Riding the Bull: How You Can Profit from the Coming Stock Market Boom

Sarah Robertson is associate editor of the Canadian Book Review Annual.

This book anticipates that in the 1990s the U.S. and Canadian stock
markets “may run up to ridiculously high levels” in response to a
post–Cold War boom. But Patrick McKeough, editor of The Investment
Reporter, also dubs this decade the “Scalding 1990s” and anticipates
deep market setbacks. Like Benjamin Graham, the pioneer of value
investing, McKeough recognizes that market timing is a mug’s game.
What succeeds over the long term is a defensive investment portfolio
that emphasizes established companies capable of generating decent
profits and dividends.

In Riding the Bull, McKeough applies common sense and lucid prose to a
wealth of topics, ranging from choosing an investment portfolio to
avoiding sucker bets (penny stocks, warrants and options, and the like).
Particularly good are the chapters on choosing a broker, pricing stocks,
short selling, and investor psychology. Treasured investment rules of
thumb are exploded (e.g., that gold rises in times of inflation), and
McKeough offers a view of mutual-fund investing rarely, if ever, heard
these days amid all the hype (he is inexplicably, and annoyingly, mute
on the subject of international funds, an area that has witnessed
explosive growth in recent years). He rejects the currently popular
asset-allocation services, advises against averaging down, and points
out the pitfalls of contrarian investing.

This is a book about investment strategies. As such, it does not
evaluate individual stocks. But if you share McKeough’s investment
philosophy, you could do worse than consult his weekly advisory for
those all-important buy and sell signals. Like this book, it is an
effective antidote to those broker-from-hell blues.