Stocks for the Long Run is a cornerstone work in long-term investing, offering a data-driven, historically grounded case for equity ownership as the foundation of wealth creation. Jeremy J. Siegel approaches markets from an academic yet highly practical perspective, demonstrating how stocks have consistently outperformed other asset classes over long horizons despite wars, recessions, inflationary periods, and market crashes.
The book is built on extensive historical analysis, examining more than two centuries of financial market data. Siegel explains why equities, as claims on real assets and corporate earnings, provide superior inflation protection and real returns compared to bonds, cash, and commodities. Rather than promoting market timing or speculative trading, the book emphasizes patience, compounding, and disciplined asset allocation.
A central theme is understanding risk correctly. Siegel challenges the common perception that stocks are inherently “riskier” than fixed-income assets when held over long periods. Through empirical evidence, he shows how short-term volatility often obscures long-term return potential and how emotional reactions to market cycles undermine investor outcomes more than fundamentals.
The book also addresses valuation, dividends, interest rates, and macroeconomic forces, helping investors place market movements into proper context. While grounded in academic rigor, the writing remains accessible, translating complex financial relationships into clear insights that investors can apply without advanced mathematical knowledge.
Stocks for the Long Run is not about beating the market through clever tactics. It is about understanding how markets work over time and aligning investment behavior with economic reality. For investors seeking a rational, evidence-based framework for long-term success, this book remains essential reading.
✅ What You’ll Learn:
- Why equities have historically delivered superior long-term real returns
- How inflation, interest rates, and economic growth affect asset classes
- The role of dividends and compounding in wealth accumulation
- Why long-term investing reduces risk despite short-term volatility
- How to build realistic expectations and avoid behavioral investing mistakes
💡 Key Benefits:
- Provides a robust historical foundation for long-term investing decisions
- Reframes risk using data rather than emotion or headlines
- Encourages disciplined, patient investment behavior
- Serves as a strategic counterbalance to short-term market speculation
👤 Who This Book Is For
- Long-term investors focused on wealth preservation and growth
- Portfolio builders seeking an evidence-based equity framework
- Readers interested in the historical behavior of financial markets
- Not suitable for short-term traders or tactical market timers
📚 Table of Contents:
- Stock and Bond Returns Since 1802
- Risk, Return, and Portfolio Allocation: Why Stocks Are Less Risky Than Bonds in the Long Run
- Stock Indexes: Proxies for the Market
- The S&P 500 Index: A Half Century of U.S. Corporate History
- The Impact of Taxes on Stock and Bond Returns: Stocks Have the Edge
- The Investment View of Stocks: How Fickle Markets Overwhelm Historical Facts
- Stocks: Sources and Measures of Market Value
- The Impact of Economic Growth on Market Valuation and the Coming Age Wave
- Outperforming the Market: The Importance of Size, Dividend Yields, and Price-to-Earnings Ratios
- Global Investing and the Rise of China, India, and the Emerging Markets
- Gold, Monetary Policy, and Inflation
- Stocks and the Business Cycle
- When World Events Impact Financial Markets
- Stocks, Bonds, and the Flow of Economic Data
- The Rise of Exchange-Traded Funds, Stock Index Futures, and Options
- Market Volatility
- Technical Analysis and Investing with the Trend
- Calendar Anomalies
- Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing
- Fund Performance, Indexing, and Beating the Market
- Structuring a Portfolio for Long-Term Growth
Stocks for the Long Run: The Definitive Guide to Financial Market Returns & Long-Term Investment Strategies By Jeremy J. Siegel


Dallas Chapman (verified owner) –
Highly recommended book on investing. It explains all the details that I never understood before in a way that’s easy to understand.
Leighton Underwood (verified owner) –
I have two hobbies that I enjoy that are thought provoking. Playing chess and investing in stocks. Sometimes preachers are judged for investing for retirement or seeking to use the stock market to provide for themselves in retirement, but at the end of the day, these judgers are not going to pay your bills. This book was a great overview of the stock market, and even the great recession. It provided a lot of helpful advice, and helped create a long term perspective on investing in a stock. It highlights the value appraoch to stocks, but this pond has been fished a lot over the years. The book gave a lot of good principles to follow. Typically, there are highs and lows, and typically it is from people beginning to be too pessimistic or optimistic. Controlling your emotions is huge. It talks about passive investing, which I recommend for people, and active investing, which is much more enjoyable. Some people enjoy riding on a boat with a captain while others enjoy navigating the winds themselves. The author is a permenant bull on the market, which causes you to wonder about his advice. But at the end of the day, being safe, and investing over time seems to always win the day. So young ministers, start young, and be consistent. So here is some advice young preachers, if you are in your 20’s, start a Roth IRA, invest in the S&P 500 fund or ETF.
