I heard of this book from some Chinese online forum. Someone said that this book helped him with his retirement finance with his meager postdoc salary. Since I was earning meager postdoc salary in one of the most expensive cities at the time, I got a copy.

This is a great book with a lot of information. It is also very fun to read and I highly recommend it.

The author delivers a clear message as early as in the preface:

the market prices stocks so efficiently that a blindfolded chimpanzee throwing darts at the stock listings can select a portfolio that performs as welll as those managed by the experts

And his suggestion is that

the core of every portfolio should consist of low-cost, tax-efficient, broad-based index funds.

To be more specific, there are four guidelines

  • broad diversification
  • annual rebalancing
  • using index funds
  • staying the course

The fun part of the book is that the author reviews investment theories, market analysis methods, and the financial bubbles in history.