The Warren Buffetts Next Door: The World's Greatest Investors You've Never Heard Of and What You Can Learn From Them

Warren Buffett, John Bogle, George Soros, Peter Lynch, and John Templeton--they are famous investors whose names you know. And then there are the Warren Buffetts next door, those successful investors you have never heard of. According to Forbes Editor Matt Schifrin and author of THE WARREN BUFFETTS NEXT DOOR: The World's Greatest Investors You've Never Heard Of and What You Can Learn From Them, the Internet has truly been a game-changer for individual investors. Armed with technology and tools, previously only available to professionals, amateurs are now achieving professional results without professional commissions or fancy degrees from places like Wharton or Harvard. But not only are these outstanding self-directed investors trouncing market indexes, they are also taking control of their own capital in order to repair cracked nest-eggs and improve their lot in life. They don't seek the riches of Wall Street, but rather have more modest goals - being able to afford a family vacation every year, sending their kids to a good college, and having enough income to last them through retirement.

In his book, Schifrin provides case studies of 10 regular people who can pick stocks better than the vast majority of all professional advisors and money managers employed by firms like Merrill Lynch and Fidelity. Schifrin details their personal stories, along with their investment strategies, trading philosophies, and rules for investing.

Though Mike Koza lives about 1,350 miles away from Warren Buffett's Omaha, Nebraska, headquarters, the 51-year-old-civil engineer for the Sacramento County Department of Waste Management applies many of the same Graham & Dodd value principles in selecting stocks for his personal portfolio. Since February 2001, he has been able to achieve an average annual return of 34 percent per year. An investment in Berkshire Hathaway's stock would have netted 6 percent per year over the same time period. An investment in a well-run index fund like Vanguard Total Stock Market garnered less than 2 percent average annual return.