Index Funds: The 12-Step Program for Active Investors

by Mark T. Hebner

Book Overview

The financial services industry has a dark secret, one that costs global investors about $2.5 trillion per year. This secret quietly drains the investment portfolios and retirement accounts of almost... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0976802309
• ISBN13: 9780976802303
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Ifa Publishing Inc
• Length: 392 Pages
• Weight: 4.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 8.8" x 11.3"

Customer Reviews

An Investment Book I Couldn't Put Down!

I spent a weekend reading this book cover to cover and I couldn't be more pleased. This book eloquently summarized my four years of Masters coursework, not to mention decades of academic research, in a style that is compelling and easy to grasp. Reading this book will help you understand why a globally-diversified, risk-capacity-matched, small-value-tilted, low-cost, tax-efficient index portfolio is the only smart way to invest. You will understand exactly why stock pickers, mutual fund managers, and market timers mathematically cannot beat the market over 10 or 20 year periods... while the very few that do are the result of chance, despite their claims to the contrary. You may also want to watch the Nova special, "The Trillion Dollar Bet".

Costly Lesson

If you are like me, you have spent far too much time and money learning the ugly truth about investing. Nobody can consistently over time beat the market. Nobody. This book is about a revolutionary idea and an obvious one: Invest with the market and win with the market. This does not mean that "one size fits all," that there is just one strategy everyone should use. In fact, the author puts forward 20 separate portfolio strategies, each with a "play with the market" approach. Each with its own risk/return specifics. Each one a winner over the past 35 years. This attractive book is literally worth it's weight in gold. Actually, it's worth well more than that.

This Book Is A Classic!

Mark Hebner continues the service he has performed so well for investors that started with his outstanding web page[..]. In this book, he takes much of the material that can be found on his web page and puts it in his book, in an easy to understand, and overwhelmingly convincing manner. It is impossible to believe that any objective person reading this book could fail to be convinced that the investing public continues to be deceived by the financial services industry. I would urge every investor to buy this beautifully designed book, read it carefully and implement the investment philosophy explained with such care and precision in it. Not only will investors reap the rewards of being in the top 5% or so of all professionally managed money over the long term, but they will have the satisfaction of knowing that they will no long fall prey to the avarice of the brokerage community and other advisors who profess to have skills that neither they, nor anyone else, possess. Daniel R. Solin, author, Does Your Broker Owe You Money?

You want the Truth?

To quote a few lines of Jack Nickelson and Tom Cruise from A Few Good Men... Jessep/Nickelson: You want answers? Kaffee/Cruise: I want the truth! Jessep: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. In the investment world, the "men with guns" are the active fund managers and the brokers who sell those active funds. They make so much money from fleecing the unsuspecting public that they need to have "guns" to keep the public from getting the Truth. In the investment world "guns" are slick advertising, performance propaganda, big commissions and false promises, all which serve to misinform the public of the Truth. This book exposes it all and gives you the Truth about how active management is SO poor when compared to low-cost, tax-efficient index/DFA funds. If you CAN handle the Truth, you need to read this book today!

Excellent Investing Book

The author takes complex topics and makes them easy to understand ... with an intent of saving others from the mistakes he had made as an active investor -- trading stocks, investing in a variety of mutual funds, etc. Instead the book lays out the many benefits of index investing and provides a framework for someone to begin doing so through the highly regarded passive/index investment firm Dimensional Fund. This is the only investing book I've ever been able to read and enjoy every page of.