a finance book littered with a dozen interesting facts with no coherence and an abundance of paraphrases from "Outstanding Investor Digest". Personally I only find the chapter on investor psychology and the "El Farol" problem (a proof why you cannot predict the market) facinating, but you can get this information from any good finance book.

No comments about The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Bestseller on Value Investing : With a Preface and Appendix by Warren E. Buffett.

No comments about Warren Buffett Stocks - A Guide to Investing In Stocks Like Warren Buffett Does.

No comments about The Power Portfolio.

No comments about The Power Portflio.

2 comments about Warren Buffett and Tao Te Ching: A Modern Investor and an Age-Old Philosophy.

1. I find this book an interesting but confused reading. Whilst the quotations from Tao Te Ching is accurate, its extrapolation into Warren Buffett's investment philosophy leaves much to be desired. For example, the book's emphasis on reduced activity reflect a misunderstanding of the "dynamic tension" active in Tao. The inactivity of Tao is like a bow that is fully driven. It is a dynamism masquerading as inactivity.



2. I am the author of the book (forgive me for giving it a 5 star rating). I feel that it is necessary to clarify the issue raised by the previous reviewer (Jusuf Hariman).
   
   According to Lao Tzu, if one understands the Tao (the universal way) and is desireless, one is naturally inactive. In this way, one conforms to the Tao. Because one conforms to the Tao, one will end up doing far better than other people. Because this principle contradicts people's daily experience, people tend to disregard or misinterpret it.
   
   Inactivity and desirelessness are the two cores of the Tao philosophy. To elucidate the concept and the power of inactivity, let's use Warren Buffett as an example. Here is what he does and says: (a) As a billionaire, he still lives in a modest home that he bought in 1958, (b) as chairman and CEO of a large company, he still drives his hail-damaged Lincoln Town Car to work rather than rides a limousine, (c) as the interim chairman of a major wall street firm (Salomon Brothers), he brought his own lunch box (a hamburger and a coke) to executive meetings, (d) he said, "Our insurance companies own three marketable stocks that we would never sell even though they become far overpriced in the market," (e) he said, "Despite the enthusiasm for activity that swept business and financial America, we will stick with our `til-death-do-us-part policy." (f) he said, "You should fully aware of one attitude Charlie and I share that hurts our financial performance: regardless of price, [we] are very reluctant to sell sub-par businesses as long as we expected them to generate at least some cash and as long as we feel good about their managers and relations."
   
   These examples show that Warren Buffett's inactivity is the result of his understanding of the business world and "Mr. Market" (the universal way or the Tao) and his desirelessness. This is the kind of inactivity that Lao Tzu meant, which is not "the dynamic tension active" or "a bow that is fully driven," or "a dynamism masquerading as inactivity" as interpreted by the previous reviewer.
   
   How to invest like Warren Buffett? In Warren Buffett's own words, "All you do is buy shares in a great business for less than the business is intrinsically worth, with management of the highest integrity and ability. Then you own these shares forever." However, an ordinary investor who tries to pick stocks like Warren Buffett is likely to be disappointed because he simply does not have the resources to make correct judgment on (1) what is a great business, (2) what is the intrinsic value of the business, (3) how honest the management is, and (4) how capable the management is. Therefore, David Swensen, the manager of Yale Endowment Fund, said that ordinary investors should have no business in stock picking. Fortunately, Warren Buffett's success comes not only from his stock picking, but also (and more importantly) from his unique attitude towards investing. The attitude (i.e., how he handles his investment), rather than stock picking, is what can help ordinary investors to achieve success in investing. To understand Warren Buffett's attitude, one has to understand Warren Buffett's philosophy.
   
   Warren Buffett's philosophy is very similar to Lao Tzu's philosophy as outlined in Tao Te Ching. How can a western investor living in modern times think and act so much like a Chinese philosopher living in two thousand years ago? (More interestingly, I found that David Swensen also thinks and acts like Lao Tzu.) I don't think that Warren Buffett or David Swensen is influenced by Lao Tzu or Tao Te Ching. More likely, there may exist a universal way that leads to the success in all walks of life and they each independently figured it out.
   
   According to Lao Tzu, the most effective way to achieve success is to reduce selfish desire. If one is desireless, one will not care about short-term gain or loss, will not try to maximize profits, will not take risky adventures, will not pursue luxurious lifestyle, and will be honest and generous.... This is exactly what Warren Buffett does. Therefore, By following Lao Tzu's teaching, one naturally acts in the Warren Buffett's way.
   
   The book is aimed to help the readers to understand Warren Buffett's philosophy by using Tao Te Ching as a framework to understand the Tao philosophy by using Warren Buffett as an example.