A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing by Burton G. Malkiel

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(Paperback - Revised)

Average Customer Rating: Customer Rating for this product is 5 out of 5 (2 ratings)

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  • Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
  • Pub. Date: December 2007
  • ISBN-13: 9780393330335
  • Sales Rank: 7,403
  • 416pp
  • Edition Description: Revised
  • Edition Number: 9
 
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Synopsis

The million-copy bestseller, revised and updated with new investment strategies for retirement and the insights of behavioral finance.

Updated with a new chapter that draws on behavioral finance, the field that studies the psychology of investment decisions, here is the best-selling, authoritative, and gimmick-free guide to investing. Burton G. Malkiel evaluates the full range of investment opportunities from stocks, bonds, and money markets to real estate investment trusts and insurance, home ownership, and tangible assets such as gold and collectibles. This edition includes new strategies for rearranging your portfolio for retirement along with the book's classic life-cycle guide to investing, which matches the needs of investors in any age bracket. A Random Walk Down Wall Street long ago established itself as a must-read, the first book to purchase before starting a portfolio, and it remains the best investing guide money can buy.

Publishers Weekly

The eternal truth of this updated investment classic, originally published in 1973, is simple: you can't beat the market. Well, technically, you can beat the market, but not profitably, because the transaction costs of your brilliant trading will eat up the extra returns. You can also beat the market by pure luck-but you can't deliberately beat the market, because you can't predict future stock prices. You can't predict them by divining Wall Street's crowd psychology; or by charting trends in stock prices; or by doing lots of research on companies' business prospects. You can't predict them from hemlines (though there's been "some evidence" for correlation between skirt length and market prices in the past, Malkiel poo-poos future possibilities) or Super Bowl winners (this, he says, makes "no sense"). In fact, according to the efficient market theory, which states that all knowable information about a stock's value is already reflected in its share price, you can't predict them at all. Malkiel, a Princeton economist and professional investor, backs it all up with statistics, charts and studies, and gives an entertaining review of the sorry history of market bubbles, panics and delusions of omniscience, from the Dutch tulip craze to the Beardstown Ladies. This edition looks at new wrinkles (it seems you can't beat the market by buying companies with ".com" in the name), and provides a lucid overview of novel investment vehicles. Standing by his notorious claim that "a blindfolded chimpanzee throwing darts" at the NYSE listings could pick stocks as well as the Wall Street pros, Malkiel advises investors to "buy and hold" a diversified portfolio heavy on index funds that passively mirror the market, which usually out-perform actively managed funds. His witty, acerbic style and persuasive arguments will delight readers but, alas, leave Wall Street unmoved. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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Biography

Burton G. Malkiel is the Chemical Bank Chairman's Professor of Economics at Princeton University.

Customer Reviews

Number of Reviews: 2
Average Rating: Customer Rating for this product is 5 out of 5
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Customer Rating for this product is 5 out of 5 Packed with Knowledge!
Rolf Dobelli (rolfdobelli@getabstract.com) , A reviewer, 10/15/2003

The first edition of Bernard Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street appeared in 1973, a few years after the twentieth century’s first big computer technology bubble, the go-go era, popped. This, the newest and eighth edition, appears after the popping of the dot.com bubble, the last of the twentieth century’s great computer technology bubbles. Investors burned in the first bubble could have been excused; after all, they didn’t have Malkiel’s book. But it’s astounding how avidly Internet speculators threw aside all that Malkiel and others had taught them. This book belongs on every investor’s bookshelf, and ought to be consulted, or at least touched to the forehead, before any investment decision. Most investment books aren’t trustworthy, because their authors are salespeople who are really making a pitch instead of trying to inform you. Malkiel is disinterested. He is a teacher with the intellectual discipline of a true financial economist, and yet he writes as vividly as a good journalist. We recommend this classic: all you need to know about the market is between its covers.

Customer Rating for this product is 5 out of 5 A Classic Investment Book
Peter Hupalo, A reviewer, 06/13/2003

This book is a solid introduction to investment. It makes a strong case that the best investment strategy is simply to buy index funds.

Also recommended: 'Becoming An Investor: Building Wealth By Investing In Stocks, Bonds, And Mutual Funds'