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What it argues
Just Keep Buying is Nick Maggiulli's data-driven answer to the two central questions of personal finance: how much should you save, and how should you invest it? Maggiulli is a data scientist who runs the Of Dollars and Data blog, and the book reflects his background — it is organized around empirical research and historical data rather than anecdote and conventional wisdom. His title reflects his primary investment conclusion: for most investors, the best strategy is to keep buying broadly diversified assets consistently, regardless of market conditions.
Maggiulli opens by challenging the conventional wisdom that you can always save more. His analysis of income distributions suggests that for lower and middle income people, the binding constraint on wealth is income, not spending. The savings rate advice of most personal finance — save 20 percent, save 30 percent — assumes you have discretionary income to redirect. Many people don't. The implication is that for those people, increasing income is more impactful than reducing spending, and the book adjusts its advice accordingly.
What it gets right
- 1.
For lower and middle income people, increasing income matters more than reducing spending. The savings rate advice that dominates personal finance assumes discretionary income that many don't have.
- 2.
Consistent investing beats market timing in most historical scenarios. Just keep buying, regardless of market conditions, rather than waiting for the 'right' time to invest.
- 3.
Lump-sum investing outperforms dollar-cost averaging about two-thirds of the time, but dollar-cost averaging is easier to stick with behaviorally. Both beat not investing.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Nick Maggiulli is the Chief Operating Officer and Data Scientist at Ritholtz Wealth Management and the author of the Of Dollars and Data blog, which he has been writing since 2016. His work applies quantitative analysis to personal finance questions that are typically addressed with rules of thumb and anecdote. He has a background in mathematics and data science and previously worked in finance and technology. Just Keep Buying is his first book, published in 2022. His blog posts have been widely shared in financial media and communities, particularly for their data-driven approach to questions like market timing, dollar-cost averaging, and savings rates. He is based in New…
