The Only Three Questions That Count: Investing by Knowi… (2024)

So far I like this book, the author makes some good points that are worth listening to. On the other hand, he has a tendency to use "eyeball statistics". That is he collects data to support his virepoint but then draws conclusions based solely on what the data look like. For example on page 82, he has a table of data to support his view that the idea that market performance for the whole year is not reflected in performance for January. But I did a chi-square analysis of the data and it proves the exact opposite; with a p value of 0.0003, there is strong evidence that January performance to some extent predicts annual performance. I then generated some random data by generating 85 random numbers in one column and then for each of these numbers generating a further random number by adding 11 times a new random number to the one in the first column. I then calculated the correlation co-efficient which averaged over multiple trials was around 0.08 or 1/12. In other words, the first random number contributes 1/12 of the value of the second one. And presumably you'd find the same with real data: on average a single month contributes 1/12 towards the annual outcome. So it is predictive, just not stronly predictive.

Good straightforward observations on the mindset behind investing.
(1) What do you believe that is actually false?
(2) How can I fathom what others find unfathomable?
(3) What the heck is my brain doing to blindside me now?
The most useful concept in this book for me was using statistical correlation. He basically challenged me to check all my theories and use Excel's '=correl' function to do it.
As I've started to do this, it has rearranged some of my concepts and made me realize that my brain really can blindside me.
Good book. Brash, informative and useful.

Worthwhile read.

Recommended. Not exactly an investment book but a methodology or rather a thought process about investing. Worth rereading to attempt reproduce some of his findings. Even when disagreeing with some of his premises and conclusions, I found myself using his three questions as a basis for argument and must conclude it is a worthwhile book for that alone.

Fantastic book - worth re-reading at some point. Fisher wrecks Shiller's work on CAPE. Shiller's CAPE's R-squared was .4 and half of that was based on the inflation measure he used. In other words, CAPE is not predictive. PE's in general don't predict.

Also, Debt levels are actually too low if you consider the nations debt/equity ratio. High national debt is not bad for stock returns anyway. Common fears are often unfounded, as Peter Lynch would agree.

Important to think of the EP ratio in percentage terms - as an earnings yield. Makes you realize that a PE of 20 is not so absurd - it means your earnings yield is 5%. Still might outshine bond yields depending on where they land.

In the only 3 questions that count, Ken Fisher explicates his information in a rather colloquial way that is concise, facetious, witty and on the mark. in the text Fisher illuminates the fact that many morbid investing decisions are made not because of bad fundamentals, but because of the mind and how it can easily delude a majority of investors ranging from professional analysts to the individual investor. He goes on to explain how many fallible investing "truths" have become concrete and commonplace despite the fact they bear no expediency. He refers to this type of thinking as "stone age thinking" and often mentions that we are deluded by our "stone age" brain that constantly tries and succeeds to deceive us. Some would read the title and possibly surmise that the 3 questions are in regard to fundamentals and would expect 3 good stock picking tips. What the 3 questions are are psychological stock picking tips to help you become a more prudent investor. The 3 questions are (1. What do you believe that is actually false? (2. What can you fathom that others can't? (3. What is your mind doing to obscure you from the truth?

Fisher inquires on many topics such as bond yield significance, inflation, consumer satisfaction, sentiment, CBOE volatility index, price-weighted indexes - such as the apocryphal Dow Jones Industrial Average, value vs. growth, and much more. He also gives you some ideas on building your portfolio with strategies as well as counter-strategies

Ultimately though, The Only 3 Questions That Still Count is very heavy on psychology, and the importance of mental awareness when it comes to investing. It overwhelmingly deviates from investor convention, and does so with cold hard facts and myth busters. The very keen and genuine vernacular is a tacit reminder to why Ken Fisher is one of the richest people in the world. From the standpoint of a 19 year old college student and investor, this book will help me keep my investing mind open to so called "pundits" and tenaciously held beliefs and hopefully keep me from being a victim of chicanery from the market aka The Great Humiliator (TGH) as Mr. Fisher often coins it. Great read.

