Author: Jeremy J. Siegel

Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 4 edition

Pub. in: November, 2007

ISBN: 0071494707

Pages: 436

Measurements: 9.3 x 7.6 x 1.5 inches

Origin of product: USA

Order code: BA01488

Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0071494700

This is a famous investment guide now in its fourth edition. Jeremy J. Siegel appears regularly on networks like CNN, CNBC and NPR, and is a frequent contributor to financial periodicals.

For more than a decade, Stocks for the Long Run has been the authoritative guide to understanding market forces and building a successful portfolio. In this new fourth edition, Jeremy Siegel updates his argument for long-term stock market investment with: comparisons of ETFs, mutual funds, and index options and futures; evidence that the rapid growth of emerging markets will not only continue but may accelerate; insight into the benefits of fundamental indexation over market value indexation; an updated look at the surprising validity of Calendar Effects; and fresh analysis of the best-performing stocks since the formulation of the S&P 500 Index.

****

This is much improved from the first and second editions. The book contains a lot of useful information, presented, for the most part, clearly, and Siegel's commentary on the factual material he has compiled incorporates up to date research. The book can be read as a (slightly to moderately advanced) investment guide rather than just a compendium of reasons to chose stocks over other investments (or at least over fixed income investments). To his credit, Siegel has learned a lot about investing since the first edition.

Although this point is not made in the book, market indexes definitely can be beaten through the careful selection of actively managed mutual funds - requiring only (first) reading a broad selection of books on investing, subscribing to and reading Morningstar, and reading fund prospectuses and reports. (This may seem like a lot of work, but most of the time is spent upfront and at your own pace; and considering how long your money will be invested, the lifetime effort is minimal. A corollary to this approach is that a nonprofessional investor should never buy individual stocks. This not only will take more time than most people can afford, but for almost everyone will result in at best (assuming infrequent trading) the market return with a lot more risk.) Those, including many prominent economists, who believe it is impossible to identify funds that will outperform the market in the future are just wrong. Past performance can predict future success in investing as in most other endeavors. Admittedly, there is a theoretical basis - the efficient markets hypothesis - for contending that stock market investing is qualitatively different from, say, chess playing, but ascribing the results of the many long-term successful investors to luck or excess (and lucky) risk taking seems to me more an act of faith than reason. Finally, the beauty of investing through open-ended mutual funds is that unlike stocks, which generally are priced efficiently, a fund's price is not affected by its demand. Thus, you can buy the best at the same price as the worst - i.e., the current market value of the stocks the fund owns. (It is true that as the better performing funds accumulate more assets their ability to execute their strategies can be affected, but responsible funds attempt to mitigate this situation by closing, sometimes even to current investors.)

(From quoting Jeremo Scanlan, USA)

Target readers: Both beginner and professional Investors