How Not to Invest

The ideas, numbers, and behaviors that destroy wealth—and how to avoid them

De: Barry Ritholtz

Narrado por: Barry Ritholtz, Nathan Adams Stark - foreword

This book was designed to reduce mistakes.

Your mistakes with money.

Tiny errors, epic fails and everything in between.

You can do thousands of things right, but make just a few of the errors we discuss, and you destroy much of your portfolio.

If you could learn how to avoid the unforced errors investors make all the time, you would make your life so much richer and less stressful.

The counterintuitive truth is avoiding errors is much more important than scoring wins.

How Not To Invest shows you a few simple tools and models that will help you avoid the most common mistakes people make with their money. Learn these, and you are ahead of 98% of your peers.

Make fewer errors, end up with more money.

We all make mistakes. The goal with this book is to help you make fewer of them, and to have the mistakes you do make be less expensive.

©2025 Barry Ritholtz (P)2025 Harriman House

Great book on investing!

I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would, and it’s loaded with great advice. Highly recommended!

Worth every second. Listen to it.

I do not like investing books; most are nonsense, but “How Not to Invest” is different. The title is apt, and the behaviour to avoid is clearly outlined. This book provides an education and learning that would take a lifetime of mistakes to figure out. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in money, and their financial security all without bothering too much about market conditions.

Made the complicated subjects, very simple to understand

Great book, one of the best ever. Specially, making the difficult subjects easy to understand, and fun to listen to.

As objective and unbiased as it will probably ever get

I love this book. I have been waiting for it since it was introduced on Masters in Business Podcast and it was actually much better than I thought. The author’s analysis of himself and others should be the new standard on how all financial books should be authored. It’s very up to date, up to the recent deepseek pullback. His comments on Bloomberg after the book release about the tariffs is on point. This is one of the few books where I have both audio and text. Also, I listen to this with my 10 and 13 yo daughters to establish a basic financial foundation. Thank you Mr. Ritholz. Another plus, it was narrated by the author himself.

Practical Advice with Colorful Storytelling

I am a big Barry Ritholtz fan. His Masters in Business podcast and other shows associated with his business (Compound and Friends, Animal Spirits. What Are Your Thoughts?) make him someone I respect and admire when it comes to investing. This book is filled with practical and actionable advice, colorful stories, and even more reasons to make investing as boring as possible. I highly recommend it!

A consummate storyteller

Ritholtz, a trusted voice in investing for decades, is one of the few people who can speak deftly to such a broad range of investment and economic topics. Per his usual, he combines practical ideas couched in a deep-level knowledge of the history of Wall Street, interspersed with wise quotes about life and our all-too-human-behaviors. Narrated by the man himself, it’s a good read and an even better “listen” thanks to his erudite use of language and gregarious speaking style. What makes the book so great is how he pokes fun through storytelling. The case studies and cautionary tales definitely provide actionable advice. But, the biggest takeaway for me is how it changed my thinking on a more fundamental level: My modus operandi.

Valuable not only for markets but for life as well.

Wonderfully written and read.
I got caught right at the beginning, so much that I listened on and on for 14 hours straight.
The simplicity for explaining something that looks terrifying from the outside is just marvelous.
Sets your mind to the right tune with ease because there are absolutely no technical terms. It does not contain the boring mumbo jumbo, that requires a degree in finance to understand.
Insights into behavioral psychology that apply to all aspects of life. I am 40 years old, just coming out of a really hard breakup. Believe me when I tell you, if you apply the ideas inside this cover to the Portfolio that is Life, you are bound to be back on track in no time.
As a beginner investor I feel really thankful for the manner in which subjects were approached. I am absolutely delighted with all the information and common sense found within these pages.