Too much text makes possibly good stuff so dilute that it is almost waste of time to read everything. After reading the first 3 chapters, I skipped through most of the book. Questions:
1. What do you believe that is actually false?
2. What can you fathom that others find unfathomable?
3. What the heck is my brain doing to blindside me.
Some basis is from Behavioral Investing.
Interesting find was if one takes top 10 firms' cap total from S&P500 and to equate that with say 300-400 firms every year from the bottom of that S&P500 list; the combined performance of those 300-400 firms is equal to or better than S&P500 and SmallCap over a long term; and actually is similar to that of the SmallCap.
I probably should not have read much of the book since the forward itself is from Jim Cramer... :)

Oldie but goodie book. First published in 2006, updated 2011, but still relevant until now. I wonder, us (human) despite of many change happens, fundamentally we never change.
Good book to read, informative and technical with a lot of analysis, but useful and practical with many easy to follow concepts. One of those books, that add new perspective on how I see things (in this case, how I see investment).
Summarizing those three questions that still count for my easy reference in the future :
1. What do I believe that is actually false?
2. What are unfathomable things that I can fathom?
3. Wth is my brain doing to blindside me now?

What do I believe that's wrong?
What can I fathom that others can't?
What is my brain doing to mislead me?

They seem like simple questions but Kenneth L. Fisher goes into great detail and uses numerous examples to elaborate on these simple and powerful questions.

I, personally, do not subscribe to his methods but I understood the mental exercises and the journey that he took me on. Although, I "learned" nothing, I got a lot out of the book.

It is like a bodybuilder going through a special Cycling training program. A worth exercise even though the bodybuilder knows that the Cycling training program is not for him in the long run.

I like Ken's 3 questions. Those should be in your toolbox when making investment decisions - keeps you open-minded. I also enjoyed how Ken debunks commonly held beliefs in finance and economics. Of course, he does not deep dive into each one of them, but the evidence he gives makes you really question the status quo. Dollar's impact on the economy, deficit's impact on the currencies or oil prices, etc. Recommended for anyone who would like to get a different view of macro-economic events and most importantly, the reality.

Great book. I find Fisher to be a fun read and contain a lot of insight. This one teaches about the importance of having an edge in investing (knowing what others don't or refuse to know). While it doesn't teach how to select individual stocks it provides a framework that can be used to evaluate when you have truly found an actionable market bet.

Mr. Fisher's book on investing is a thought-provoking overview of his philosophy on how to generate value within a market that discounts all known information. Although chatty at times, the book made me think differently about certain aspects of my strategy and tactical plans to achieve that strategy. Overall, a good read.

選擇令你安心的標的（基金），而非引起你好奇心的。
好奇心殺死貓（Curiosity killed the cat），不只是貓還有你的荷包, X->Y : 如果你相信，大家也相信，那就不必在意結果了。
如果你不相信，而你又能證明或肯定X>Y，那你就能打敗大家，因為你知道了別人不知道的事情, Z->Q : 如果能發現並證明Z->Q，一旦出現Z就會導致Q，那你就能打敗大家，因為你知道了別人不知道的事情
可是你要如何發現與證明？, 廣義的內線 : Gooaye說 只是比人家早一點知道，打一個時間差，從中得利，就是內線, 投資人對於金錢虧損的痛楚，遠勝於他們對於賺錢所感受到的喜悅

No discussion or ethics or morals in the first several chapters.

enjoyed this read

Makes you think differently about investing.

I listened to the audiobook. I liked it. I feel like I learned things, and I enjoyed the author’s sense of humor.

Es un libro cuyo autor tiene pretensiones de grandeza. Lo dejé a la mitad

Very nice book. The 3 questions are indeed very useful when thinking about investing, but what I really like is that those questions can easily be used in other aspects of our lives as well.

Too verbose at times but a mind opener nonetheless.

9 out of 10

The narrator did a great job through some pretty dry material.

