Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor

I thought this was a great book. I have nothing to do with investing. I read the book purely to learn from Charlie Munger's most useful thinking and that's exactly what I got. I actually got annoyed with how often I had to pick up my pencil to underline things.I get what people are saying in other reviews about the author not adding much - but that's kind of the point of Munger's wisdom. Like how he says teachers make things more complicated than they need to be or they wouldn't have jobs.I think it would have been easy for the author to add a bunch of his own bull s***, and that would have made it a much less valuable book - at least for my purposes.

Ok

I would highly recommend this book if you thought about or are actively investing. There are other nuggets in there that you can use in your life. This book can definitely help with FOMO fear of missing out and help to ease your mind when investing. The author did a great job

Value investing, an investment approach and discipline popularized by Ben Graham dating back to the depression years, has a host of acolytes including the likes of Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger (partners in Berkshire Hathaway) and the author of this little book, Tren Griffin. To say that value investing is mainstream is an understatement but my knowledge of the finer points has been limited and so when I saw this book citing the views of one of the most distinguished practitioners of value investing I purchased a copy.After reading the first couple of chapters two thoughts came to mind. First, the author seems almost sycophantic is his admiration for Mr. Munger, citing him tiresomely to drive home points about his (Mr. Munger's) value investing philosophy and approach. After reading roughly half the book it was clear to me (it didn't actually take that long to be fair to myself) that the information presented to that point could have been said in a quarter or less of that space. Second, at the same time I was annoyed with myself for not simply securing a copy to start with of Ben Graham's, The Intelligent Investor. The Definitive Book on Value Investing and get it directly from the progenitor of value investing himself. (I subsequently have.)This is not to say I didn't learn anything from Mr. Griffin's book. It's hard not to given the extent of needless repetition. The book's long on philosophy and psychology (providing a bevy of observations and suggestions to help an investor overcome the biggest impediment to successful investing: himself) and short on analytical tools of finance. That's okay except that the author repeatedly cites the importance of understanding the intrinsic value of a business (the present value of future cash flows) yet how exactly it is derived remains nebulous throughout. My take away here is that intrinsic value may be hard to define but you know it when you see it. Well, okay. Beyond these limitations I found the book wanting in illustrative examples of Mr. Munger's actual investments to reinforce the many useful philosophical elements presented. And finally, the large and tedious number of quotations from Mr. Munger had for me the unintended consequence of characterizing him as a bit of a curmudgeon, probably unfair and undeserved but read the book and see what you think?All in all, this book reminds me why I seldom read business books. The authors are often inexperienced writers who are either in love with themselves or their subjects, doing an injustice to all concerned. There is certainly a place for "complete investor" presentations but for me they are the stuff of articles in magazines, not monographs, Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor being a deserving exception.

Munger is one of my heroes! Tren Griffin's book is invaluable for anyone seeking an introduction or refresher on Charlie's contribution to lifelong learning. Like MINDSET, I find his worldly wisdom requires constant effort and repetition. I love CHARLIE's ALMANACK and Peter Bevelin's SEEKING WORLDLY WISDOM titles. Whereas they provide a sparkling scrapbook or collection of his quotes this book also brings another level of coherence to learning how to make decisions in investing and life. Full disclosure....I have been honored to publish DAMN RIGHT by Janet Lowe and this book. As a passionate student of value investing, new mental models and learning I am committed to the dissemination of this thinking and have gained greatly from it.

To the best of my knowledge, the author, Tren Griffin, has never interviewed Charlie Munger. In other words, this book is a compilation of Mr. Munger's public statements about investing. The great shortcoming of the book is that it does not describe the actual process explaining why Berkshire Hathaway has purchased or sold a specific asset, including the accounting figures looked at and how the net current asset value was calculated from prospective future income streams. That having been said,I don't think that Warren Buffett or Charlie Munger have EVER gone into much detail about the actual figures relied on before making a purchase or sale of a Berkshire asset.

Quotes from Munger are leads instead of ends. I learned a lot from this book and revised my views. The chapter on moat is short but a serious concentrate of wisdom. A book that I will read again and again.

Probably the best book yet on the extraordinary Charlie Munger – entertaining, informative and eminently readable. It's a well-curated collection of important wisdom for investors based on quotes from Munger (and more than a few from Warren Buffett). If you're not able to go to the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in Omaha every spring for a refresher course in common sense investing, reading this book might well be the next best thing.

Libro che cambia il punto di vista per gli investimenti

A must read, nothing to add!

Very interesting book, more about principles of value investing, than Charlie Munger definitely worth a read, really enjoyed reading the book

I liked it a lot, specially the psychological section of the book; investor psychology studies were new to me, and I think Everyone who’s interested on investing should have a look at it.Besides that, the author wrote the book with no interviews from Munger nor Buffet, even though they are mentioned throughout the book, but always by citations of speeches from Berkshire meetings or other events that they took part of. It looks as if the author uses these speeches to prove theories. Ben Graham is always mentioned all the time, which makes the book very coherent.There is nothing practical, like an example of a valuation of a company. But in this case this is forgivable, because by reading this book you’ll want to know more about it; material about this is not hard to find.

Lots of straightforward wisdom and advice. Insights about human nature and an engaging approach to investment problems. Unfortunately the book has two structural flaws l: it ends abruptly and he constantly repeats the term graham value investor.