"Investing for dummies" by Eric Tyson

I wanted to read a foundational generalist book about investing, so that, after my MBA, I can check if there are some gaps still left that need further research and education.  Mr. Tyson's book is as general as it can get! I understood after the first chapter that the more appropriate book would have been "Stock Investing for Dummies" since Mr. Tyson's book covers real estate, small business and extensive tax shelter retirement strategies.  These are, of course, amazing, but I meant only investing in the stock market sense when starting my research.

Mr. Tyson is an investor of the old school.  He says that if one doesn't hold a stock at least 5-7 years before selling, then one is not doing investing, but trading, which Mr. Tyson equals with gambling.  Like most investors of the old school Mr. Tyson does not believe in day trading and technical analysis, but instead concentrates on sheltering as much money as possible in predominantly retirement vehicles and keeping solid investments (not stellar, but solid) for as long as possible, and having the long average of the market (which is always rising on a very long time scale) to bring profits, even though in the "golden" years of one's life.

Mr. Tyson's strategy is proven and the only one that can somewhat guarantee results, of course, for the most patient and most enduring among us.  Many would reject such advice and jump on the day trading wagon, which, if looked at a long enough time line, is really like gambling.  However, on short distances, the market can be beat.  But still, like a gambler, the really high rollers pride themselves on knowing when to enter and when to exit a position, precise timing being everything.  And it only takes one bad bed to erase all the good ones.

Ultimately Mr. Tyson's book is for the people with enough nervous strength and constant income to afford the luxury of being "armchair investors" where one allocates the investments, sets up a monthly transfer plan and just checks once or twice a year if some kind of re-balance is needed.  No following of the markets; no checking stock prices every 20 minutes, no fretting when the Dow drops, no euphoria when the Dow skyrockets, as the armchair investors knows that over the longest investment time period (40 years or so) they will be on the market, all the ups and downs will cancel each other and finally come down to a nice constant return of about 6-10%.