5 comments about The Bond Bible.

1. My name is Bond. Bond Bible. All jokes aside, bonds have been sorely underestimated. So many people forget that bond holders are creditors. So that when a company folds, shareholders lose out, but most often times bond holders get paid out. Ms. Cohen pulls no punches and is solid in her review of the bond world. I even like her inclusion of "Bowie" Bonds, the rock and roll bonds that were founded several years ago.

   In all her talk I found her discussion light on leveraged bonds. Bond futures are also a viable means to enter this fixed income investment. I should know I've been doing it for 11 years.
   
   That aside this is a one of kind book that no modern investor can do without.




2. You've heard the old mantra: Diversify, Diversify, Diversify -- but have you actually heeded that advice? Until I read this book, I had no real concept of what bonds could do for my portfolio. To me, bonds were boring, stale, stagnant, and, well, really couldn't hold a candle to the potential double digit returns stocks and mutual funds could produce. Why would I even bother?
   
   Marilyn Cohen takes you by the hand and walks you through the often convoluted terms (i.e. rate to maturity, convertible bonds, laddering, callability, etc.) and explains them in easy to understand terms with practical examples. Don't let that deter those of you that are experienced bond traders -- there are things in here for you too.
   
   After reading this, I feel a lot more comfortable adding bonds to my portfolio, as well as talking about them with investment professionals. There's a lot of potential out there in the fixed income field if you know what you're looking for. At this point, I know enough to adequately diversify my portfolio.



3. I would suggest that any reader wishing to learn about bonds in any detail other than the most simplistic, will be utterly disappointed. It was a waste of money, if I may be so blunt.
   
   
   Malcolm Yellon.



4. If you search Google for "When to Sell a Bond", the only book that comes up is this one, so I bought it. Unfortunately, it really does not describe this at all, only to sell when "Things Go Bad" or "there has been a good run-up"...so I plan to re-sell this book... otherwise if your looking for basic bond concepts and ideas this book is okay.



5. Very good book on bonds - easy to understand but packed full of information. Would highly recommend this book for someone looking at investing in bonds

No comments about Investing in Fixed Income Securities: Understanding the Bond Market (Wiley Finance).

No comments about Stock Market Knowledge for All Ages: Answering Questions About Stocks, Bonds, and Mutual Funds.

5 comments about Savings Bond Advisor - Fifth Edition.

1. This book tells you everything you need to know about savings bonds. Also, it's probably the most up to date savings bonds book out there.



2. This is a recent book covering info on bonds on a current basis so that you can compare w/your own holdings. It covers the features of "I" bonds, which are much more complex than the "E" (which are also described). The author's thoughts are worthwhile to consider, from an investment focus. He includes features that are available on-line, The Savings Bond Wizard, and the Calculator -- The more recent conversion ability lets you get rid of the paper bonds and to inventory them easily.



3. I found this book to be outstanding and answers all questions on U.S. Savings Bonds. Before reading it I thought I understood Savings Bonds but I was wrong. You will be amazed at all you can learn by reading this book.I highly recommend it to everyone.
   Richard A. Link



4. This is a very will written book that I learned a lot from! Mr. Adams is a very good writer that was able to provide knowledge not known to many in a easy to understand way. Up to date information is on his website, which is also very helpful.



5. My family purchased many bonds through work for 10 years, and Mr. Adams' book was essential in helping us understand the details of bond ownership. The book covers a wide range of topics, including a comparison of I bonds and E bonds, important tax information, strategies for cashing bonds, and many other relevant topics. Additionally, if you buy the book, you can send Mr. Adams questions on his website. This book is a definite must for any owner of US Savings Bonds!

5 comments about The Electronic Day Trader: Successful Strategies for On-line Trading.

1. This book is essentially obsolete just three years after its publication. Stocks are now traded in decimals, and the spreads on heavily traded stocks are now almost nonexistent, sometimes being less than one cent a share. Consequently, you can forget about any of the strategies or information regarding "pocketing the spread", "getting between the spread", etc. With the proliferation of ECN trading, the influence of the market makers in a stock has been markedly reduced. In a stock that trades 80 million shares per day, a market maker with a 100,000 share block is not going to be able to move the stock significantly, and ECN trading can overwhelm his influence. Likewise, information gleaned from the Level II screen, while still useful if one knows what to look for, is no longer the Holy Grail. Also, day trading firms, like the authors' "Broadway Trading" are on the way to extinction, now that some big online brokers offer direct-access trades for less than a quarter of what day trading firms charge, as well as offering free Level II quotes and other information not available to the day trading firms.

