Reviews for How a Second Grader Beats Wall Street: Golden Rules Any Investor Can Learn

The average rating for How a Second Grader Beats Wall Street: Golden Rules Any Investor Can Learn based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-03-27 00:00:00 Haris Maihadi In this book Roth explains how a long-term investor can practically own the entire market by buying a couple of total stock funds (US and International), plus a total bond fund to reduce risk, and beat almost any other fund manager on Wall Street in the long run. I am personally just getting started exploring the field of fund investing, and thankfully this book is easy enough for (yes, you guessed it) even a second-grader to understand. Buy-and-hold strategies of passive index funds have become very popular recently for many of the reasons Roth lists in this book: low management costs, tax efficiencies and safer returns in the long run. I can't help thinking whether all these passive investors fall victims to the herd mentality bias they try to avoid - but that line of reasoning is a catch 22, so I'd rather set it aside. The book is generally very accessible to beginner investors, but it gets more boring and opaque wherever it talks about taxes. No surprises there.. It is also too US-oriented, although, with a bit of research, the reader should be able to apply its lessons to one's location. The first three chapters of the book are certainly the most valuable, the rest covering more specialized aspects of fund investing and suggesting minor optimizations to the second-grader portfolio or alternative sources of return. Overall, I feel that I got good value out of this book, despite the high noise-to-signal ratio. Equally importantly, it is written in a colloquial way, making it a rare finding for a book in this category.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-06-09 00:00:00 Alexandre Poirier Gosselin 4.5 Stars. I can't explain how revolutionary this book was in my way of thinking about investing. I started becoming interested after reading Robert Kiyosakis "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", but as you well know, inspiration isn't enough to tackle your financial goals. You need a plan. After countless articles, podcasts, and webinars on the "right investment tactic" I stumbled upon this book during a Facebook group chat with other budding investors. Turns out investing is incredibly simple, and even more simple than what Wall Street makes it out to be. This literally a page turner every step of the way. It guides you through the basic rules of thumb of investing through the lessons that dad and financial planner Alan Roth teaches his 8-year old son Kevin. With a clever mix of dad jokes and real-world scenarios, Roth makes it easy for his readers to see why simple second grade arithmetic trumps the "hottest market fad" and why it is much easier, as a beginner, to follow the basics of investing rather than diving into complex securities, like hedge funds and annuities. This book wasn't heavy on complicated lingo or mundane economic theory, just the plain English that you and I communicate with everyday, and I think that's what's missing from most financial books. As much as I wanted to get into a "The Intelligent Investor" or the "10 days to an MBA" none of this business/economic books were very inviting for someone with absolutely no clue where to put their savings. I have $1000 in savings sitting at a dismal 2% rate in my account, and I hope going forward I'll know how to put my future earnings to good use using this tactic. Thanks for a book that ACTUALLY Breaks it down for you! (And allows you to build your own financial plan) Note: I actually recommend taking notes on this book, and copying the tables for investment portfolio plans it gives. While reading articles online can also be sufficient, it doesn't offer the 360 view of investing that this book does. Well written.