Customer Reviews
Seriously useful for private investors - By: Mike, 10 Sep 2008 
There are several reasons why private investors ought to read this book:-
1. Most private investors over-estimate their own skill & under-estimate their own capacity to get things wrong. (This is of course a personal opinion, but nevertheless one based on over 35 years' investment experience). Chatfeild-Roberts' book is a useful counter-balance to those traits.
2. Chatfeild-Roberts has plenty of practical experience as a selector of good funds & skilful investment managers. He is Head of Funds of Funds at Jupiter Asset Management. The four UK-based funds of funds that he & his team manage are highly rated by independent ratings firms such as S&P & OBSR. The track records of those four funds over the longer term are commendable. In other words, he knows what he's talking about & has put his ideas into practice successfully.
3. Many investors underestimate the benefit of diversification. This book is a useful reminder of how the investment world can change & how hard it can be to anticipate those changes & re-shape a portfolio accordingly. A long-term view coupled with the ability to spread & control risk & respond tacticallly when need be should not be dismissed lightly!
To a select few, I would concede that Chatfeild-Roberts is only stating the obvious: to the rest of us, his book will be a useful & refreshing summary of the ground rules that private investors ignore at their peril. Well worth reading.
vacuous - By: Bezdechi, 08 Jul 2007 
His "secret" for choosing a good fund manager (he runs a fund of funds, you see, so double the charges) is that he looks at the whites of his eyes. Terribly impressive, except that he looks more like Mr Bean than James Bond.
He tells us how marvellous his fund of funds is (last three years: 9, 10, 10%) but does not tell us how much that is minus the charges, taxes etc).
Go for an index or & ETF...
First Class Advice - By: M. J. Blake, 28 Apr 2007 Books/Advice on fund portfolios are in short supply, hence it would be easy just to say that this is the best on the market. What I would say is that this is a no nonesense, easy to read book full of excellent practical advice on unit trusts & oeics. The author seeks to expose the myth of index trackers beating active fund managers, of course if you measure the average fund manager you may find a top index fund outperforms, however if you measure a decent fund manager they will always outperform the index tracker that can not beat the index because it tracks the index & then deducts charges.
The author has not had a great year with the Merlin funds but performance since Jan has been very good. I heartily recommend this book, I am sure that most purchasers will read it over & over again.
basic and biased - By: Mr. S. Salim, 28 Dec 2006 
this book goes through the basics of fund investing in the u.k., it goes into detail of how & when funds started etc, the author uses an obsure index fund [...] to point out how actice fund managers are much better. He is supposedly one of the best fund of fund managers & yet even his own track record does not beat a standard uk alll share index!. The information he quotes is unavalible to normal investyors & even if it were - it would emphasize how difficult it is to beat & a GOOD index fund after charges.
The book is biased towards active fund managers & the argument for these is not justified enough at alll.
Essential reading for the fund investor - By: D. Sheppard, 07 Dec 2006 I am an amateur fund investor with several different funds. I chose them independently after conducting extensive research using various means, but not a book as I couldn't find one that specificallly dealt with funds. So far my investments have been doing very well (probably due to luck more than judgement).
John Chatfeild-Roberts has written a concise & easy to understand book that explained to me in simple, but not patronising language, the strategies used to invest successfully in funds. I will certainly be referring to it again before I make my next investment.
In short, this excellent book appears to be unique in as much as it was the only one I have ever discovered that deals specificallly with funds. It should appeal to the amateur & professional investor alike.
