A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing
Search in google:
The best investment guide money can buy, with over 1.5 million copies sold, now fully revised and updated. Publishers Weekly The eternal truth of this updated investment classic, originally published in 1973, is simple: you can't beat the market. Well, technically, you can beat the market, but not profitably, because the transaction costs of your brilliant trading will eat up the extra returns. You can also beat the market by pure luck-but you can't deliberately beat the market, because you can't predict future stock prices. You can't predict them by divining Wall Street's crowd psychology; or by charting trends in stock prices; or by doing lots of research on companies' business prospects. You can't predict them from hemlines (though there's been "some evidence" for correlation between skirt length and market prices in the past, Malkiel poo-poos future possibilities) or Super Bowl winners (this, he says, makes "no sense"). In fact, according to the efficient market theory, which states that all knowable information about a stock's value is already reflected in its share price, you can't predict them at all. Malkiel, a Princeton economist and professional investor, backs it all up with statistics, charts and studies, and gives an entertaining review of the sorry history of market bubbles, panics and delusions of omniscience, from the Dutch tulip craze to the Beardstown Ladies. This edition looks at new wrinkles (it seems you can't beat the market by buying companies with ".com" in the name), and provides a lucid overview of novel investment vehicles. Standing by his notorious claim that "a blindfolded chimpanzee throwing darts" at the NYSE listings could pick stocks as well as the Wall Street pros, Malkiel advises investors to "buy and hold" a diversified portfolio heavy on index funds that passively mirror the market, which usually out-perform actively managed funds. His witty, acerbic style and persuasive arguments will delight readers but, alas, leave Wall Street unmoved. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Preface15Acknowledgments from Earlier Editions19Pt. 1Stocks and Their Value1Firm Foundations and Castles in the Air232The Madness of Crowds343Stock Valuation from the Sixties through the Nineties524The Biggest Bubble of All: Surfing on the Internet825The Firm-Foundation Theory of Stock Prices105Pt. 2How the Pros Play the Biggest Game in Town6Technical and Fundamental Analysis1257Technical Analysis and the Random-Walk Theory1458How Good Is Fundamental Analysis?171Pt. 3The New Investment Technology9A New Walking Shoe: Modern Portfolio Theory20310Reaping Reward by Increasing Risk22211Potshots at the Efficient-Market Theory and Why They Miss242Pt. 4A Practical Guide for Random Walkers and Other Investors12A Fitness Manual for Random Walkers27713Handicapping the Financial Race: A Primer in Understanding and Projecting Returns from Stocks and Bonds31414A Life-Cycle Guide to Investing33315Three Giant Steps Down Wall Street354A Random Walker's Address Book and Reference Guide to Mutual Funds387Index397
