Name: The Investor's Manifesto
ISBN: 9780470505144

What Hacker News says

whitepoplarOct 2021

Read any of William Bernstein's books. The Investor's Manifesto is a good one.

If you don't want to engage in the emotional rollercoaster of price, it's a good idea to set your investments on autopilot--have your broker automatically buy a certain amount each month without having to think about it. Don't touch it! (Except for rebalancing)

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mechanical_fishAug 2012

Okay, sorry, let me spend some more time and give you an example.

One big problem with a unified dashboard is that not everything in your life should be monitored on the same frequency.

Here's one example: You probably need to check your email several times a day (if not, god bless you!) but checking your 401k balance several times a day is almost certainly harmful to your well-being. It probably doesn't make you happier; contemplating your money rarely does. Instead it will alternately make you worry (as every dip in the stock market causes nightmarish visions of a retirement spent in a cardboard box), or make you irrationally exuberant (as every good trading day makes you dream of buying a second home). The net effect is that it will subtly encourage you to trade, because if you don't trade your 401k is the most boring thing imaginable, and you feel the subconscious urge to tinker with it to make it do something. But trading is a disaster, because churning your investments makes other people rich at your expense, and because timing the market doesn't work, and telling yourself not to time the market usually doesn't work, either.

For much more on this topic see the work of e.g. William Bernstein (The Four Pillars of Investing, The Investor's Manifesto) or any of the so-called Bogleheads, or try Ramit Sethi:

https://wordsofward.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/the-single-best...

Here's another example: The ideal amount of time to spend monitoring your weight is none, unless your weight is unhealthily large or is increasing significantly. (If you're prone to anorexia, a continuously updated dashboard showing your weight is potentially dangerous. You need to avoid playing that game.) And unless you're some sort of edge-case athlete, by no means should you monitor your weight daily: You should either weigh-in weekly, or weigh yourself daily but compute a running average (and have a deep understanding of what a running average is and why you're computing it). Otherwise day-to-day fluctuations are likely to destroy your confidence in your diet. (I'm told that, for this reason, Weight Watchers explicitly trains members to weigh-in weekly, not daily.)

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daydreamApr 2010

Yes to everything the parent said. You can learn most of what you need to know from these two books:

"The Investor's Manifesto: Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between" - William J. Bernstein

"The Random Walk Guide To Investing" - Burton Malkiel

Do I believe that the market is completely efficient, and that it's impossible to beat it over the long term? Absolutely not. But I do believe that there are very few people in this world that can, and I'm darn sure I'm not one of them.

Take 80% or 90% of your portfolio, whatever suits you, and follow an index-based approach to investing. Have as much fun as you want with the other 10% or 20%. Best of both worlds.

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siversJan 2010

(The links here bring you to my notes from each book, and the ISBN number for each so you can find it easily at your favorite library/store/whatever.)

How We Decide - by Jonah Lehrer: Brilliant book with one clear message: our emotional brain is faster and usually smarter than our logical brain. Our emotions are trained by years of logic and experience, retaining it all for real wisdom. Many decisions are better made by going with the gut feeling. Gets a little too technical with deep brain/neuro/cortex talk, but brings it back to usable points. http://sivers.org/book/HowWeDecide

The Investor's Manifesto - by William J. Bernstein: Absolutely my favorite author and advisor on the subject of investing. Anyone with any money to invest (or already invested) please read this book. Such clear thinking, using only facts, and using numbers not guesses. Modern portfolio theory: use passive indexes of the entire market, no speculation, no stock picking, and avoid the entire fee-sucking financial industry. http://sivers.org/book/InvestorsManifesto

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives - by David Eagleman: Fiction. Awesomely creative think-piece of 40 different short stories of what happens when you die. To be clear: the author is not pretending this is fact! The framework is inspiring for anyone: coming up with 40 different answers to any one question. http://sivers.org/book/Sum

The Talent Code - by Daniel Coyle: A great book showing that deep practice - (struggling in certain targeted ways - operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes - experiences where you're forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them) - is what really makes you improve at anything. http://sivers.org/book/TalentCode

Influence - by Robert Cialdini: Classic book on the psychology of persuasion. I read it 15 years ago, thought about it ever since, and re-read it now. How to get a 700% improvement in volunteers. How to sell more by doubling your prices. How to make people feel they made a choice, when really you made it for them. http://sivers.org/book/Influence

The Time Paradox - by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd: See my in-depth article about this book at http://sivers.org/time http://sivers.org/book/TimeParadox

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