The Lazy Person’s Guide To Investing, Book Review
May 28, 2008 – 6:45 am
The Lazy Person’s Guide to Investing is written by Paul Farrell, a CBS MarketWatch columnist. The book is an extension of a column he wrote on simple investment portfolios. The book outlines several “lazy” portfolio allocations, and the book is written for the type of person that doesn’t consider investing and personal finance an enjoyable hobby. I know. That’s just crazy talk. 
Some of the recommended portfolios come from cult-classic books like The Coffeehouse Investor and William Bernstein’s The Intelligent Asset Allocator and The Four Pillars Of Investing. I’m not going to regurgitate the portfolios outline in the book, but I will say that they all leverage index funds and range from a simple 50/50 stock/bond mix with just 2 mutual funds to slightly more complicated multi-fund choices for the stock portion of the portfolio.
The book describes the returns of the various portfolios and the basis for some other tried and true investment advice (”buy and hold”, market timing is a bad idea, etc.)
The last few chapters of the book offer a jumbled bunch of financial planning advice, which I found to be of reasonable value and were easy to read and absorb.
This book offers a great start on developing your own asset allocation. It leverages other writers’ thoughts and suggestions, but don’t let that put you off. This book, like The Coffeehouse Investor, urges readers to setup a simple portfolio and then stop spending so much of your life worrying about your investments.
| 2.5 |
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