The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need

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The Only Investment Guide You Need is a book written by Andrew Tobias and concerns the sensible rules that a regular saver can live with. Published in 1978 and revised every few years since then, it preceded other popular investment books like Beardstown Ladies Investment Guide and Beating the Street by Peter Lynch of the Magellan Fund Fidelity. Along with Burton Malkiel's book A Random Walk Down Wall Street helps readers see through flam flam marketing investment as well as being a sensible guide to personal finance.

In a nutshell, this book suggests the following: 1. There is no reliable method to accumulate great wealth quickly 2. A person's income should exceed one's expenses. (This book explains the basic method of maintaining one's capital.) 3. If one's spending exceeds one's income, one must determine the nature of expenditure and whether they can be marginalized by heart. 4. People should be wary of financial advertising. Advertisers and financial institutions offering it often have conflicting interests with the small investor they are targeting 5. Someone must enter the first few thousand dollars into the account that is not possible to lose its face value. (This book discusses such accounts, it also discusses bonds, not all of which can be sold indefinitely at face value.) 6. A person must use tax-protected accounts to invest for a person's retirement and for continued academic education from his offspring 7. A person must make a sum of fixed amounts to no-load, low cost stock index funds every month for the remainder of a person's time in the labor market. One should not make less money than usual after a severe or prolonged market downturn. Nor should anyone make more money than usual after the market has risen sharply over the years. (This book discusses common stocks, their advantages and dangers as a medium of investment.) 8. An unreliable person achieves higher returns from the stock market than the market average, no matter how much time and energy is devoted to the task. And one can achieve a return that is almost equal to the market average almost without devoting time or effort to the task by regularly doing a fixed amount for index funds. Therefore, one must make a periodic commitment of one's money and return to one's routine routine 9. One must eliminate the complicated, exhausting, expensive, unreliable tactics alleged by some to enable a person to achieve higher returns than the stock market average. (This book discusses the various of them and explains why a person does not have to devote much time, effort, or spending money to them.) People should only periodically make a fixed amount for index funds.
10. Investing in commodities, or coins, stamps, cars, collectibles, signatures, drawings, art, or anything like that is not worth the cost to amateur investors for 2 reasons: you're not an expert, so you might buy from a expert. Secondly, even if you buy at a good price, you will sell to an expert, and lose money by selling to one. (pg 10)
11. Low-Price Shares beat the majority time market. If all stocks have a high PE stock, wait 6 months for the market to crash. (Page 86)
12. Buy shares that have a dividend at least equal to the amount you will find in the bank. (Pg 81)
13. Only invest money you do not need for the next 5 years, also diversify by not buying all shares at the same time, or with the same company. (Chapter 5)