The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
by William J. Bernstein

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Summary: 4 Stars

2. Learn from history:
Sometimes the investing public loses perspective, and becomes either unjustifiably positive or negative. Any investor who does not understand history is operating with a significant handicap, and the book offers a primer on financial history.

3. Human nature can lead you astray:
Unless you become aware of - and resistant to - these common flaws, human nature suggests you will have a tendency to: pay too much for some types of stocks, trade too much, tend to be overconfident, and "regularly make irrational buy and sell decisions."

4. "You are locked in a life-and-death struggle with the investment industry":
Financial services companies exist "almost entirely for one purpose: the extraction of fees and commissions from the investing public." Furthermore, the author argues that the industry "operates at a level of educational, moral, and ethical imperatives that would be inconceivable in any other industry."

5. Figure out what you are going to need, then devise a strategy to get there:
Based on the four "pillars" outlined above, the author presents a series of steps designed to help you calculate how much you will need to save to meet your goals, and how to design and manage your financial portfolio so that it takes you where you want to go. "With relatively little effort," concludes the author, "You can design and assemble an investment portfolio that, because of its wide diversification and minimal expense, will prove superior to most professionally managed accounts."

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