The Coffeehouse Investor’s Ground Rules is an update and reflection on Bill Schultheis’s first book, The Coffeehouse Investor, which I read over twenty years ago, unaware that the author was living in Skagit County when he wrote the book. At the time, I was in an investment club and an active investor, doing all the right things by Wall Street standards to be financially successful. After reading Bill’s book, I realized I was headed in the wrong direction.
Bill was an early advocate for “buying the market” through index mutual funds. It simply changed my investment life. I became a subscriber to Bill’s newsletter and forwarded it to friends and family over the next twenty years. Ground Rules expands upon the indexing investment philosophy and gives readers a look back at how it has worked out financially for investors who refuse to watch CNBC daily. I recommend reading The Coffeehouse Investor (1998) or The New Coffeehouse Investor (2009) before Ground Rules (2020) to get a fuller understanding of the passive investing strategy.