I wrote a review for one of my favorite books The Coffeehouse Investor in February. A new edition came out this month. The title changed to The New Coffeehouse Investor. I read it with eagerness to see what’s new.
Everything in the original book is still there. This new book uses the same conversational style, like the author is telling you something over a cup of coffee. There are very few charts and tables. It’s still a small book, under 200 pages, although with four new chapters, the page size had to be made larger than the previous edition. The four new chapters are:
Travels of a Coffeehouse Investor – How to deal with the sales pressure and the temptation for wanting to do better than the market, now that the market didn’t do well in the last ten years.
Spending It – How to manage a portfolio after you retire. Tracking the "burn rate" is much more important than fretting over allocating 45%, 50% or 55% to anything.
Index Funds and Beyond – Beware of sector and fundamental index funds and ETFs. Keep it simple.
The Journey Continues – Tune into yourself, your friends, and your community. Step out of the pursuit of free lunches because there is none.
I liked the previous edition because it is easy to understand and because it emphasizes on what really matters: take care of three big items — asset allocation, index funds, and saving — then get on with one’s life. With the addition of four new chapters, I like it even more. Investing should not be stressful. If you feel it’s stressful, you are trying too hard.
Rating: ***** (Excellent). Replacing the previous edition on my recommended reading list.
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