Book Review: The Great Minds Of Investing

This is a difficult book to review. Let me tell you what it is not, and then let me tell you what it is more easily as a result.

1) The book does not give you detailed biographies of the people that it features. Indeed, the writing on each person is less than the amount that Ken Fisher wrote in his book, 100 Minds That Made the Market. If you are looking for detailed biographical sketches, you will be disappointed.

2) The book does not give detailed and comparable reviews of the portfolio performance of those that it features. There’s no way from what is written to tell really how good many of the investors are. I mean, I would want to see dollar-weighted rates of return, and perhaps, measures of dollar alpha.  The truly best managers have expansive strategies that can perform well managing a large amount of money.

3) The book admits that the managers selected may not be the greatest, but are some of the “greats.”  Okay, fair enough, but I would argue that a few of the managers don’t deserve to be featured even as that if you review their dollar-weighted performance.  A few of them showed that they did not pay adequate attention to margin of safety in the recent financial crisis, and lost a lot of money for people at the time that they should have been the most careful.

4) If you wanted to understand the strategies of the managers, this is not the book for you. They are not described, except in the broadest terms.

5) There is no integration of any common themes of what makes an investment manager great. You don’t get a necklace; you just get a jar of pretty, non-comparable beads that don’t have any holes in them.

What do you get in this book?  You get beautiful black and white photos of 33 managers, and vignettes of each of them written by six authors. The author writes two-thirds of the vignettes.

Do I recommend this book?  Yes, if you understand what it is good for.  It is a well-done coffee table book on thick glossy paper, with truly beautiful photographs. It is well-suited for people waiting in a reception area, who want to read something light and short about several notable investment managers.

But if you are looking for anything involved in my five points above, you will not be satisfied by this book.

One final note on the side — I would have somehow reworked the layout of Bill Miller’s photograph.  Splitting his face down the middle of the gutter does not represent him to be the handsome guy that he is.

If you would like to buy it, you can buy it here: The Great Minds of Investing.