Matthew Schifrin

Can it be possible that average Joes, non-professional investors, could outperform the legendary investing genius of Warren Buffett for nearly a decade? While the implication of the title “The Warren Buffetts Next Door” is somewhat misleading, especially in conjunction with the white picket fence of the idealized American house depicted on the cover, its subtitle “The World's Greatest Investors You've Never Heard of and What You Can Learn from Them” seems a more accurate reflection of this survey of successful investors profiled by Matthew Schifrin. For his day job the author Schifrin is a reporter for Forbes Magazine and he has recruited his boss Steve Forbes, the former Presidential candidate to pen the Foreword to this book which profiles ten successful investors, all men, with brief overviews of their lives and how they came to their particular investing philosophies and methods. To identify his candidates Schifrin has used online sites, such as Marketocracy and ValueForum, where each man profiled has maintained a theoretical fund and has a track record going back several years, usually participating in and winning stock picking contests on those sites and others. The book is an entertaining as well as an informative read because Schifrin has found some unique and interesting characters. One such character is Chris Rees, an English man who traveled the world working odd jobs for decades before settling down both as an investor and a family man in the Dominican Republic. Another character is Jack Weyland who developed his investing approach during his down time as a truck driver. An interesting aspect is that some have translated their success with the theoretical funds into the real world, others have chosen not to. There are a variety of investing philosophies on display from deep value analytical stock picking focused on buying and holding around ten stocks to active trading in and out of thousands of positions. The common factor, across the varied philosophies and approaches on display for these so called “amateurs” or “hobbyists”, is that all of them devote considerable hours every day to their investments. This time can involve active trading in the case of Justin Uyehara or flying around the world by Andrew Swann to visit the actual gold mines being operated by the companies he invests in. So as long as you take the title “The Warren Buffetts Next Door” with a grain of salt you will find this book more than delivers on the promise of its subtitle “The World's Greatest Investors You've Never Heard of and What You Can Learn from Them” and you will have an enjoyable and informative read.… (más)