Juggling Dynamite: An Insider's Wisdom About Money Management, Markets, and Wealth That Lasts.

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Human nature is no match for the sales culture of the investment products industry, according to Park. Investments have the volatility of dynamite, and the objective in managing them is to protect one’s capital from blowing up. This cannot be achieved by taking investment advice from someone who profits from “pumping sunshine.”

Saying no to the “culture of buy, smile and wave” is the first of seven strategies Park recommends for protecting invested capital. In a direct, simplified style she addresses such issues as the historical 20-year cycle of bear and bull markets, the peculiarities of online trading, the development of mutual funds and their hidden fees, income trusts, and how the media influences the markets. She blows holes in the conventional buy-and-hold strategy, looks at concentrated risk versus diversification, and examines the “dark comedy” of borrowing to invest, exposing leverage as a high-risk strategy. In contrast to the pipe dream of investing in a plan based on hope, she defends timing buy/sell decisions so as to benefit from “market timing,” the ongoing swing in overall markets.

Park highlights the pitfalls in our behaviours around money, stressing that making money is different from having money. Keeping money, she says, means being respectful of it: there’s a role for humility, and the characteristics of patience and discipline are critical for master investors. It’s possible to pursue happiness without pursing material wealth, and the trick to retiring with money, she says, is simply to spend less and save more.

The work is an easy read for those with even the slightest knowledge of the investment field.