How Not To Invest - Barry Ritholtz

[Maverick47]

Just got this book today.  It fits well into the category of inverting a typical approach of advising readers what to do in order to succeed in investing, by looking closely at all the myriad ways that humans with our emotional brains are likely to shoot ourselves in the foot instead.

 

I’ve always liked Charlie Munger’s advice to invert the typical human tendency to want to know how to succeed at something, and instead, examine the ways humans typically fail, and then spend time and effort avoiding those sorts of mistakes.  In my own career, I can say that I added more value to the organizations I worked for by helping them recognize and avoid if possible, and reverse if necessary, self inflicted financial wounds.

 

I especially like Charlie’s observation that “All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.”

 

This book can help remind us of all the ways we can fail at meeting our financial goals.  It remains up to the reader to avoid these…

 

P.S.  one of my favorite lessons from Munger and Buffett regarding successful investing is not ever to interrupt a long run of successful compounding.  They would commonly share their two most important rules of investing as:

 

#1. Don’t lose money, and

 

#2.  Don’t forget rule #1

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 10, 2025 by Maverick47