Francisco Vaughan (verified owner) –
The classic book on long-run market behavior. Should be read by every serious investor or Finance professional.
Jared Adams (verified owner) –
An inappropriate title. This is just a book of financial markets history.
Milani Harrington (verified owner) –
A must read for anyone serious about investing.
Ander Watson (verified owner) –
Very good book.
Kara Lang (verified owner) –
He is one of the best if you care about dividends and growth
Stella Holland (verified owner) –
Stocks for the long run is the best book to learn about the stock market. Powerful, insightful and well documented!
Vincent Espinosa (verified owner) –
A must for young investors
Dakota Navarro (verified owner) –
What I learned from this book is that every strategy to beat the market is victimized by its own success. Perhaps the best investment philosophy for the typical investor is to be satisfied with earning more than inflation and transaction costs. Any gains above that is a blessing and should be viewed as much.
Kailey Dalton (verified owner) –
Must read to understand Buy&Hold
Odin Vega (verified owner) –
I know no mean to predict the future better than analyzing history. This book does just that. More than 200 years of historical data are analyzed to give you the most likely outcome. Must be read for the long-run investors.
Nalani Day (verified owner) –
This is an educational book. It contains a lot information about stocks that you need to know.
Theodore Moran (verified owner) –
Recommended by my financial advisor. Read cover to cover. A bit repetitive but only to reiterate the key points. Data supports ideas.
Rosalie Craig (verified owner) –
It was really a good book to read, with a variety of subjects to explore. I really recommend this book for anyone who is going to invest, already investing, and everyone who contemplate the stock market.
Reid Galvan (verified owner) –
One of the easiest and most straight forward reads on investing in general. Tons of research distilled into simple lessons, advice on almost every other page, common sense conclusions… I enjoyed reading this book.
Devin Randolph (verified owner) –
Okay
Bjorn Rollins (verified owner) –
Great book for understanding how stocks have performed in various scenarios in the past. There is no silver bullit for investing, but this book gives some strong advice on what has worked for many, and what should be avoided as pure speculation.
Fletcher Higgins (verified owner) –
I liked The Future for Investors better. This is basically a book about the history of the stock market.
Vivian Reynolds (verified owner) –
A lot of historical details and current advice to understand how it operates.
Brady Kelley (verified owner) –
I’ve recommended this book to friends, now I’m recommending it to you on Amazon. The advice here is backed by data and screams a single message—in the long run stocks, and preferably low Beta dull stocks, will outperform all other investments through up and down markets, and for many of us, the down markets scare the heck out of us.
If you’ve lived through the Flash Crash, the Dot-Com Bubble, the Mortgage Crisis, the S & L Crisis and others, you know that disasters are always just around the corner. However, de-risking your portfolio doesn’t need to mean buying bonds or going to cash. You can stay invested if you invest in boring stocks and if you stop trading.
The book doesn’t address fiscal and monetary irresponsibility but does give you the impression that stocks can weather any storm, even ballooning deficits and dollar expansion.
Well done advice.
Ezra Thompson (verified owner) –
This is not an easy read. But it has a lot of great information that any aspiring or seasoned investor would do well to head. Siegel is very thorough, well reasoned and thoughtful. His research was clearly expansive. If you have any kind of relationship with the stock market (or you want to) I could not recommend this book enough!
Gabriella McCarthy (verified owner) –
Best book on investing ever written. Period.
Braylee Frye (verified owner) –
Really love this classic investment book. Strongly recommend to long-term equity investors who hold same belief that stock will outperform in the long run and everyone is allowed to accumulate decent amount of wealth through long-term equity investment.
Wells Carson (verified owner) –
I’m self-teaching thru various texts on stock market and finances. This is a must! Thank you!