Product Description

The million-copy bestseller, now fully up-to-date and ready for post-dot-com investors.

Using the dot-com crash as an object lesson in how not to manage your portfolio, here is the best-selling, gimmick-free, irreverent, vastly informative guide to navigating the turbulence of the market and managing investments with confidence.

A Random Walk Down Wall Street is well established as a staple of the business shelf, the first book any investor should read before taking the plunge and starting a portfolio. With its life-cycle guide to investing, it matches the needs of investors at any age bracket. Burton G. Malkiel shows how to analyze the potential returns, not only for stocks and bonds but also for the full range of investment opportunities, from money market accounts and real estate investment trusts to insurance, home ownership, and tangible assets like gold and collectibles.

Whether you want to verse yourself in 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26324 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Amazon.com
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

From Publishers Weekly
Latest edition of Princeton professor Malkiel's bestselling investment guide.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This revision of a classic takes the dot-com implosion into account.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Great Book
This is a very complete and good book. It covers the basic topics of finance related to shares.

This may be the last investing book you will need to read
Have you ever wondered about how to correctly invest your money? Do you like to understand things from first principles? If so, this book is for you. This book will teach you what to do with your money and, more importantly, why. This book explains everything from first principles, so no background knowledge is needed. The author takes time to explain all the latest money making inventions such as modern portfolio theory and others only to discredit them later with logic and statistical evidence. I found these later chapters a little hard to read because the author is so pedantic and material is a little anticlimactic. However, I think I've learned a lot from these chapters. If you would prefer a shorter summary for how to invest without detailed explanations for why, read The Random Walk Guide to Investing: Ten Rules for Financial Success instead.

Random but not rational
The concept of an efficient market is totally at odds with the way major fund managers work.
Very often the price of a stock is totally unrelated to its underlying value. Look at the theories of Graham (Amazon has him) and Warren Buffett. Buffett has followed Graham's advice for 50 years and made 25% PER YEAR returns by finding cases where Mr. Market is completely nuts, let alone inefficient! Think of the market as efficient, except sometimes completely NUTS.The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition)Security Analysis