The Investor's Dilemma: How Mutual Funds Are Betraying Your Trust And What To Do About It | 
| Author: Louis Lowenstein
Creator: Neil Barsky
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $16.35
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 50497
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 220
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1
ISBN: 0470117656
Dewey Decimal Number: 332.6327
EAN: 9780470117651
ASIN: 0470117656
Publication Date: March 7, 2008
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
Praise for The Investor's Dilemma
"Not since Graham and Dodd has an author defined investment principles as clearly as Lou Lowenstein in The Investor's Dilemma. Not only does he comprehensively dissect the ways careless and impulsive investors have been misled and cheated by self-serving fund managements, but Lowenstein names specific funds and techniques for careful investors to obtain superior results. This persuasive and extraordinarily readable book will be hugely helpful to present and prospective fund investors."
-Arthur Levitt, Senior Advisor, The Carlyle Group
"Anyone involved with mutual funds-from small investors to top fund executives-should consider seriously this book's insights and message. The mutual fund industry won't like The Investor's Dilemma one bit, but when criticism comes from so thoughtful a voice as Louis Lowenstein, it merits attention."
-Don Phillips, Managing Director, Morningstar, Inc.
"Lou Lowenstein writes the truth about mutual funds, warts and all. And more: a clear-cut case for value investing, the approach that makes sense and that works, and yet is practiced by so few."
-Jean-Marie Eveillard, Portfolio Manager, First Eagle Funds
"Provides a critical, hard-hitting, and honest dissection of the mutual fund industry and what you should know before investing in a fund. Lowenstein provides a framework that you can use to identify funds and organizations that are shareholder-oriented. By following his simple checklist of selection criteria, you can minimize the risks and increase the odds of finding one of these rare funds."
-Bob Rodriguez, CEO, First Pacific Advisors, LLC
"The Investor's Dilemma is an essential read for any passive investor contemplating putting any of his or her wealth into a mutual fund. The book is not only informative, but also well written and entertaining."
-Martin J. Whitman, Portfolio Manager, Third Avenue Value Fund
"The Investor's Dilemma clearly and succinctly contrasts the owner-operator partnership form of mutual fund investing with the conflicted, but pervasive asset-gathering model. Every shareholder in the six-trillion-dollar mutual fund universe should absorb Louis Lowenstein's sagacious counsel. Bravo!"
-Mason Hawkins, Chairman and CEO of Southeastern Asset Management, Inc., advisor to institutional clients and the three Longleaf Partners Funds
"Calling on the wisdom of academics, practitioners, and even the comic strip character Pogo, Lowenstein examines the short-term pressures that doom individual investors as well as many mutual fund companies to engage in speculation instead of investing."
-Bill Nygren, Portfolio Manager, Oakmark Select Fund
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Title too long July 23, 2008
It shoud just be 'How Mutual Funds are Betraying Your Trust' because he doesn't tell what to do. The what to do part is the last 10 pages of a 190 page book and it's pretty weak. There's a couple of good tips but not enough to base a strategy on. Go read the last 10 pages in a Barnes and Noble and save your money. Also, when he espouses value investing over growth he models value on 10 handpicked value funds and growth on the 15 largest growth funds so it's not a fair comparison, he should have handpicked the growth funds too. I agree with his thesis that the mutual fund industry is rotten to the core, but like most investors with a job and family I am strapped for time and need to focus on strategies that will be successful, not scholarly reviews of the investing industry.
 Where was this book 25 years ago? June 5, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I wish upon wish that this book had been around when I first dove into the mutual fund world. This book blows the cover off of an entire industry and tells the reader things that he/she will never hear from anyone in the business. During the course of my investing "career", I have seen things in annual reports that didn't make sense, but being the uninformed, trusting individual I was, I assumed things didn't make sense because I wasn't smart enough to make sense of them. Now I know. They didn't make sense because...they didn't make sense. Everyone and anyone who invests in mutuals should read this book.
Dilemma Diffused June 3, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
In THE INVESTOR'S DILEMMA the writing is so clear and the case so well laid out and logically built that I feel I've had the most enlightening new look at investing...at how to participate in the growth of the world economy with but a few funds.
The book's concrete examples, naming names and showing specifics...rather than simply expounding theory...is compelling.
As a longtime (26 years) investor in Sequoia...my only fund for years, I was extremely interested to read about Fairholme and Wintergreen and am now a shareholder in those, too.
In the face of so many niche funds, sector funds and "style boxes", Prof. Lowenstein's pointing out that these three great managers are now free to invest all over the world in any size company they like is an extremely important point...one that can greatly simplify an investor's job.
THE INVESTOR'S DILEMMA is a beautifully written lesson.
A Terrific Read For Any Mutual Fund Investor May 8, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Your financial planner and mutual fund advisor are not going to recommend that you read Louis Lowenstein's book, "The Investor's Dilemma", but if you want to be a knowledgeable investor, I highly recommend that you do. Fund boards of directors and management companies are exposed for their betrayal of investor interests. Management fees continue to grow, while the benefits of increased assets under management go into the pockets of the publicly-owned and privately-held management companies. And the dreaded 12b-1 fees continue to be assessed to the fund holders enabling the management companies to further enhance their take at the expense of the fund investors.
The final chapter, "How to Pick a Mutual Fund", provides excellent guidance on how to go about identifying funds worthy of your hard earned savings. My only disappointment was that Mr. Lowenstein only specifically recommends two funds, one of which I already own. With all his research, I would have thought he could have come up with more.
Finally, the reader is left with somewhat of a mystery by the author. By way of full disclosure it is stated that "the author owns relatively modest positions in both funds" recommended. He goes on to recommend that investors own no more than three (four, tops) stock funds. So, where does Mr. Lowenstein invest the rest of his money? Does he eat his own cooking?
I hated to see this book end. Perhaps there will be a sequel that will provide further guidance on selecting worthy funds and fund managers with more specific recommendations.
A Retired Woman's View May 6, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Professor Lowenstein makes the complexities of the mutual fund "industry" accessible to even those of us who normally glaze over at the mere mention of finance. This lively and entertaining expose of the mutual funds we love to trust reveals that most are concerned with marketing "products" and increasing funds under management than with research and responsible investment one company at a time. He argues that highly compensated fund sponsors don't invest in their own funds, offer misleading statistics and avoid comparing their performance with the S @ P. He points to a few funds that follow the philosophy and strategy of "value" investing, eschewing market trends and focusing instead on strong well-run businesses. Lowenstein places his discussion in a brief and cogent history of the market. As a retired woman, concerned about my own investments, I found his book a page-turner.
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