A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing - Hardcover

Malkiel, Burton G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393081435 ISBN 13: 9780393081435

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2011

Synopsis

The best investment guide money can buy, with over 1.5 million copies sold, now fully revised and updated.

Especially in the wake of the financial meltdown, readers will hunger for Burton G. Malkiel’s reassuring, authoritative, gimmick-free, and perennially best-selling guide to investing. Long established as the first book to purchase before starting a portfolio, A Random Walk Down Wall Street features new material on the Great Recession and the global credit crisis as well as an increased focus on the long-term potential of emerging markets. Malkiel also evaluates the full range of investment opportunities in today’s volatile markets, from stocks, bonds, and money markets to real estate investment trusts and insurance, home ownership, and tangible assets such as gold and collectibles. These comprehensive insights, along with the book’s classic life-cycle guide to investing, chart a course for anyone seeking a calm route through the turbulent waters of the financial markets.

About this title

Review:

It's unlikely that you'll spot many dog-eared copies of A Random Walk floating amongst the Wall Street set (although bookshelves at home may prove otherwise). After all, a "random walk"--in market terms--suggests that a "blindfolded monkey" would have as much luck selecting a portfolio as a pro. But Burton Malkiel's classic investment book is anything but random. Since stock prices cannot be predicted in the short term, argues Malkiel, individual investors are better off buying and holding onto index funds than meddling with securities or actively managing mutual funds. Not only will a broad range of index funds outperform a professionally managed portfolio in the long run, but investors can avoid expense charges and trading costs, which decrease returns.

First published in 1973, this seventh printing of a A Random Walk looks forward and does so broadly, examining a new range of investment choices facing the turn-of-the-century investor: money-market accounts, tax-exempt funds, Roth IRAs, and equity REITs, as well as the potential benefits and pitfalls of the emerging global economy. In his updated "life-cycle guide to investing," Malkiel offers age-related investment strategies that consider one's capacity for risk. (A 30-year-old who can depend on wages to offset investment losses has a different risk capacity from a 60-year-old.) In his assessment of rocketing Internet stocks, Malkiel defends his "random" position well, explaining how "the market eventually corrects any irrationality--albeit in its own slow, inexorable fashion. Anomalies can crop up, markets can get irrationally optimistic, and often they attract unwary investors. But eventually, true value is recognized by the market, and this is the main lesson investors must heed." Written for the financial layperson but bolstered by 30 years of research, A Random Walk will help individual investors take charge of their financial future. Recommended. --Rob McDonald

About the Author:

Burton G. Malkiel is the Chemical Bank Chairman's Professor of Economics Emeritus at Princeton University. He is a former member of the Council of Economic Advisers, dean of the Yale School of Management, and has served on the boards of several major corporations, including Vanguard and Prudential Financial. He is the chief investment officer of Wealthfront.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0393081435
• ISBN 13: 9780393081435
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448