What do you think?
Rate this book
Ft Guide to Exchange Traded Funds & Index Funds: How to Use Tracker Funds in Your Investment Portfolio
Since the first edition of The Financial Times Guide to ETF s was published in 2009, the number of ETFs in issue has doubled and ETFs are now common both on investor platforms and increasingly amongst financial advisors. This massive increase in demand has highlighted an urgent debate – just how dangerous are ETFs and how much do investors and advisers understand about the structure of the index tracker? The second edition of this book attempts to answer this debate and is the indispensable bible on trackers for professional advisers and serious private investors. This new edition also features a chapter based around the theme of Due Diligence and a new chapter on How to use ETFs and Index Funds for theLong-term, as well as a new Jargon busting section and a-new appendix looking at new ideas beginning to emerge.
- GenresFinance
496 pages, Paperback
First published December 21, 2009
18 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 26, 2018
Excellent introduction to the top of ETFs and index funds.
July 9, 2023
Superb. After reading it the first time the book becomes invaluable as a reference tool, even years later (particularly the appendix which looks at various investment ideas).
May 11, 2016
A useful read and the best book I could find on the topic coming from the perspective of a UK citizen looking to invest passively in index tracking funds/ETFs. The book gives a very detailed explanation of how these investment vehicles work, after reading this you will know more about how index funds are created and managed than most investors. At the end of the book you'll get some helpful example portfolios that you can replicate or adapt for your own investing strategy.
Beginning this book as a relative newbie to investing, I finished the book feeling about 85% ready to begin my own investing strategy based on the principles outlined. The book loses one star because I think it missed some key information that would take the reader the remaining 15% of the way. The next 15% involves finding an investment platform that suits your needs and selecting the actual funds / ETFs that track the indexes recommended in the example portfolios.
The book loses another star for being over-complicated and non-layman-friendly. Certain parts of the book were difficult to understand as a new investor and other parts felt entirely superfluous. For example, what's the point in including a very complicated chapter on active investing via technical analysis, if one of the central principles of the book and investing style is NOT to use active investing and instead favour passive investing?
Overall though, the book was solid and contained the information I needed as a UK citizen looking to get started in index tracking investments. The book has less relevance for non UK investors but I'd still recommend it to them as a good source of info on how ETFs and index funds are built and managed.
Beginning this book as a relative newbie to investing, I finished the book feeling about 85% ready to begin my own investing strategy based on the principles outlined. The book loses one star because I think it missed some key information that would take the reader the remaining 15% of the way. The next 15% involves finding an investment platform that suits your needs and selecting the actual funds / ETFs that track the indexes recommended in the example portfolios.
The book loses another star for being over-complicated and non-layman-friendly. Certain parts of the book were difficult to understand as a new investor and other parts felt entirely superfluous. For example, what's the point in including a very complicated chapter on active investing via technical analysis, if one of the central principles of the book and investing style is NOT to use active investing and instead favour passive investing?
Overall though, the book was solid and contained the information I needed as a UK citizen looking to get started in index tracking investments. The book has less relevance for non UK investors but I'd still recommend it to them as a good source of info on how ETFs and index funds are built and managed.
November 7, 2013
This is a great book for beginners to understand the basic of ETFs. In this book, an investor who's starting out on his journey will be able to find out:
a. What are ETFs and the variety of index funds available in the market
b. How to use them in their portfolios
c. Expert opinions on the above two subjects
Also, readers will be able to understand conclusively why active fund managers just ain't worth the price (I personally, am in favor of this opinion.) So yeah, it would be a great book for beginner investors.
But for investors who already understand the basic of ETFs and have some stock market knowledge, this is not a helpful book. I went into this booking looking to find a set of guidelines on how to pick the best ETF for my portfolio, but instead only found general advice that are vague and inconclusive.
And although I mentioned that this will be a great book for beginner investors, readers who are not familiar with financial jargons might take some time to plough through the book as it is filled with statistics and financial stuffs that need some time decoding. I would admit this is a personal bias - it would be better in my opinion, for the author to write this book in more layman terms.
a. What are ETFs and the variety of index funds available in the market
b. How to use them in their portfolios
c. Expert opinions on the above two subjects
Also, readers will be able to understand conclusively why active fund managers just ain't worth the price (I personally, am in favor of this opinion.) So yeah, it would be a great book for beginner investors.
But for investors who already understand the basic of ETFs and have some stock market knowledge, this is not a helpful book. I went into this booking looking to find a set of guidelines on how to pick the best ETF for my portfolio, but instead only found general advice that are vague and inconclusive.
And although I mentioned that this will be a great book for beginner investors, readers who are not familiar with financial jargons might take some time to plough through the book as it is filled with statistics and financial stuffs that need some time decoding. I would admit this is a personal bias - it would be better in my opinion, for the author to write this book in more layman terms.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews