The Investor's Dilemma Decoded

You know how sometimes you feel that you should be doing a better job of investing? You're not alone. In many ways, the typical approach to personal investing is broken. There's too much noise, too many unsubstantiated opinions, and too little understanding. In The Investor's Dilemma Decoded, authors Roger Silk (Ph.D. in applied economics from Stanford) and his daughter Katherine Silk (MA in history and BA in economics from Stanford) turn down the noise, replace opinion with fact, and provide you with a framework for how to think about almost any personal investing problem you might face. Whether you do your own investing, or employ the services of a dedicated professional (see Chapter 14), you'll be in a position to make informed, thoughtful, good decisions, and reach your goals. The authors have taken great care to explain clearly many important concepts that investors should know, but often haven't had the opportunity to learn. Some of these are basic, such as why and how a dollar now is worth more than a dollar in the future, and how to calculate it. For others you could search far and wide, and unless you knew where to look in the academic literature, you'd be unlikely to discover answers. Among these are:* What actually generates investment returns? (Hint: it's not what you usually hear).* Is owning a home an investment? (Know the history and theory to understand why or why not).* Should you own gold?* What most people, including professionals who should know better, get wrong about commodity investing.* How true statements about returns can be very misleading, and potentially dangerous.* What risk is, and isn't, and why the "safe" course might be the riskiest (but the government says it's safe).* Can professional financial advisors add value to their individual clients? (Yes, but not by picking the best stocks).