Buffett’s Tips: A Guide to Financial Literacy and Life, reviewed

This book takes a close look at the extremely successful career of Warren Buffet and his multi-decades run of investment gains, in Buffett’s Tips available from Wiley and here.

Buffett’s Tips: A Guide to Financial Literacy and Life, reviewed

This book is a thorough walk through the wisdom and words of Warren Buffett. Buffett himself was clearly a fan of Dale Carnegie and there is a similar vein of homespun wisdom running through both the tips outlined in this book, and the sense of Buffett’s personality that the authors have captured too.

Overall there is a lot of common sense and good insights in the book. Buffett though is famously averse to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, this could be due to his age, relative to the newness of the emergent technology. The authors of the book seem to be following the Buffett party line in this regard and are tight lipped about any value or potential in blockchain based innovations and utter a wait and see approach to crypto. In someways this feels like a slight mistake as they will not be going away anytime soon.

This caveat considered, the book is a good analysis and understanding of what has made Buffett so successful. Buffett has also been deeply impressive in terms of his commitment to also giving away large amounts of the money he has banked to good and worthwhile causes. He has also inspired, cajoled and nudged other billionaires to do the same as well, potentially creating a new generation of Rockefellers and Carnegies in terms of charitable foundations and activities. Recognising this impulse the book also discusses and features many other modern day billionaires who have supported this idea.

Through out the book the concept of financial literacy is explained well, and the co-author is his son Tyler Longo, which in many ways was an interesting way to expand on the concepts advocated in the book. As Tyler has taken onboard the concepts and learn the Buffett ropes, so to speak, which is a good way to then absorb, digest and explain it to others. This does ensure that the reader is taken on a journey that the authors have walked through themselves. As Buffett has always advocated that it is not just about the money, this does offer some hope going forwards, though not all of his actions have always shown themselves to be completely in step with current global mores and beliefs ->

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has asked shareholders to vote down two proposals that would force the conglomerate to disclose its efforts to tackle climate change and diversity and inclusion in the workforce https://t.co/UuAFFXZMYT

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) March 15, 2021

More about the book

What if you could learn financial literacy from Warren Buffett himself? 

Finance is a language like any other: the more fluently you speak it, the further?and more comfortably?you travel. And if you want to improve your financial literacy, what better teacher could you have than Warren Buffett? Often described as the greatest investor of all time, Warren Buffett started his investment firm with$100 in the late 1950s and went on to become the billionaire and sage we know today. Along the way he’s reaped huge profits for fellow investors in Berkshire Hathaway and remains one of the most sought-after and closely watched figures in the business world.

So how did he do it? In Buffett’s Tips, award-winning professor and professional investor John M. Longo demonstrates just how by translating decades of Buffett’s writings and media appearances into a 100 straightforward tips and strategies anyone can follow for enhanced financial literacy and independence, including:

• Essential concepts like the time value of money and compound interest
• Basic financial instruments, such as savings and checking accounts and certificates of deposit
• Approaches to valuing stock, including discounted cash flow and relative valuation
• How to build a portfolio in accordance with Buffett’s two golden rules

Whether you want to grow your personal finances, develop your business acumen, or improve softer career skills such as emotional intelligence, there’s no one better to learn from than the most famous investor in the world?and no better way to do that than having a copy of Buffett’s Tips close at hand.

More about John M Longo

Dr. Longo is Professor of Professional Practice in the Finance & Economics Department at Rutgers Business School, and Chief Investment Officer and Portfolio Manager for Beacon Trust, a registered investment advisor with $2.3 billion under management. At Beacon, he is part of a team that manages a series of mutual funds and separately managed accounts. Beacon is a subsidiary of Provident Financial Services (NYSE: PFS), founded in 1839.

Dr. Longo is also a Visiting Professor of Finance at EMBA Global – the joint international Executive MBA Program of Columbia University, London Business School and The University of Hong Kong. He is the bestselling author of The Art of Investing: Lessons from History’s Greatest Traders, published by TheGreatCourses.com. (The book peaked as the 26th bestselling book out of roughly 200,000 titles on Audible.com).  He has won a total of four awards for teaching and research excellence at Rutgers Business School.

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