Random Walk: A Book Review

By Bob

For one of my classes I have been reading a book called A Random Walk Down Wall Street written by Burton G. Malkiel. Some would probably consider Random Walk a boring book about investments, but this finance nerd considers it quite interesting and even stimulating. The main theme of the book is that "Investors would be far better off buying and holding an index fund than attempting to buy and sell individual securities or actively managed mutual funds." Here are a few other quotes from the book that make it interesting:
"Financial analysts in pin-striped suits do not like being compared to bare-[bottomed] apes." (I had to censor this one)
"If you sit down at the table and can't figure out who the sucker is, get up and leave because it's you." --p.237
"Never buy anything from someone who is out of breath." --p243
"If the S&P index were an athlete, we would probably be testing it for steroids." --p. 270
"More than two-thirds of professional portfolio managers have been outperformed by the unmanaged S&P 500 Index." --p17
Hmmm...maybe it wasn't that interesting.
Did anyone else hear that the Disney film Bambi made it onto Time Magazine's Top 25 Horror Movies of All Time? I always thought it was pretty scary, but I thought I was the only one.
I had a job interview on Wednesday that I bombed. It wasn't a huge atomic-sized bomb or anything, but it was like a pipe bomb. What happened was that I was expecting a few non-technical questions before the technical ones, but the first question I was asked was "What is a balance sheet?"As I said I wasn't really expecting a technical question right off the bat and I goofed my answer. I know what a BS is, but I just wasn't confident enough with my response. I will have other chances that will go more smoothly and I'll update you all when those happen.