The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns

Of course, there are some really skilled investment managers; yet, in the short term, it may be difficult to tell whether a stellar track record is the result of skill or chance. But the majority of advisers are significantly more adept at earning large fees than they are at producing large profits. Actually, their primary skill is sales. Big and small investors alike would be better off reading Jack Bogle's The Little Book of Common Sense Investing than listening to their seductive calls. — Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett, 2014 Annual Shareholder Letter. The key to investing is using common sense. A winning strategy is to accumulate and keep a diverse portfolio of stocks over time. Theoretically, there must be a loss for every winner in the stock market, making it a loser's game if the significant expenses of investing are subtracted. Purchasing and holding all of the country's publicly traded companies at very cheap cost is the simplest and most effective investing plan, as history and common sense both indicate. The only investment that ensures you will get your fair share of stock market gains is the traditional index fund, which owns this market portfolio. John C. Bogle, a renowned mutual fund industry veteran, is the ideal mentor if you want to understand how to make index investing work for you. In his lengthy career, Bogle—the man behind the world's first index mutual fund and the founder of the Vanguard Group—has mostly depended on index investing to assist Vanguard's investors in amassing significant wealth. He now hopes to assist you in doing the same with The Little Book of Common Sense Investing. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing will teach you how to use this tried-and-true investing method in your portfolio. It is full with insightful information and helpful suggestions. It will also alter your whole perspective on investment. Investing successfully is not simple. (It calls for patience and self-control.) However, it is easy. It all comes down to plain sense. You'll learn how to turn investing into a winning endeavor by using The Little Book of Common Sense Investing as your guide: There are also cautions on investing trends and fads, such as the current rush into exchange-traded funds and the emergence of indexing hoaxes. Possessing the whole market while drastically reducing the expenses of financial intermediation is the true recipe for investment success. That is the main goal of index investing. And that's the main focus of this book.