"Index Investing" by Abhishek Kumar (Book Review: 3.75*/5) !!!

18^th Book of 2020!

One thing that I have realized the most while talking with my friends during this lockdown phase is – people have started believing that earning money is comparatively easy than saving it as everyone understood the importance of having money in their accounts during such times when salaries are being cut, not being given at some places, employees being laid off etc. And it becomes very important for people to understand how to multiply their saved money in order to reap benefits of their hard-saved money also. Abhishek Kumar’s book titled “Index Investing” is an effort to help us understand how to approach stock markets and putting our money in that direction with safety. The book also has the tagline which says "A Low-cost, low-risk strategy to investment success".

After completing the book, I realized that I had reviewed Abhishek’s 2^nd book exactly a year back named “Master your Money, Master your Life” which was an excellent read which taught me some great tips on saving money. This book is just next level to it where it talks about what to do with the hard-saved money. The writing style of Abhishek Kumar is really very intriguing and it keeps you hooked through the philosophies, suggestions and ideologies he endorses. Even at points where you feel that author is being too aggressive or opinionated, you still go along with him rather than disliking him.

This book is divided into four different sections: 1. The Theory of Investing 2. The Psychology of Investing 3. The Business of Investing and 4. The Solution. The chapter names are very interesting and the way author begins each chapter taking us slowly by holding our finger towards the topic and then dives deep into it gradually makes it very easy for you to cope up with this domain. Stock Market and Financial terms are never easy for a layman to understand but Abhishek has ensured that we understand as much as possible – though at few places I felt that author could have given us little more understanding of few terms.

The best part is that author doesn’t discuss only the technical aspect of investing but also about the psychology and attitude that each one of us have in this ecosystem- the Investors, the agents, the stock broker, financial advisor, broking firms, media etc. Author tells us how no one can predict the future of any stock or shares available in the market and makes us aware about the different kinds of tactics that these people play with investors to fool and extract money out of them. Author also discusses how we end up paying more in form of many charges that we never understand and how major chunk of our returns are not credited directly to us- but goes to these people who invest on our behalf.

Lastly, author discusses how we should be doing all the stuff towards investing in stock market all by ourselves by intelligently investing in Index funds. Author shares with us many pros of the same along with the quotes by famous people in the field on Index Investing. I liked how author opens our eyes regarding not to think of becoming rich through this medium of money multiplication but ensure that we are only ahead of the inflation rate always. This is something that shall stay with me for long.

Talking about the drawbacks now, as I said even in the review of author’s 2^nd book, author takes quite a long time in providing his final solution. It can be better if author keeps on giving the Pros of his suggestion over what is happening wrong elsewhere rather than listing down all the wrongs first and lastly mentioning about the solution by the time which reader becomes all negative about the topic as the book carries only the criticism. Secondly, the chapter on Solution is so short that it could have been a blog or a Linkedin article. I wish author could have given examples, graphs, diagrams etc. to make his readers understand the concept and its affect more rather than being confident that the readers shall take up the solutions without any doubts. Also, I wished author suggested few Mobile applications etc. which can help us in Index investing and ways to understand that on the name of it, we are not being made to invest in something else.

Overall this book is informative and shall help you discover a lot of things in both the cases – if you are already an investor or thinking to be one. I give this book 3.75* out of 5. Recommended for young generation who have started earning.

Thanks.

WRITING BUDDHA