   While the book contains a few nuggets of trading info, it was not written in a logical, easy to follow manner. As has always been the case, aspiring traders need to study the markets intensely and develop their own trading techniques; they cannot expect that any book will teach them how to be successful in a field where very few people ever succeed.




2. good book , nice condition



3. This book completely fails to realistically convey the relative risks and profit potential for the average wannabe day trader. Im talking about someone with less than a few thousand to play the market. Unless you have big bucks and Level II quotes forget day trading unless you are very lucky. In the trading parlance, I wish I had a short position on this book at its current price, and could cover my short at the current used price! Save your money.



4. They went bankrupt, which is where you would be if you followed West and Friedfertig's methods. The book was a copy of Jack Schwager's Market Wizards series, due to the interviews conducted with "traders". You would be amazed if you saw some of these people and didnt read their words in print. Somehow they would not come off so sharp. Trust me!

   Also do you think our authors would be able to spot "managerial talent" over a few aspiring proprietory traders? No they hire guys who have previously filed bankruptcy in their past and pipe up their accomplishments, which are a joke when you realized they bailed on creditors!!

   Save yourself a dime and avoid it-if someone gives it to you, and you can't return it, use to start the BBQ grill. I could go on and on about SEC/NASD violation, getting short on a downtick, etc but I wont!




5. There are some good ideas that you can rescue from this book. Therefore I think you should buy it since you can make much more money and certainly recoup your small investment if you employ 2 o 3 good tips.
   
   Any way, from my point of view a trader must always read as much as he can. There is simply no other way to prepare one self for this difficult yet incredibly rewarding activity, but to learn and put into practice as much ideas as you can, at least by paper trading first.
   
   The are a lot of books on the subject, however many of them where written 2 o 4 years ago and that kind of makes them obsolete in this constantly changing field.
   
   The internet offers great places where you can learn more specialized trading techniques. One of those places that I have found to be worthy is ProfitableStockmarket dotcom.
   
   They focus mainly on momentum trading and employ a rather simple yet effective strategy. I think that for a trader to survive and be profitable, its neccessary to keep their trading as simple as possible. To much confussion and technical indicators will most of the time make you slow in your decisions and froze you up when a good opportunity is right in front of you.
   
   In the end it's all about buying or selling with out hesitation, and doing it over an over again according to your set ups.

5 comments about Online Investing Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools (Hacks).

1. It seems like everyone is involved in investing in some form or another. While I always felt like I should be investing too, it was never clear to me how to begin this process. After all, it's my money. How can I be sure I'm investing in something that will provide some sort of reasonable return? This book is an excellent resource in answering some of those questions and putting the new investor on the right track.
   
   This book is written in the same format as the other "hacks" series by O'Reilly. This format is very easy to read, and the format makes it very easy to find answers. Rather then having to read the book from cover to cover, the reader can pick out topics they are dealing with, read the answer, and move on. Since many of the people interesting in a book of this nature will likely have little time, the book's format works to its advantage.
   
   The book begins with some basic introduction to the stock market and tips for selecting appropriate stocks or mutual funds. The whole middle section of the book deals with data analysis. The author discusses how to understand a company's balance sheet (e.g. what that P/E ratio means), how to spot companies in financial trouble, how to pick a good stock, and even how to trade. There is also a good discussion on minimizing the effect of taxes on your little return on investment.
   
   The author even goes further and gets into a discussion on financial planning. In addition to discussing debt reduction, the author also talks about IRA plans and different strategies for saving for your child's education expenses. I think my favorite part of this book was the discussion on different education savings plans. The author discusses the ins and outs (as well as tax consequences) of each of the plans, and provides some examples illustrating the fact that it's better to start saving earlier than later.
   
   This is an excellent book, not just for its investing advice, but also for its sound financial planning. This is a great book for anyone who is interested in increasing their wealth, saving for a rainy day, or simply saving for future financial goals.



2. Online Investing Hacks is an excellent introduction to the world of investment. Though the title does contain the word 'Online', I would say that the general information the book provides on investing is not limited to the online realm.
   
   Overall, I was very happy with the book, and found it incredibly useful. Though I do have several investments (401K, some stock, mutual funds etc) I would hardly consider myself an authority on the subject. This book provided very detailed explanations and tips on various forms of investment, from CD's to Index funds, and everything in between. While the experienced investor might not glean much from reading this book, anyone just getting started will find it an excellent reference, and resource.
   
   The format of the book is similar to the other books in the 100 * