John Neff on Investing

Part manifesto, part nerdy financial history.

This is not a casual read full of entertaining anecdotes. There's a few introductory chapters that give a little insight into Neff's early life and character, but mostly this is a highly detailed account of almost 40 years of his operations at the Wellington Management group. The chapters are accounts of each sector and company invested in, with results listed. It's an impressive record, if perhaps just a little self-congratulatory. The core message is Neff's underlying philosophy of low PE value investing, combined with analysis of in and out of favour sectors of the economy: a strategy that clearly worked well for him and his investors. Though if this is an approach you're interested in, you'll probably want to back it up with some of the classic Graham/Dodd texts to fill out your understanding. The narrator makes good work of the sometimes rather dry material.

Good book to read!

Struggled to finished but overall it is a remarkable story of amazing fund's results. If read by right person it would be even better.

What is the point of this book?

Would you try another book written by John Neff and S.L. Mintz or narrated by Edward Lewis?

No

What could John Neff and S.L. Mintz have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Cut out about 75% of it

What didn’t you like about Edward Lewis’s performance?

Narration was fine

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from John Neff on Investing?

Early biography, tedious notes on the ups and downs of what are now very out of date stocks which sound like the concatenation of years of fund manager notes to investors.

Any additional comments?

A few useful tips, but not worth the effort - spend your 9 and half hours elsewhere!