The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers Rule Makers [Hardcover]

Because the Gardner Brothers no longer believe in most of the methods outlined in this book, I don't think they could recommend it. I personally can't recommend it, unless you want to read it as a history book, a reflection on stock picking from the late nineties.

As of April 2003 I felt compelled to add to this review; the Gardner Brothers have discontinued their Rule Maker/Rule Breaker online portfolios and for all intents the philosophies that this book presents. I think it is wrong for this book to be in publication and sold by Amazon when it is no longer represents what the authors believe. Please be strongly advised the authors are not practicing what is written in this book and haven't for some time. This is now only a history book, you should not buy it except for that reason.

For one some of the advice that they dish out can be a product of the time at which the book was written. A small portion of the book extols buying stocks when they are at their IPOs, a practice that brought investors considerable success before the advent of the dot-com debacle. Today such a practice would come under suspect just because of the lack of information most IPOs are able to offer given their nascent entrance into the business world. To be fair, the Gardners did spend a few sentences to preface their recommendations with the obvious heads up that one must do their due diligence before jumping into a stock head first.

The element of humor within the informative book serves to entertain and amuse, satisfying a promise they make from the get go. If you're a fan of Shakespeare or at least can read prose from that day in era (personally I found it difficult) then we may not get some of the quips that were intended for us. Overall it's a good read that echoes the teachings of the Sage of Omaha: buy and hold.

Enough about the writing though. What matters most in an investment book is what it has to say, and unfortunately, that is where Rule Breakers, Rule Makers is most lacking. Reading this book in the midst of a recession, I couldn't help but laughing on several occasions because over and over again Rule Breakers, Rule Makers dates itself. Written at the height of the tech bubble, this book is full of overly optimistic advice that borders on lunatic at points. No one can be held accountable for what was said during the tech bubble, surely, because we were all talking crazy. However, the advice that could have been perfectly applicable at the time is far from useful or relevant now.

That's not to say that there aren't any nuggets of truth in Rule Breakers, Rule Makers, because there certainly are quite a few. However, much of the advice, particularly that involving Rule Breakers, is quite sketchy. The fact that they give high-risk investment advice in a book geared toward the average investor speaks poorly of it.

In summary, Rule Breakers, Rule Makers is a very readable book. It offers some sensible advice to its readers. However, most of its advice was only useful during the tech bubble. These days, this book has the dangerous power to encourage impressionable investors to engage in high-risk trading creating a world of problems for themselves. All in all, this book does have advice to offer, but you have to wade through a great deal of crud to get to it.