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A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing (Revised and Updated) |  | Author: Burton G. Malkiel
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
Buy Used: $7.39
as of 7/31/2010 02:57 CDT details
You Save: $11.56 (61%)
New (47) Used (71) from $7.39
Seller: Goldstone Books UK
Rating:  72 reviews
Sales Rank: 3970
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised and Updated
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0393330338
Dewey Decimal Number: 332
EAN: 9780393330335
ASIN: 0393330338
Publication Date: December 17, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780393330335 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
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Product Description
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 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. So whether you want to brief yourself on the ways of the market before talking to a broker or follow Malkiel’s easy steps to managing your own portfolio, this book remains the best investing guide money can buy.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 72
 A Classic March 22, 2010
John Nash (Chicago, IL)
I'm an investment industry professional and was looking for a book to give to my college-age daughter who is interested in learning about investments. This was the first book that came to mind, and while I was at it, I bought a copy for myself, since I hadn't read the book in about 15 years.
It continues to be a classic. Well-written, with a nice combination of practical advice and a very accessible explanantion of the key theories.
A must-have in any investment library.
Excellent purchase February 5, 2010
Dal Burns (San Francisco, California)
0 out of 6 found this review helpful
The book was in better condition than stated in the Amazon ad
The book was very well packaged against damage in transit
The book arrived much earlier than expected.
All in all, I am delighted
Dal Burns
 An Investment Primer! December 6, 2009
Omar Halabieh (Houston, TX USA)
This book is an extensive and complete review of the investing sector, with a particular focus on equities. If you are trying to read one book only on this subject, this is probably the book that I would recommend. If you are quite familiar with this subject, you may not find as much depth as you hope but this book would serve as a historical reference. I particularly recommend reading the sections relating to the formation of bubbles and the subsequent collapses throughout the decade. The author clearly demonstrates how this is an inherent phenomena in the investing world, as we have recently experienced, and shows us ways to better understand and deal with these situations. I also liked the discussion about technical vs fundamental analysis of equities, when each should be used and how to harness the power of each. Finally, although the author does take a side on some of the topics he discusses, he does a great job of objectively presenting the different view points which is key for any reference material. A recommended primer!
A finance degree in an airport read November 17, 2009
Cornell Grad (NY, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
For those who don't have 4 years and lots of $$$ to get an undergraduate finance degree, this book is an excellent substitute. It is packed with the same academically sound investment advice that all the top business schools teach, it explains it all in an amazingly accessible and entertaining way, and is chock full of interesting and memorable examples --- some of which I will never ever forget! In short, it has to be the best popular investment book ever written.
 Solid conservative advice, but is that enough in such a terrible market? November 3, 2009
Chris Edwards (San Deigo, CA USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Let's say you were afflicted with the unhealthy notion that you could correctly predict which investment vehicles would outperform the market. This book would be a reasonable component of your therapy regime. In this book (the 2007 edition) Malkiel basically shows why the broad market indices (S&P, Dow, Russell 3000, etc) generally outperform even professional stock market gamblers. Actually, he doesn't really show us why exactly. The author more accurately just tells us it's true and hopes we'll take his word for it. Turns out, I do, but that's only because I've read a lot of other books (mostly by skeptical statisticians) that show in greater detail that Malkiel's premise is essentially correct.
The author is, I suppose, merely conservative in his investment outlook while I must be tin foil hat insanely paranoid. The main problem I have with his thinking is that while I agree with him that neither you nor I can not outperform general market indices, i.e. "the market", I'm not sure that the market can outperform investments like cash in the mattress or gold fillings. In the past couple of years, the market has even failed to outperform investments in cocaine and prostitutes.
I'm sure this book reads a lot better when you're not slogging through a Depression-like quagmire dominating the investment landscape. Here are some examples.
"I also think you should keep your risk within reasonable bounds by sticking with issues rated at least A by Moody's and Standard & Poor's rating services". Well isn't that precious? Turns out that bond ratings have been shown to be largely a scam. Even if they're not categorically corrupt, they stink enough that anyone relying on them when not dealing with "other people's money" is making a mistake.
"You may also wish to consider ownership of commercial real estate..." I guess the management at GE read this book. I'm under the impression that CRE is one of the main reasons GEs stock is about 1/6 of what it was 2 years ago. In Oct 2007 in my area of San Diego (including sublease space) the CRE vacancy rate is 25.6% with unprecedented vacant capacity. Of course you can't see that kind of anomalous event coming, however, I did. Which brings us to:
"Own your own home if you can possibly afford it." In 2004, I *could* have possibly purchased a house, but it would have been a financial disaster of such catastrophic proportions as to completely negate any gains of the magnitude envisioned by this book. In a different part of the book there is a table showing the earnings on a steady investment of $1200/year over *28* years. That's a long time and when I saw the final retirement tally, $277k, I thought, great, three decades of $100/month so one could recover from the disastrous loss one would have incurred buying the median home in San Diego in 2005. No thanks. It's never been a better time to be a renter.
It turns out that life is full of risks and that even being conservative in the way this book outlines is a huge gamble. The quotes above are really minor points in the book. My bigger problem is the major premise of the book which is that over the *long term*, stocks don't suck. Perhaps it's just my delightfully awful luck to be interested in investment science at a time of secular market trends that are like some kind of horror movie, but the fact is that the entire market can suck and suck you down with it for impressively long runs. He mentions the period he calls "The Age of Angst", 1969-1981, where the general returns on stocks was 5.6% and 3.8% for bonds. Could be worse, right? Beats a savings account. Wait... What's that? Inflation was 7.8%? Ouch! And 12 years is a big chunk of anyone's investment window.
If you're 20 and somehow miraculously have way more money than lifestyle and want to invest it in the stock market, *and* the notion holds that general stock market returns are positive over 50 years, then maybe this is some helpful advice. However, if you are such a person and such assumptions are correct, it'd be hard to screw that up.
Malkiel doesn't really give good fundamental reasons why the stock market should go up over the long term. The fact that it has in the past is a myth that he explicitly debunks, for example, when talking about selecting a mutual fund. I respected his low sensationalism approach. He knows that his strategy is boring but that is because he believes it is the safest bet and maybe it is. I, however, wasn't really convinced that it was any safer than any random investment, including spending all your money on fun things you like. The best piece of advice from the book is that many of the materials to help you research various investments can be found at your local library. Yes. Like this book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 72
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