Beating the Dow with Bonds : A High-Return, Low-Risk Strategy for Outperforming the Pros Even When Stocks Go South

Rating:
Summary: Not very good, but....
Review: The book was not very well written, and why he felt the need to devote 70 pages describing in copious detail all 30 of the Dow stocks is beyond me. However, his 30 year zero-coupon analysis does have something going for it, and the inflation rate is a good predictor for a change in asset allocation.

Rating:
Summary: Poorly written
Review: The central tenet of this book can be summarized in one sentence: "Buy bonds because stocks are due for a meltdown." Problem with this book is that it's repeated so often. Finally in the next-to-last chapter, the investment strategy is introduced, but the fundamental reasoning for why it works is not explained (why gold?). There's even a major editorial error. It says to subtract the S&P500 yield from the bond yield and to invest in stocks if the result is "greater than the S&P500 yield." In fact it should say "invest in stocks if the result is less than zero"--i.e. the S&P500 yield is greater than the bond yield.

Rating:
Summary: Method is GOOD, but the book is VERY POOR!!!
Review: The method of BTDWB is good, but the book is VERY POOR!!! There is serious mistake in the method described. Don¡¦t forget to go to Corrections to "17 Simple Steps to Super Returns" for a further reading. (You can find it in Amazon website----Editorial Reviews) But the correction is still containing mistake. Please note the Gold Price of the example in Corrections to "17 Simple Steps to Super Returns"!!

Rating:
Summary: Profitable, Pragmatic Advice for All Investment Scenarios
Review: This is one of the few stock market books from the 1990s that will be read and appreciated many years from now. While silly stuff like "Dow 36,000" & Harry Dent quickly withers away, O'Higgins advice gains credibility every day in this apparently multi-year bear market. Several web sites (beartopia dot com & others) mention this book. Perhaps the book's title should have substituted "zero coupon bonds" for the word "bonds." Do look up the authors corrected list of investment steps here at Amazon, however, do not let the slightly sloppy editing deter you from learning this powerful investment advice. The more knowledgable one is of the market, the more one appreciates O'Higgins and his two works. This book's advice works in bull and bear markets.

Rating:
Summary: Profitable, Pragmatic Advice for All Investment Scenarios
Review: This is one of the few stock market books from the 1990s that will be read and appreciated many years from now. While silly stuff like "Dow 36,000" & Harry Dent quickly withers away, O'Higgins advice gains credibility every day in this apparently multi-year bear market. Several web sites (beartopia dot com & others) mention this book. Perhaps the book's title should have substituted "zero coupon bonds" for the word "bonds." Do look up the authors corrected list of investment steps here at Amazon, however, do not let the slightly sloppy editing deter you from learning this powerful investment advice. The more knowledgable one is of the market, the more one appreciates O'Higgins and his two works. This book's advice works in bull and bear markets.

Rating:
Summary: If my investing were this sloppy . . .
Review: Your biggest return this year may be to not buy this one. As others have noted, the book has more holes in it than my broker's ethics. As one example, the simple demonstration of how to use the method doesn't match the text. Worse is the fact that there are inconsistencies in the method even using what Higgins provides. The method recommends in some situations that we buy treasuries--in fact, in those years STOCKS were more often the better investment. So is 1999 stocks or zeros? And will it matter if the DOW hits 10,000 in software that only allowed 4 digits?