Funny you mention that @Mujo -- saw this recently and thought it looked like as good read.

Yep, really opened my eyes with some great insights like that one!

Really well researched, and interesting history weaved in like why Germany agreed to give the UK sniper scopes and binoculars in WW1 - their enemy - (UK had a shortage) when they were fighting, we're the saying 'taking the piss' came from.

Had some pretty scare possibilities for the future of iron ore too - if economies ever enter a state whereby there is enough steel in an economy to be circular etc.

Just every chapter has an interesting nugget.

New book "Same as Ever" by Morgan Housel, author of Psychology of Money. Haven't read it yet, but will soon.

I am in the middle of the book at the moment. If you have been following and reading Morgan’s writing since The Motley Fool days and now at the Collaborative Fund, you’ll find a lot of stuff being rehashed in the book. There are some insights that are new (or maybe I needed to refresh my memory). Anyway, if you have read Morgan’s previous book, The Psychology of Money, you may want to lower your expectations because this book (Same as Ever), for me, does not engage me the same as the first book (The Psychology of Money) where there were many penny dropping moments.

I finished reading The Ulysses Contract by Michael Kemp over the weekend. How would I best describe it? Disturbing! Michael is an avid reader of investment history and research and uses this information to test what you believe is true. He throws doubt into your mind about your perceived ability to outperform the index as a stock picker, which is somewhat disturbing when you believe it is your edge. He goes on to leave doubt in your mind about a whole lot of other things you may think are truths. For over half of the book you start to resent even picking up the book in the first place. You begin to doubt yourself and your beliefs.

However, the book is also enlightening in that Michael believes you don’t have to be a good stock picker to be a great investor. I think that’s true! He believes the biggest threat to being a successful investor is ourselves and anyone can be a successful investor with a fool proof strategy:

1. Define where you are now, where you want to go to and how much you need to regularly save and invest in order to get there.
2. Establish a system of automatic cash transfers that will add new savings to an established and growing investment pool
3. Unless you are a stock picking genius, invest in low cost, broad based index funds ( provided your investment horizon is long).
4. Ignore investment tips from family and friends. Your neighbour, brother in law or best friend has no idea what’s going on.
5. Shut down the internal forces of fear and greed.
6. Ignore all economic and financial predictions.
7. Don’t attempt to market-time.
8. Don’t be tempted by the latest investment craze
9. Don’t trade
10. Be patient

Michael makes investing sound too simple. There’s got to be more to it than that? And we all think we can get their quicker by consistently beating the Index. But can we? Are we better off focusing on other important things?

What will I change as a result? I will most likely move more of our portfolio into ETFs over time as it will be easier to manage, especially for my wife. But this is easier said than done. First I need to give up my addiction to stock picking! I will also recommend this book to my family and friends. Enjoy the read! :)

Great summary @Rick

I totally agree that simple is usually better. Complicated/"advanced" strategies have a huge appeal, because it's natural to assume that all the extra work/effort/understanding must provide superior outcomes -- after all, that's true for many things.

My cynical take is that the financial services sector will just push whatever sounds good, and advanced strategies sound really good.

Two quotes from money managers have always stuck with me:

"When the ducks quack, feed them"

And

“The quickest way to make money on Wall Street is to take the most sophisticated product and try to sell it to the least sophisticated client”.

@Rick I loved how excited you sounded when ordering the book, i wish a book could excite me that much!. by the sounds of it the book is probably appropriate for the vast majority of people out there. if you dont know and dont want to put the time in, DCA into low cost index funds makes sense. however for the SM community it is about adding extra value. the points 4-10 are still very relevant to seasoned investors. i have had some success with market timing but the opportunities are very rare. i go back to buffet who says (para) be as knowledgeable as you can about a company and be patient for the opportunities (can be years, or decades in buffets case!). depends on your wheel house as well. thanks Rick

Thanks @Strawman, and great quotes! I think the longer we spend in the world of investing the more we realise what we don’t know. And, as we get older we get more cautious and question whether our wealth creation has been more a product of consistent saving, compounding, living within our means…and just plain luck! I think this is the message Michael Kemp is trying to convey. I think I would give my family the same advice.

And as for Strawman…quack quack! :)

Couldn't agree more @Strawman .

Back in my financial planning days, before the GFC, two companies (Basis Capital & Absolute Capital) came a knockin' to promote their "advanced" strategies. Global structured credit were their products from memory.

Fortunately for me, or more specifically, my clients', I wasn't clever enough to understand their products, so I made the decision that if I couldn't understand their product, I didn't think my clients' would either.

Accordingly, I didn't recommend either fund to my clients'.

It's a mantra I've stuck with ever since - If I don't understand what they do, I'm not parting with my money.