The Great Investors

Glen ARNOLD
The Great Investors – Lessons on Investing from Master Traders

At the end of every year, we calculate our returns, compare our portfolio performance with various benchmarks and set a strategy for the upcoming period. These are all essential, but we also need to deepen our understanding on investment philosophies and observe the success stories of prominent investors. Therefore, I wanted to start the year 2025 with a book review on investing. I have read the Great Investors previously, but this time I have spent more labour on the content for reduction of the Turkish version.

Glen Arnold’s “The Great Investors” succinctly conveys the methods, mindset and achievements of leading investors fascinatingly. Arnold’s list starts with Benjamin Graham and continues with Philip Fisher, Warren Buffett and Charles Munger, and continuous with other leading names. And the list is not only limited with investing domain, but also stretches to the trading area. World renown speculator and investor George Soros, famous and highly respected Peter Lynch are among other names. Sir John Templeton’s pioneering global portfolio investment strategy for example may be not well-known for many, but his contributions are very important and valuable. In this article, I will touch upon these concepts and highlight some of their ideas.

Value Investing is defined in Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd’s “Security Analysis” as the practice of purchasing securities or assets for less than they are worth — the proverbial dollar for 50 cents. Although this principle sounds solid and simple, calculating a value for an asset is not always straight forward or easy. Even if it is precisely estimated, the price on the market is not strictly bound with the value in the short run. Besides, peaks and throughs might be extremely different than that due to volatility in the market. But all in all, intrinsic value and is one of the ingredients in the secret recipe. Following the footsteps of these great investors, I can also say that personal traits are the second most important thing for the sustainable, huge returns. Chance may help you once or twice, but achieving a remarkable returns is not possible in the long run, if you lack the right temperament.

The book is four-hundred-page long, but it is a good read. On financial intelligence, the author helps reader with filtering the complicated formulas and greek letters, and provides a clear cut message by focusing on the methodology. So this book is accessible to beginning level readers, who are hesitated by complex mathematics. I believe that this book is also good for professionals, who sometimes miss the core notion by spending too much time on financial calculations and modeling. The essential message of the book is to understand: How did these people come to be so successful? Can the ordinary investor really draw on their techniques?

Arnold’s writing style conveys the message fluently but as a reader I would be more than happy to see some charts and graphics to support these thesis. For example, he claims that these names are the best (which I believe they are) and selected not randomly, but he does not provide a compound annual growth rate chart for their returns compared to other hedge funds’ and investors’ returns.

My second critic is on the subtitle: ‘Lessons on Investing from Master Traders’. In my point of view, the word ‘traders’ seems a little bit clumsy here. First of all, none of these names, except Soros, would probably call themselves traders. Even though every investment requires a transaction and trade, investors might have disappointed with such a labelling. I am not against trading, but these are ‘Great Investors’.

All in all, ‘The Great Investors’ is a must read and it was a pleasant, educative book. I have prepared a one page summary for the most striking features and advices. If you are interested on investing, you can download it in pdf format for free, by clicking the link.

Ergun UNUTMAZ, 14.01.2025

Glen ARNOLD, The Great Investors – FT Financial Times Publishing, Pearson Education, Great Britain, 2011.

You can also check my other book reviews on our relationship with money and investing.

Morgan HOUSEL: Same as Ever
Morgan HOUSEL: The Psychology of Money
Daniel KAHNEMAN: Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel KAHNEMAN: Noise

Eric JORGENSON: The Almanack of Naval RAVIKANT
James CLEAR: Atomic Habits
Aswath DAMODARAN: Narrative and Numbers
Vicki ROBIN: Your Money or Your Life