Beat the stock with something u never know and everybody don't know

2.5

The Only Three Questions that Count, by Ken Fisher - 2 and ½ stars; a book on stock market investing. Generally, its greatest strength is as a "myth buster". The book started out extremely entertaining for the subject matter; consider the following quote from page 31: ‘If you don’t know the origin of the word politics, let me enlighten you. The word politics comes from the Greek poli meaning "many" and tics meaning "small blood-sucking creatures." Unless a poli-tic stands up and announces, "I routinely lie, cheat, and steal to help my career and care nothing about you, whoever you are", you should take anything he says with a grain of salt.’ Too bad the author precipitously lost his sense of humor in the last third of the book, transforming a joy of a read into a task. The author managed to convert me on my opinions of the significance of overall market P/E ratios, and on my opinions of asset allocation between stocks, bonds, and cash. He failed to convince me that you can spot a bear market in the making, and he failed to convince me that you can spot when to switch between value versus growth. I just wish the book had stayed more entertaining, like the part which contained a very nice aside about the true monetary allegory meaning of the book version of The Wizard of Oz; "oz" was actually meant to refer to an ounce of gold, and the book was meant to take sides in the debate on whether to back the dollar with silver versus gold - in the book, Dorothy’s shoes were silver, not red.

Ken Fisher teaches a scientific method of discovering what other people don't know. What they don't know is what they have been taught to believe are likely to be market myths which have no correlation to the reality of the market. This book was important to me because for the last several years I have been intent on learning what other people know that I don't.
I gave it 3 stars out of 5 because I'm not sure the structure of the book worked as an unabridged Audio book. I kept thinking, get to the point! For those who are listening where they can't write down the 3 questions here they are:
1. What can I know that other people don't? What do they believe that is actually false?
2. What can I fathom that other people find un-fathomable? Out-of-box thinking
3. What the heck is my brain doing to midlead or misguide me now? What can behavioral finance teach me to do a proper reality check?
A book may be more helpful to have to scan some parts and truly study the necessary details.

I'm giving it three and a half stars. When you read one Fisher book you've pretty much read them all, and this is my second one (I've scanned others). Same examples, same basic premise, same shameless plugging of his other books.

What sets this one apart are the three questions, and this is applicable to so many things. (If it was my first Fisher book I'd give it four or four and a half stars.) The questions are: 1) What are those things I believe that are actually false? (Conventional wisdom vs reality) 2) What can I see that others can't? (What do I know that others don't?) 3) What is my brain doing to blindside me? (This question has lots of examples from evolution and brain science.)

These questions can be used in the office and in doing analysis. They can help us avoid group think and zero in on unique ways to address a problem. Instead of tackling the same problems everyone else does, like five year olds playing soccer and chasing the ball, these questions can help find where the ball is going to be, or even find a different ball in a new game.

I've read much Ken Fisher over the years, including many of his Forbes articles. He is brilliant for sure. But his brilliance is completely accessible....he explains his investing approach with simplicity, clarity and practicality. Most of all, he has credibility. He is Forbes longest running columnist and he has his own highly successful financial services firm catering to high net worth individuals. You cannot achieve these real world successes without true investing knowledge. The Only Three Questions that Still Count is a must read if you are a serious investor. I gave it 3 stars because the writing style is a bit dry, which made it difficult at times to stay engaged. But the content is worthy of a recommendation on my part.

A really good, really hard book. Well, hard for me, at least, since i'm not a math, economics or finance guy. Plus Fisher delights in proving why the few things i thought were true, aren't. So there's a lot here to work through. But by reading and re-reading, i can see the sense in it, and appreciate his strategy of teaching ways to think, as opposed to teaching tricks to use. "ways to think" may be harder to comprehend and use, but they are ultimately more valuable in the long run. Now if i just had any money left to invest, i'd be all set...

This book is the most thoughtful and stimulating book I've read on the subject of investing. Startling truths are in here! It is also the most poorly edited I've read in a long time. It reads as if Fisher chatted into a dictaphone and someone just transcribed it. Way too chatty, and that made the read a challenge to pick out the nut from the shell.

Highly recommended if you actively manage your investments and even if you don't. You'll learn about the psychological factors in investing, about a lot of myths and why you should never trust a broker or asset manager.