Dated stock picks; tried and true investing strategy. (Mostly) Worth the read.

I don't need to vouch for Lynch's authority on good investing, as anyone who has looked into investing for more than ten minutes has run across his name. Knowing his name and his reputation in the investing world, I thought I'd give this book a read and become familiar with his investing strategy. I was not disappointed.

Lynch's strategy is quite similar to Warren Buffett's: buy solid companies at a discount and wait. Lynch favors more moving of money than Buffett prefers, but the fundamentals of their strategies are, more or less, one and the same. In a market currently swamped with day traders and young investors trying to ride the waves of sensational stocks, Lynch's voice here is a breath of fresh air, even three decades after initial publication.

Being a 30 year old book, its stock picks were obsolete 29 years ago. This is no fault of Lynch's strategy, but only the nature of investing. Anyone looking to find actual picks for stocks in this book is going to be disappointed. Thankfully, the bulk of the book is dedicated to explaining Lynch's strategy behind picking the stocks he chose, and seeing this strategy in action is the true value of the book.

However, being that the back half of the book is dedicated solely to explaining 30 year old stock picks, I found this part of the book far less rewarding than the first half of the book. There are still some gems of wisdom in these latter chapters, but the time-sensitive reader can ditch the book after Chapter 6 and still have gotten their money's worth.

All in all, I'd recommend the book for the beginner investor, as the fundamentals of Lynch's strategy are worth learning.