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MORE STRAIGHT TALK ON INVESTING
LESSONS FOR A LIFETIME
JACK BRENNAN
with John Woerth
Copyright © 2021 by John J. Brennan. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available:
ISBN 9781119817338 (Hardcover)
ISBN 9781119817352 (ePDF)
ISBN 9781119817345 (ePub)
Cover Design: C. Wallace
Cover Image: Paper Speech Bubble © iStock.com/Aquir
To my growing and loving family. Once we were 5 and now we are 11, with another on the way!
and
To the millions of Vanguard investors, thousands of crew members, and hundreds of investment professionals who have inspired me and taught me for four decades.
Preface
In July 2002, I began the preface for the first edition of Straight Talk on Investing by observing that the previous “five years have been extraordinary in the history of investing. A record bull market swelled into one of the largest speculative bubbles in history. Then we saw the bursting of that bubble and the onset of a prolonged bear market, the worst one that the U.S. stock market has experienced since World War II. If many investors seem shaken and unsure of what to do, no wonder. Within half of a decade, we have been presented with a lifetime's worth of lessons about investing.”
It is with a dose of cruel irony as I sit down to write the preface for the second edition in late 2020. The world at large is struggling with the coronavirus pandemic, which initially brought on a swift and severe drop in the global stock markets. While the markets quickly recovered, this marked the third shock experienced by investors in the first 20 years of the twenty-first century. Given this backdrop, it is no wonder investing can appear to be so daunting.
Albert Einstein once said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.” Maintaining a long-term perspective and controlling one's emotions are valuable lessons that investors can glean from trying times. However, the impetus for updating this book with a second edition goes beyond the teachings of these distinct market events. While the financial planning and investing principles covered in these pages are timeless, a considerable amount has changed in the nearly 20 years since the first edition. I've learned a bit more along the way, including framing investing as a series of trade-offs—a theme that I will weave into this latest version.
At
