Recommended books on investing?

JohnWinder

Let's not get too far off the track for the OP here. Dave or not, (s)he is middle-aged, financially comfortable, has investments for the kids, knows the active/passive issue etc. He doesn't need motivational books, and he probably wouldn't be well served by 'how to be a stock picker' since he's asking about diversification. Are we staying focused?

richgw

I have been following this thread with interest as am in a similar situation to the OP. I am half way through The Little Book of Common Sense Investing - John C. Bogle which certainly makes a very compelling case for investing in index funds. Everything is US based though. Is anyone aware of books or other sources comparing the performance on UK based managed funds against a FTSE index tracker?

JohnWinder

richgw said:

Is anyone aware of books or other sources comparing the performance on UK based managed funds against a FTSE index tracker?

Try the SPIVA reports

AlanP_2

richgw said:

I have been following this thread with interest as am in a similar situation to the OP. I am half way through The Little Book of Common Sense Investing - John C. Bogle which certainly makes a very compelling case for investing in index funds. Everything is US based though. Is anyone aware of books or other sources comparing the performance on UK based managed funds against a FTSE index tracker?

How would that comparison help you?

Almost by definition the FTSE (which one by the way?) tracker will return the average of the underlying investments in the FTSE (which one TBC). There will not be an active fund that invests in the 100 companies in the FTSE 100 (as an example) so the returns will be different.

All things being equal a passive tracker will give you the average return of all funds / investors that trade any of the shares in that index.