Sleep Easy Investing [Hardcover]

This book would have been appropriate if it was published in 1930. Most of us have Internet access and online trading accounts which allows us to react instantly to bad news about our stocks / options / commodities / Forex investments. After the tech bubble burst and the 2009 financial meltdown, most of us understand that there is risk with any investment. The investor today is educated, knowledgable, sophisticated, Internet connected, tech-savvy and does not have the same wholly-dependent-on-your-broker, fear-of-everything mentality as the investor of 1930. Most of us KNOW there is risk, and we WANT those risks and their rewards. We sleep well by MANAGING the risks, NOT AVOIDING them. Most of us use Microsoft Excel with web queries to track our investments with the latest prices from Internet investment sites, alert us when they hit certain price / volume points. I set my data refresh rate to 10 minutes, so, within 10 minutes I know about all the price and volume changes of all my investments as well as things on my watch lists. Because of security regulations, brokers can no longer call their big clients first with important news, we all get it at the same time, it is a level playing field. The author seems to be telling us to avoid everything just so we can sleep easy. Most of us can sleep VERY easily if we know what the news and most recent prices are, and that we can react instantly to that news good or bad.

The author starts chapter 16 by expressing his frustration with Chinese restaurants, to quote him "They may be delicious, but I tend to avoid them for fear I'll end up with something I consider inedible." Does that mean he prejudges everything and doesn't want to be confused with FACTS and would not recommend a profitable investment because he is fearful and the investment does not fit into his limited little world? Perhaps if the author and his wife could learn to stop being fearful, to keep an open mind, they might find that those "inedibles" are actually very delicious, and they could become favourite dishes! Just a thought.

Has the author ever heard of stop orders??? Sometimes you may miss out a big gain. On the other hand, many times, the stop loss orders sell you out before too much damage is done. And with Internet access and online trading accounts, we can enter and update those stop orders 24/7 everyday of the year, including holidays and weekends. I do agree with the author that we should not panic when the entire market drops, but if I had invested in something like Enron, my stop order would have bailed me out very early with a loss when the massive fraud was announced, but just not a 99% loss. To truly sleep easy, we would prefer to be told about the different rules / mechanics / procedures of the different investment products, and how to react to both good and bad news and not just avoid everything. And how can you sleep easily if you know you are losing purchasing power everyday if you invest only in low risk low return investments??? You might sleep easily but it might be in your car! One more thing: I don't avoid everything, I don't invest in financial products where I don't understand the rules and procedures, but I do take and manage risks, I go wild in the Chinese restaurants and I sleep VERY easily!!!

And if you really want to Sleep Easy, read Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School instead. Better written, better advice. And yes, the author Andrew Hallam, a Canadian teacher became a millionaire using his own technique.

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about LEARNING HOW TO DANCE IN THE RAIN!!! :)