From the shelf · 102 money books
Does The One-Page Investing Plan hold up?
The One-Page Investing Plan (Phillips) is one of the 102 money books on The Money Shelf. It was on the Amazon bestseller lists for personal finance or investing in Australia on 2 October 2026. The shelf links it to 3 of the 22 claims that the book tests against official records from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Each verdict below comes from that test.
Claim 1 · The book makes this claimCompound interest: start early
HoldsIn every case above the 40-year saver ends with more than the 30-year saver for the same monthly sum, by a factor that depends only on the return and the number of years, and the first ten years of deposits supply 41 to 54 per cent of the final balance.
Read the full test →Claim 4 · Linked to the book by its title and subtitleIndex funds: own the index
HoldsOver every period of five years or longer, at least 83 per cent of US large-cap funds, at least 92 per cent of UK large- and mid-cap funds and at least 81.6 per cent of Australian equity general funds lagged their index, and the one figure below 80 per cent over those periods, UK small-cap funds over 10 years at 76.62 per cent, is still a majority.
Read the full test →Claim 18 · The book argues against this claimDay trading: you can make a living from it
Does not holdThe claim that trading can be learned and turned into an income fails for most of the traders and CFD clients studied, because each study of day traders or CFD clients in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Australia and the US sample finds that most lost money.
Read the full test →One book holds the whole shelf: 22 claims from 102 popular money books, every figure dated, every source named, and the arithmetic worked through for three countries.
Get The Money ShelfAll 22 claimsMore books from the shelf