Rating: 
Summary: The Best Mutual Fund Book Written
Review: Critics may say the book in only trying to sell index funds, a strong suit of Vanguard. Absolutely wrong! The book's real value is explaining how the mututal fund industry works and, hence, how to follow the money. The industry extracts about one per cent each year of your money in excess expense ratios and keeps it, not to mention the hidden costs of turnover and load. That adds up over a lot of money in a life time. Read the book. Understand asset allocation, return, risk, and cost. Then, you'll understand how the money works and how to pick a fund based on its expense ratio, load, and turnover.
Rating: 
Summary: good, biased, don't read just this
Review: I didn't find the book nearly as repetitive as some other reviewers did. Yes, Bogle continues to point out that cost matters and that you can't predict the winners in advance. But he HAS to keep repeating his point. If he didn't, opponents of indexing would (and do) say, "But cost doesn't matter as much in emerging markets because they are less efficient." So Bogle is forced to remake his point over and over and over again to show the superiority of indexing in every asset class.Bogle has a few hidden gems in here that I haven't come across in my other reading. For instance, he points out that owning S&P 500 companies DOES give you international exposure since almost 25% of the those companies' revenues come from outside the United States. He also makes some very good points about the effectiveness of slice-and-dice efficient frontier asset allocation methodologies and how they tend to reflect the past more than the future. On the other hand, I feel that his dismissal of international investing shows an underlying bias that isn't well founded. He points out that the EAFE failed to perform as well at the S&P 500 over the past 10 years. Yet that is a period he admits is extraordinarily favorable to US-based large-cap firms. Later he does admit that when measured from its inception in the 1960s the EAFE has almost the same returns as the S&P 500 but then dismisses the usefulness of this. Even though it provided the same returns if it has a low correlation to the S&P 500 it can be a good component in a portfolio. It is almost like he doesn't understand the entire point of risk-adjusted returns. Another complaint is that I don't think the book is very suitable as an introduction for novices. It isn't that the material is difficult, I just don't feel it is structured very well. For instance, he starts using standard deviation to mean risk. It isn't until much later on that he mentions in passing the problems with using standard deviation as a proxy for risk. If you are a little bit familiar with investing then you'll know all of this already, but I think a novice might be left floundering or possibly mislead. I couldn't help shake the feeling that a lot of his arguments weren't especially sound. Maybe it's because he doesn't present a lot of his data, but only his conclusions. Or maybe it's because it feels too much like he's reasoning towards a conclusion he arrived at long before the data was available. I feel that Berstein's Intelligent Asset Allocator offers a much more rigorous and sound (if slightly different) argument in favor of indexing than presented here. Finally, I felt like the argument wasn't especially coherent. I knew what point he was trying to make but at times I just felt like the editor hadn't done a proper job of cleaning up the text. Swedroe's What Wall Street Doesn't Want You To Know has a much more coherent, straight forward structure while arguing in favor of indexing. Despite all of that, I still think this book has a valuable place in the investor's education. If you can borrow a copy from a friend, or check it out from the library, you owe it to yourself to do so.
Rating:
Summary: Common Sense on Mutual Funds
Review: John Bogle is an investment champion for the commom man and women. He is one of a few people that has earned my trust in the mutual fund field. I found this book fairly easy to understand. John provides all you need to know and bases it on simplicity. This book may well be the best book ever on mutual funds.
Rating:
Summary: An Eye Opener
Review: I have read of Vangard's low cost mutual funds in many financial books. Now I know why their costs are so low. Mr. Bogle presents his case for how the mutual fund industry should operate and where it fails the shareholder in too many areas. This book may be too technical for some readers, but I would highly recommend it to anyone with a financial background. This is not "The Courage to Be Rich" or one of the other feel good financial books. But if you really want to understand how the mutual fund system works and get the most for your investment dollar, the answers are in here.
Rating:
Summary: An Investment Classic
Review: Perhaps never before has the truth on sound mutual fund investing been delivered so convincingly and in such an eloquent manner. Mr. Bogle's book reads like literature and as you absorb his thoughts it becomes clear he's speaking to you as a true friend and has your best interests at heart. I was thoroughly entertained just reading his chapter on bonds of all things. It caused me to jump out of my chair and check my accounts. I've been investing for 18 years and those 23 pages saved me $300/year immediately. Bogle slices and dices the market every which way and takes you to the clear conclusion that you're being scammed by much of the fund industry. Without question this book will enrich and entertain you and enrage several thousand mutual fund managers. Don't let them buy another Porsche with your money.
Rating:
Summary: Clear, concise, and correct advice on Investing
Review: Bogle is the best at giving people the straight dope on what to do in simple investing. If you are not a whiz on the market or investing, no matter, he gives his main message clear enough; even though you will notice he doesn't dumb it down for the uneducated. Even if you think you understand the market to a large degree, make sure to read it too, for you will learn a thing or two. You won't get this valuable message any other place. You can "bank" on his advice.
Rating:
Summary: Great strategy, but don't forget index "stocks"
Review: Bogle presents a well-researched expose of the large fund companies' sub-par performance, makes a solid case for choosing index funds over managed funds. He neglects, however, to mention indexed shares, such as Spiders, QQQ's, WEBS, and (in Canada, TIPs), all of which charge NO annual fees to track specific indices (just a little discount brokerage up front).
Rating: 
Summary: Bogle clearly states the facts about mutual fund investing.
Review: Bogle makes an impressive case both logically and factually for using low cost and widely diversified mutual funds as one's primary investment vehicle. A key example of such a strategy is indexing both stocks and bonds.
Rating:
Summary: A good argument for investing in low cost, index funds.
Review: This book provides a good argument for buying low cost, index funds for the average investor. Each chapter provides evidence on why index funds should be a major part of one's portfolio. The book details how cost is a large factor in reducing returns. He presents the data very well, however each chapter is just another detailed argument on why one should buy low cost, index funds. After the first few chapters this gets a bit tiresome. Mr. Bogle's first book was much more informative on how to design a well rounded portfolio.
Rating:
Summary: Should be required reading for all mutual fund investors
Review: Bogle has written a terrific book that makes its points over and over. Low cost funds, passive investment strategies, etc. His statistics, and we know they can always lie, are irrefutable that high cost, front-end load funds can never, as a group, match funds that use his proven strategies. There are always exceptions, but you think you are smart enough to pick those funds in advance?? I wish I knew about Peter Lynch before he started doing all those wonderful things, but unfortunate-ly, like most other people, I couldn't pick him out of the bunch 20 years ago. Index funds give you a shot of at least matching the market, which as they say, ain't bad the last few years.
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