Product Description

Sound, sensible advice from a hero to frustrated investors everywhere

William Bernstein's The Four Pillars of Investing gives investors the tools they need to construct top-returning portfolios­­--without the help of a financial adviser. In a relaxed, nonthreatening style, Dr. Bernstein provides a distinctive blend of market history, investing theory, and behavioral finance, one designed to help every investor become more self-sufficient and make better-informed investment decisions. The 4 Pillars of Investing explains how any investor can build a solid foundation for investing by focusing on four essential lessons, each building upon the other. Containing all of the tools needed to achieve investing success, without the help of a financial advisor, it presents:

• Practical investing advice based on fascinating history lessons from the market
• Exercises to determine risk tolerance as an investor
• An easy-to-understand explanation of risk and reward in the capital markets

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7650 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Review
The Four Pillars of Investing offers a comprehensive, incisive and pithy treatment of the issues. -- Barron's; May 27, 2002

From the Back Cover

"A TRIUMPH!  Bill Bernstein's new book offers sound principles, unvarnished history, and unmatched understanding of the process of successful investing.  It is my candidate for the best investment book of 2002."--John C. Bogle, Founder and Former Chairman, The Vanguard Group, Author, John Bogle on Investing

William Bernstein has carved out a reputation as one of the most brutally honest, yet consistently accurate, voices in today's financial wilderness. In The Four Pillars of Investing, Dr. Bernstein explains how any independent investor can construct a superior investment portfolio by learning these four essentials:

• The Theory of Investing­"Do not expect high returns without risks."
• The History of Investing­"About once every generation, the markets go barking mad. If you are unprepared, you are sure to fail."
• The Psychology of Investing­"Identify the era's conventional wisdom and assume that it is wrong. More often than not, it is."
• The Business of Investing­"The stockbroker services his clients in the same way that Bonnie and Clyde serviced banks."

From the essential soundness of classic portfolio theory through the inherent wisdom of investing in multiple asset classes, The Four Pillars of Investing focuses on the four fundamental topics that every investor must understand--and presents an easy-to-follow, step-by-step program for achieving long-term investing success.

"Bernstein is little known. But that's changing, and the sooner you get to know him, the better off your retirement portfolio is likely to be."--Robert Barker, Columnist, BusinessWeek

William Bernstein's first book--The Intelligent Asset Allocator--remains one of the most honored investment books of recent times. Hailed by national publications, including BusinessWeek, and by independent investment icons, including Vanguard founder John Bogle, it has become an instant classic for its well-researched analyses and rules for successful investing.

Now, in the commonsense investor's guide The Four Pillars of Investing, Bernstein returns with the knowledge and tools investors need to assemble low-risk, winning portfolios without professional advice. This down-to-earth book lays out in easy-to-understand prose the four essential topics that every investor must master--the relationship of risk and reward, the history of the market, the psychology of the investor and the market, and the folly of taking financial advice from investment salespeople. It pulls back the curtain to reveal what really goes on in today's financial industry as it outlines a simple program for building wealth while controlling risk.

Straightforward in its presentation and generous in its real-life examples, The Four Pillars of Investing presents a no-nonsense discussion of:

• The art and science of mixing different asset classes into an effective blend
• The dangers of actively picking stocks, as opposed to investing in the whole market
• Behavioral finance and how state of mind can adversely affect decision making
• Why the mutual fund and brokerage industries, instead of your partners, are often your most direct competitors
• Strategies for managing all of your assets--savings, 401(k)s, home equity--as one portfolio

Investing is not a destination. It is a journey, lined with stockbrokers, journalists, and mutual fund companies whose interests are diametrically opposed to yours. The Four Pillars of Investing shows you how, with relatively little effort, you can determine your own financial direction and assemble an investment program with the sole goal of building long-term wealth for yourself and your family.

About the Author

William Bernstein, Ph.D., M.D., has become a grassroots hero to independent investors everywhere. He has made a name for himself by questioning the value of Wall Street wisdom, skewering the recommendations of self-serving stockbrokers, and showing legions of investors how to successfully manage their own investments with intelligence and long-term vision. Bernstein is the author of The Intelligent Asset Allocator, editor of the quarterly asset allocation journal Efficient Frontier, founder of the popular website EfficientFrontier.com, and a principal in Efficient Frontier Advisors. He is often quoted in national publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Money, and Forbes.

