Book Review: The Guru Investor by John Resse and Jack Forehand

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Want to learn about ten of the greatest investors and their market beating strategies all in one book? John Reese and Jack Forehand recently came out with a book titled The Guru Investor that details how.<br><br>
The book details ten different investors and their formulas for beating the market. The ten investors the book discusses are Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, John Neff, Peter Lynch, David Dreman, Joel Greenblatt, Ken Fisher, Martin Zwieg, James O’Shaughnessy, and Joseph Piotroski.

The book clearly has a value slant towards it. While some of the investors above are not value investors, the majority are. Overall I enjoyed the book. While everyone above with the exception of Warren Buffett and Joseph Piotroski has written their own books, the authors did a good job summing up the various investors’ investment ideas.
Even though I have read many books from the investors above, I have not read most of these books recently. Reese and Forehand do a good job summing up their ideas and reminding of some of the details I had forgotten.
In addition, I have not read any books by Ken Fisher, Martin Zweig and James O’Shaughnessy. I do not really consider their investment style one I would consider incorporating. Despite this fact I still found it interesting to read about their investment approaches even if it is one I would personally not pursue.
To be honest this book would not be so useful for more experienced investors. I assume most experienced value investors have read the books by the famous value investors the book discusses. In addition while Warren Buffett has not written a book there are countless excellent books that have been written about Warren Buffett and I assume experienced investors have read these books. For more experienced value investors the best chapter is the one on Joseph Piotroski. Joseph Piotroski is a value thinker who is relatively unknown to many. Piotroski has never authored a book on value investing. However, he has back tested a value strategy that produced a 23% per annum from 1976-1996.
However, I would consider this an excellent book for a new investor. It gives a novice investor some insight into value investing from some of the greatest investors ever. The authors write in a simple fashion and explain basic investment principles that most people would understand. In addition the authors provide some useful advice about how often to re balance, when to sell and other important information that every investor must know.

To read the rest of my review on GuruFocus click here

 

To purchase the book on Amazon.com click on the following link The Guru Investor: How to Beat the Market Using History’s Best Investment Strategies

Disclosure: New FTC guidelines require me to disclose I have a material connection because I received a free copy of the book to review.

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