Harriman’s New Book of Investing Rules: The Do’s & Don’ts of the World’s Best Investors, edited by Christopher Parker, contains over 500 pages of wisdom from 64 noted American and British investors. It’s a smorgasbord of ideas from which the reader can pick and choose. Don’t like Brussel sprouts? Here, have some cheesecake. But, said in a cautionary whisper, you’d be better off with the Brussel sprouts.
I hate to think how many years of successful investing experience are encapsulated in this volume. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000. There aren’t too many resources that can claim this much collective experience.
Herewith a tiny sampling of some of the rules, minus the often much more insightful explanation that follows each of them.
- Diversify, but not to mediocrity.
- Concentrate, but not too much.
- Hedge when the market’s expensive and falling.
- Unless you are a genius use a system.
- Don’t rely too heavily on models.
- Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
- Demographics are destiny.
- Price is the paramount trading signal.
- Be happy doing nothing.
- Question the persistency of anomalies.
- Understand your edge and why it is sustainable.
- Review past stupidities, but don’t let them make you timid.
- Only bet on one variable at a time.
- It’s important that your process does not work in every market environment.
- Don’t chop and change too much.
- Be patient—fortune sometimes take a while to favor the bold.
- Time, not timing, is the key to investment success. The best time to invest, therefore, is now.
- Always remember that investing is hard.