FYI: The author of "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" has walked all the way to Silicon Valley.
Burton Malkiel has been giving much the same investing advice for four decades: Keep fees low and don’t believe advisers and fund managers who promise to beat the market. Lately, he's championed global diversification, and especially emerging market stocks. Lots of people have listened to the Princeton University professor -- “A Random Walk" is on its 11th edition and has sold more than 1.5 million copies
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2014-12-09/burt-malkiel-walk-away-from-2015-know-it-alls.html
Comments
And yet, only 4 views on this site. Interesting.
I suspect the answer to your short readership number question is nicely summarized by a line from Simon and Garfunkel’s song “The Boxer”: “A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest”.
The short readership number only reflects those MFO members who actually registered on the site; the true readership number is many multiples of that listed value. Regardless, it is still a small number.
The typical MFO participant is likely characterized as an active mutual fund investor. He thrives on David Snowball’s superior monthly Commentary and on the daily tips and interchanges among the Discussion members. These varied contributions are properly active investment oriented.
On this forum, the perspectives of MFOer Scott are probably more meaningful and actionable than those of Bogle or Malkiel. That’s fair enough given the goals and purposes of most MFO contributors. That may or may not be so for the silent majority of all MFO readers.
This light-weight numbers game is not just coupled to Malkiel references. Scan the readership totals for Bogle or any other listings for Index material, and you’ll uncover the consistently small number of visitations. Nothing out of alignment here since it is representative of the overall, integrated MFO investment philosophy and preferences.
The behavioral science experts would call this a Confirmational bias. We seek viewpoints, references, and data that support our positions, while we simultaneously disregard or discount these same materials that challenge our preferences. That’s a dangerous behavior.
The experts in the behavioral space often recommend that we should make a special effort to understand the opposing viewpoint. This broader, more complete perspective, should allow us to make even better informed decisions. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function”.
Charlie Munger always advocates examining opposing perspectives and often says so in his writings and talks. One of his guiding principles is to “invert, always invert”. We learn most by assessing the other side of the argument.
MFOer Ted very fairly and very consistently posts a large counting of Index columns. That’s not him; he holds firm active investment concepts. Therefore, that’s a special acknowledgement to Ted who is a successful, practical active investor. Kudos to him for his open-mindedness. He makes the Discussion section a more complete, more balanced and more informative forum.
I thank all MFO forum participants, who are only a small fraction of those who visit this useful and engaging investment website, for their submittals.
Best Wishes.
And don't infer that I don't consider their messages generally sound. Something less than Sacred Scripture, yes, but generally sound.