Little Book of Common Sense Investing - Overview

Overview

This is the sixth book by Bogle, and he writes that "the simplest and most efficient investment strategy is to buy and hold all of the nation’s publicly held businesses at very low cost." Bogle maintains that the "classic index fund" that owns this market portfolio is the only investment that guarantees a fair share of stock market returns. The book elaborates on the same practice of index investing that Bogle built the Vanguard Group around to turn a profit for clients.

His book explains:

1. Why he thinks that business reality—dividend yields and earnings growth—is more important than market expectations
2. How to overcome the impact of investment costs, taxes, and inflation
3. How compounding returns are overwhelmed by the compounding costs
4. What several investors and academics—from Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham to Paul Samuelson and Burton Malkiel—have to say about index investing.

The book is reviewed by Burton Malkiel in The Wall Street Journal Europe (April 11, 2007 p.12).

This is the third book in Wiley's "LITTLE BOOK. BIG PROFITS." series. The series includes The Little Book That Beats the Market by Joel Greenblatt (Wiley, 2005), ISBN 978-0-471-73306-5 and The Little Book of Value Investing by Christopher H. Browne (Wiley, 2006), ISBN 978-0-470-05589-2

The series focus is to present finance strategies in general and understandable terms.