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Customer Reviews

Perfect, Couldn't be happier
Book was shipped fast, and came in great condition. Couldn't ask for anything more

A Must Read for Your Library
William Bernstein has written another must read for the individual investor who wants to chart his own course in the investment world. I was first introduced to this book at a local AAII chapter meeting. Everyone there who had read this book highly recommended it. I suggest reading this book before reading "The Intelligent Asset Allocator" also by the author.Both are excellent books on investing and well worth the time and money spent.

Essential guide for investors
In the introduction to his book, "The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio," Dr. William Bernstein states that the "competent investor never stops learning." Yet, because the world of investing can be such a confusing place, it sometimes seems that the more you learn, the more confused you get. As a participant on the Bogleheads message board, I feel I am an educated investor but still I often get lost after reading all the different debates: Should I invest in total markets or slice and dice my portfolio? Should I invest all my money at once or adopt a dollar cost averaging philosophy? How much foreign exposure should I have? Is now the right time to buy REITs, or do I need them at all? One day, while perusing the message board and sifting through some of these same questions, I found a suggested investing reading list, and this book was listed as the starting point. In this straightforward book, explained with easy-to-understand examples, Dr. Bernstein provides a solid framework for investors to begin to answer some of these questions.

In setting this framework, Dr. Bernstein introduces readers to four basic concepts, or what he terms the four pillars of investing: the theory, history, psychology, and business of investing. The first pillar, the theory of investing, gets most of his attention, as it comprises the first 100 pages of the book and explains how the bond and stock markets work. In this section, Dr. Bernstein emphasizes what he calls the "most important concept in finance" - the relationship between risk and reward. If investors want high returns, they must take great risks. Following this logic, Dr. Bernstein makes some conclusions that may seem foreign to most investors. For example, the best time to invest is not when things are going well, but when they are going poorly. Those who invest during a bubble are not taking a risk and therefore can expect low returns, whereas those investing during a bear market are taking a risk and therefore can expect (but will not be guaranteed) higher returns. Similarly, those who invest in "good companies" like Wal-Mart can expect lower returns than those who invest in "bad companies" like K-Mart, because good companies, with low risk, are generally bad stocks, while bad companies are generally good stocks. This idea - that high returns cannot be achieved without significant risk - is the key concept Dr. Bernstein continues to emphasize throughout the book.

While the first pillar gets the most attention, Dr. Bernstein terms the second pillar, the history of investing, as "the one that causes the most damage" to investors. What separates the professional investor from the amateur investor is that the professional recognizes that bear markets are a fact of life - they inevitably come about once every generation, usually sparked by a new technological advance. Professional investors stay the course and don't panic; they have a plan and stick with it. In fact, for beginning investors, a bear market is a blessing, allowing them to accumulate stocks at low prices. This concept again ties to the relationship between risk and return: throughout history, in times of great optimism, when prices are the highest and the risk is the lowest, future returns are the lowest, and when times look the bleakest, and risk is the highest, future returns are also the highest.

In the third pillar, the psychology of investing, this relationship between risk and return is again raised. Most investors follow conventional wisdom of the time, investing in specific stocks or asset classes that are currently the most successful and thus buying at high prices. Dr. Bernstein provides two strategies to counter this psychology. He advises readers first to identify the conventional wisdom of the time and do the exact opposite. He also advises readers that assets with the highest future returns tend to be the ones that are currently most unpopular. The investor that is able to go against the flow - to stick with unpopular asset classes and pay attention to his or her entire portfolio return - in the long-run will be the most successful.

Finally, the fourth pillar concerns the business of investing, which details how brokers, analysts, and the media work together to make money at the expense of often ignorant investors by peddling bad or biased information. Instead of paying exorbitant fees to brokerage firms or financial advisors, which steer investors to underperforming managed funds, investors can buy low-expense index funds through companies like Vanguard and thus tap "into the most powerful intelligence in the world of finance" - the market itself, which is, according to Dr. Bernstein, the best advisor available.

Dr. Bernstein concludes his book by applying lessons learned from these four pillars and giving readers practical advice for how to construct their own portfolios. Although this section fell short of answering all my questions, the book as a whole serves as an essential investing guide in providing investors with a basic framework to use in evaluating the myriad of investing choices available. As even Dr. Bernstein concedes, "Four Pillars of Investing" is not an all-encompassing book on investing. It is not the only book you will need to read, and it is probably not the first investing book you should read, but it is nonetheless a book every investor should read.