An eye-catching title to grab your attention, and the book certainly does not disappoint. Niels Jensen avoids trotting out the old pros and cons of passive investing but instead pursues several big picture, important, interesting themes, focusing on structural mega-trends he says are set to disrupt investors around the world.

How apt that I just finished “The End of indexing” by Niels Jensen in the midst one of those chilling tropical downpours in Asia. It is indeed a highly readable rainy-day read that pours cold water on the future of passive investing. Niels takes the reader on a comprehensive tour of some depressing megatrends affecting the global economy and asset markets. You don’t even need to buy into every aspect of these to sympathise with his intelligent interpretations. Niels’ vast market experience shines through in his clear translation of trends into investment strategies. His conclusion — that passive investment strategies expose investors to the wrong type of risk at the wrong side of the megatrends, is accompanied by some convincing suggestions regarding where to maintain risk exposures.

The lessons learned in the stupendous global bull market of the last 40 years will serve us very poorly in the years ahead. With The End of Indexing, Niels Jensen offers a treasure trove of market insights, presented in a global context, that will help readers reach their goals despite the coming headwinds.

Niels Jensen is particularly well versed in not only the trends of the markets, but how to take advantage of them. I have worked closely with Niels for over 15 years and I rank him as one of the most astute investors I know. His book, The End of Indexing, it is not only a remarkable study of market trends and economic reasoning, it is done with his inimitable style and grace in writing that makes everything he writes so readable and immediately come to the front of my reading list when it shows up in my inbox. This is a book you’re going to want to read more than once. And every time you do you will learn something new and important.

So often, it seems that analysts and investors are aware of important long-term issues but choose to discount them, and focus instead on short-term ones, that seem more concrete – retaining only a vague sense of concern that they might be missing something. Keynes taught us the dangers of being myopic. So, for example, it is important to consider both short-term ‘momentum’ and long-term ‘value’ when investing: they are, as it were, two sides of the same coin. Niels’ book, and the approach he takes to separating out key long-term structural issues and hammering home their importance, may help to redress the balance. And it may well help a number of investors to improve upon their own approaches.