Enterprising Investor Forum

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, J. Bogle Friday, February 15, 2008

This is the third book we are reviewing from the ‘little book’ series and once again, these are really great.

John Bogle summaries and explains a lot of our thinking here at Enterprising Investor Forum. He starts with Buffett’s famous story about the Gotrocks (read: here), explaining how Wall Street is effectively stealing investor funds and preventing them from adequately compounding good returns.

He details why the low-cost index fund solution is the best way for most investors to allocate their savings and shows this in a very simple and concise manner.

Like Warren Buffett, he maintains that investing is all about common sense and that investors should not fall victim to fads and fashion and understand that despite being simple, investing is far from easy. We should forget notions of consistently trying to ‘beat the market’ or ‘beat the street’… it is simply not possible and effectively a zero-sum game.

Investors will do very well for themselves if they can match market returns over the long-run and should not fall victims to excessive expectations.

For our other reviews:

• The Little Book of Value Investing Review: here.
• The Little Book that Beats the Market Review: here.

Enjoy!