
Not long ago, I finished reading A Man for All Markets. For my full review, you may refer to the review that I wrote on 2bookspermonth.com (Link).
Lessons from A Man for All Markets
Edward O. Thorp is an interesting guy who has success in beating the casinos and also the stock market.
Both gambling and investing involves understanding and dealing correctly with the trade-off between risk and return. To get rich, the surest way is to play only gambling games or make investments where we have an edge. However, it is quite hard to determine if we have an edge in the stock market nowadays.
Although he successfully beat the stock market, he does not advise the retail investors to attempt this feat. On the other hand, he recommends passive indexing as the preferred investing method. By buying an appropriate index fund, the investors at least could get close to market return.
He also does not believe in the efficient market hypothesis. Otherwise, it would not be possible for him to beat the market. Nonetheless, most of the methods that he used to reap better than market return might not be able to get good return now as they are widely used nowadays.
Conclusion
Although the author does not recommend the retail investors to try to beat the market, I think we still can attempt this feat in Malaysia as our stock market is not as mature as the US. Furthermore, the exchange traded funds and mutual funds in Malaysia are still not as cost-effective as in US yet.
Recommended book
If you are interested in A Man for All Markets, you may get the book through the link below*.
Get the book here from Kinokuniya Malaysia
*Disclosure: The link above is an affiliate link. If you buy the book using this link, I might get a small commission from your purchase.