Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week! » (Reprint)

He isn’t your typical Wall Street guy. An ex-Green Beret and former river guide, Phil Town is a self-made millionaire several times over and America’s most widely sought-after speaker on investing. In his new book, RULE #1, he describes the Rule #1 personal financial strategy in detail so that anyone, even first-time investors,can get–and stay–rich.

Phil Town is the classic Everyman, albeit one whose education and resources were more limited than most. An average high school student, he completed college on his fourth try. Of his early working years, he says he “mostly got dirty for a living,” taking on jobs such as digging ditches and pumping gas. Town spent three and a half years in the Army. He returned from the Vietnam War and found a job in the States as a river guide.

Drifting through California, Utah, and Idaho, he subsisted at poverty level, combining his wages from the guiding season and unemployment. He wore black leathers, sported a goatee, lived in a teepee in the woods near Flagstaff, Arizona, and “drove around in a really loud black Harley Davidson.”

In the early ‘80s, Town’s life changed radically. He was guiding trustees from the educational program Outward Bound down the nastiest rapid on the Grand Canyon’s Colorado River, when his split-second decisions saved a boatload of people from a whitewater disaster. A grateful and financially astute client returned the favor by guiding Town into serious, successful investing using the first rule of investing as ascribed to by Warren Buffett: Don’t lose money. Within five years, Town had built a borrowed $1,000 into $1 million. His fortunes improved radically, and rapidly, from then on.

Phil Town appears regularly on the same dais as Rudy Giuliani, Jimmy Carter, and Colin Powell as part of the “Get Motivated” touring success seminar. He speaks to more than 500,000 people annually about Rule #1.

Town lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Phil Town is now a very wealthy man, but he wasn't always. In fact, he was living on a salary of $4000 a year when some well-timed advice launched him down a highway of investing self-education that revealed what the true "rules" are and how to make them work in one's favor. Chief among them, of course, is "rule #1": "don't lose money." Other rules are: don't diversify...think like an owner, not an investor ... never, ever be seduced into thinking the market is efficient. Town also believes strongly in "betting on the jockey," putting your faith in managers who've proven their financial mettle. Not only does Town reveal fresh methods for identifying who the truly reliable managers are, but he shows you how to test whether they really have faith in the businesses they're running.

By far, the most controversial of the audiobook's assertions will be that giant 401(k) type mutual funds can't help but regress to the mean, and in the next twenty years, the mean could be very disappointing indeed. There's a very real chance that a 401(k) investor could see his holdings not grow at all in the next few decades. Fortunately, Town's stockpicking techniques are meant to walk investing phobes through the do-it-yourself process, equipping them with the tools they need to make quantum leaps toward financial security.

Rule #1 says something new, and it says it in a way that every listener can understand.

Publishers Weekly

For amateur investors who admire the incredible returns produced by Benjamin Graham-Warren Buffett-style value investing but can't figure out how to replicate these billionaires' methods at home, Town's investment guide is manna from heaven. A former river-rafting guide, Town learned how to calculate such crucial numbers as Return on Investment Capital and Equity Growth Rate from "Wolf," a wealthy rafter whom Town saved from a rapid in 1980. Under Wolf's tutelage, Town learned how to turn $1,000 into $1 million in five years, but the selection of lucrative stocks took weeks of library research. In this engaging and accessible book, Town shows readers how to replicate that sort of exhaustive market research on the Internet-and shorten the research time to just a few hours per stock. Fans of The Intelligent Investor will recognize that Town's Rule #1 formula-"1) Find a wonderful business, 2) Know what it's worth as a business, 3) Buy it at 50 percent off, 4) Repeat until very rich"-is a variation of Benjamin Graham's investment philosophy. (Graham and Buffett are cited heavily throughout the book.) But Town's ability to break down that philosophy into a detailed, step-by-step program that can be understood by any reader with basic math skills is unique. His chummy, reassuring tone ("If you're finding yourself already a bit overwhelmed, take a deep breath") will leave readers feeling empowered and ready to manage their money themselves. (Mar. 21) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Make Money No Matter What 1

Chapter 1: The Myths of Investing 11

Chapter 2: Rule #1 and the Four Ms 33

Chapter 3: Buy a Business, Not a Stock 39

Chapter 4: Identify a Moat 53

Chapter 5: The Big Five Numbers 65

Chapter 6: Calculate the Big Five 95

Chapter 7: Bet on the Jockey 111

Chapter 8: Demand a Margin of Safety 132

Chapter 9: Calculate the Sticker Price 145

Chapter 10: Know the Right Time to Sell 172

Chapter 11: Grab the Stick 186

Chapter 12: The Three Tools 196

Chapter 13: Take Baby Steps 216

Chapter 14: Eliminate the Barriers 246

Chapter 15: Prepare for Your First Rule #1 Purchase 259

Chapter 16: Q&A 274

Glossary 293
Acknowledgments 301
Index 303