I was touched to learn that Sooraj Raveendran, who says he reads four hours a day, lists my book first among his best five books on investing and markets.
Sooraj Raveendran (left) with a copy of Index Funds: The 12-Step Recovery Program for Active Investors, and his list "Investing and markets: my best five." Photo and list from soorajraveendran.com. [Confirm Sooraj Raveendran's permission and photo credit before publishing.]
A reader who does the work
Sooraj founded Index Funds Sahi Hai in Mumbai, where his team serves Indian families with index-linked mutual funds. Before that he spent ten years at HDFC Life. On his website he says he reads four hours a day, and that everything he shares there came from that reading. He says he has read everything on his shelf cover to cover: five books he singles out, 42 more, and 11 papers that run from Louis Bachelier in 1900 to Eugene Fama and Kenneth French in 2015.
How rare is four hours a day?
With that much reading behind him, he singled out five books under the heading "Investing and markets: my best five," and he lists mine first. The other four are John Bogle's The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, Charles Ellis's Winning the Loser's Game, Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street and William Bernstein's The Four Pillars of Investing.
My book among his best five
With that much reading behind him, he singled out five books under the heading "Investing and markets: my best five," and he lists mine first. The other four are John Bogle's The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, Charles Ellis's Winning the Loser's Game, Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street and William Bernstein's The Four Pillars of Investing.
I am extremely humbled to be listed alongside John Bogle, Charles Ellis, Burton Malkiel and William Bernstein, authors I regard as my highest quality investor education heroes. His page does not number these five or rank them against each other, so I will not claim more than that. Still, to be listed first among the best five of a reader this dedicated means a great deal to me.
Ideas we share
What moves me is how closely the rules on his site match the ideas we hold at Index Fund Advisors:
- Markets are hard to beat. He writes that the market price is the best estimate there is.
- Costs matter. In his words, cost compounds in the wrong direction.
- Investment Discipline matters. He holds to staying invested, especially when it is hard.
- Diversify globally. He writes that India is about 2% of the world's investable stock market, and he keeps half of his own money outside India.
Source for statements above about Sooraj Raveendran, his career, his firm and his reading list: his website, soorajraveendran.com, as viewed on the date of this article. The figures and descriptions are his own and have not been independently verified by IFA. Source for the 16-minute figure: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, American Time Use Survey, 2025 results, published July 22, 2026, covering Americans age 15 and over. The comparison of about 15 times is IFA's own arithmetic (240 minutes divided by 16 minutes).
Ideas that travel
Sooraj also names me, along with Robin Powell and Vishal Jain, among the people who helped him as he built his platform. As he notes on his site, none of us endorses him, his work or any product, and this article should not be read as an endorsement of Index Funds Sahi Hai, its services or its funds. I did very little compared with the work he and his team did.
Evidence, low costs and patience do not depend on the country you live in. Thank you, Sooraj, for reading, and for passing the ideas on to the families you serve.
