How a Second Grader Beats Wall Street - Golden Rules Any Investor Can Learn

For those who go to your stock-broker-salesman for advice I recommend you read this book.

There is a whole cadre of people who are out to separate you from your money as you delve into the investment world and this book will help protect you from their misguided advice.

It is a book of wisdom for beginners but has tons of information for seasoned investor.

Set goals, understand personal risk tolerance, set asset allocation, diversify, reduce costs, rebalance and keep emotions intact, it's all presented in a way a Second Grader can understand.

This book will help you get the most out of your investment dollar.

This book peels back a few layers of Financial Business hype that is promoted by way too many sources that have a vested interest in making money from investors (it's obvious that Mr. Roth has a one time intersest in selling his book, one copy at a time. But learning, understanding and applying the knowledge will return thousands of times the cost over the lifetime of new investors, hundreds of times for older investors). The inspiration for Mr. Roth, as he freely credits, traces to John Bogle, who also has written some terrific books that I highly recommend.

The Golden Rules of Mr. Roth are in keeping with his mantra of KISS (keep it simple, stupid). I have become convinced that following the investment stratagies in this book will always work best in the long term(5 years or more) and usually work best in the short term (less than 5 years).

The concepts of how no load, low expense investing in mutual funds works best for the average investor are well described.

My first exposure to this book was at my local public library, and I was so impressed that I bought 2 copies to give to my adult children in hopes that they will see the truth and logic as presented in the book.

Highly recommended.

This is, without a doubt, the stupidest book I've ever wasted my money on. Here's some real advice for you: Don't EVER take financial advice about how to invest from a bean counter with alphabet soup behind his name, and, thank God every day Allan Roth isn't your CPA.

Allan Roth may be a pseudonym for Warren Buffet; Roth has the credentials and even though he is an older guy with a young kid, unlike Buffet he has a hot wife - [...]

His book presents valuable lessons from his kid's perspective, making comparisons between Sponge Bob and the screamer, Jim Cramer and others. The book is about building up wealth without having to make sacrifices. It's about taking the money you've saved and making it grow and not giving it to a financial institution or broker. Roth and his kid present about a dozen basic rules in a well organized, clever, comical and easy to read format that is backed by Wall Street research. Roth has done all of us a favor by taking the complexity and mystique out of investing. The cost of the book can be quickly recovered by following Roth's advice, for example,"Pick the Low Hanging Fruit" - Certificates of Deposit.

This book shows the novice investor how to get respectable performance and manage risk without giving away anything in third party management fees. It provides great advice based on a simple and straightforward strategy, in a form that reads easily and quickly. Great advice, especially for those who don't know where to begin.

This is an excellent, common-sense guide that demystifies investing and offers a practical approach for building wealth. Allan offers a fun balance of entertaining family anecdotes and professional expertise to craft a book that's an insightful and enjoyable read. Most finance/investing books I read feel like homework; this is an enjoyable journey down a clearly marked path to navigate Wall Street.

I appreciated that this book delved into behavioral finance, allocation, and general investing concepts. There is genuinely some good investing information but I have to admit the book annoyed me. The second grader gimmick is used early and often to extol the virtues of index investing. The reason I say gimmick is because the author designed a portfolio for his son and then relates the handful of mini-lessons he devised after the fact to get his buy-in. (e.g. betting lunch money and lending money to people that give it back) That's all well and good but the author takes it a bit far and proceeds to spend the whole book dumbing down the reasons for indexing. For example he provides a list of total U.S. stock market funds and then says, "I challenge anyone on Wall Street to show me a more diversified portfolio." The empty challenge is just silly and assumes I don't understand the concept of a TOTAL stock market fund. By the author's own admission in another chapter, ten years is a short time period, but his portfolio's performance numbers aren't back-tested beyond this point. I don't disagree with his arguments but the data isn't consistent with the message. Later the author makes a blanket statement that the process of dollar cost averaging only has psychological benefits. Really? I think most would agree it depends on my time frame for buying, what I'm buying and, how long it's going to be in the market. Who has the stones to plunk down their whole life savings in one go when the current market is so volatile? You've got to be nuts. You can bet if I got a big chunk of money at once I'd at least go into the market over a few months.

The author is also a practicing financial planner but dedicates a huge amount of prose describing investing as an "Us" versus "Them" endeavor. We investors are the good guys and anything that comes out of Wall Street is very bad. Am I missing something? By being in the financial industry isn't he part of Wall Street? And repeatedly selling oneself as the only honest guy left on Wall Street insults my intelligence the most. If that's true I can't really trust the Wall Street types quoted all over the book jacket can I?

This is an excellent book on investing! Allan's book showed how keeping investing simple (low cost index funds diversified across the USA and the world) is a much much better approach to financial wealth. Chasing after the latest fads or hottest mutual funds is a sure way to lose money. Reminded me of the fable of the tortoise and the hare. Read the book, you'll be glad you did!

Allen Roth has taken the complex and made it simple. Understanding the way we think about investing is more important then almost anything else in the book. I enjoyed the examples, stories, and metaphors that he uses. I highly recommend this for those just starting out, as you will have a huge advantage over us older, 'smarter' investors. This will help you attain your financial goals.

This book is fantastic. Mr. Roth puts the vast topic of "investing" into simple golden rules that are based on the realities of the market not current trends. I highly recommend this book to investors looking for long term results.

Allan provides a common sense and effective method of investing presented in a format that will keep your interest. You won't get that "deer in the headlights look" as he takes you through the process of building an efficient portfolio. Do your hard earned money a favor and read his book. It tells what the commissioned and fee based financial advisors do not want you to know.

If everyone followed his advice, Wall Street would be out of business. Roth emphasizes low-cost investing above all else--meaning, cut out those who want their cut, and keep their fees for yourself.

His approach also has one huge advantage, not to be overlooked. If you choose to use his admittedly boring approach to investing, you'll certainly sleep a lot better than you would with virtually any other approach to investing in US stocks.

But do you want to be 60% invested in US stocks? I certainly don't. However, I'd have to buck Roth's conventional wisdom to prove that in the declining American empire, the US market can't come close to the real rate of inflation.

Why not see your nest egg actually grow, by investing overseas? The exchange rate and unpredictable markets will add some volatility, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that, relative to the dollar, the long-term upward movements of Asian stocks, the Euro, gold, and many other great investments will leave Roth's strategy in the dust.

I was looking for books to help me understand the insanity of investing. I have no true knowledge of how to invest. I just don't trust 401K's and the like, so I got this book. Why would I buy this type of book? To improve my knowledge of managing my money. Well, I didn't get investment knowledge, or information on how to develop an investment plan. Perhaps the author should consider taking some writing classes. The other reviewers who gave it one star are spot on........and the search continues.

Dumb gimmick book. I heard this jerk when he was making the interview rounds dragging his kid along who he has exploited and obviously scripted his lines. Anyone who buys into this crap advice deserves the losses they are going to take.