John Kay is a leading British economist and columnist for the Financial Times. His latest book is entitled The Long and the Short of it: A Guide to Finance and Investment for Normally Intelligent People Who Aren’t in the Industry.

Jonathan Mok: What was the impetus behind this book?

John Kay: Many friends over the years have asked me – ‘what can I read that tells me about finance and investment in a non-technical way but doesn’t insult my intelligence?’ Few books do this. I have often recommended Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk down Wall Street, but that book is now old (first published in the 1970s) and very American. So I thought I would have a go myself. And the credit crunch made it all the more topical.

Jonathan: In your book, you urge readers to take care of their investment portfolio and provided tremendous advice and figures on how to spot and assess an investment option. Tell me, why did most investment models, built by Harvard, Yale and Cambridge Mathematics PhDs, appear to fail? Continue reading →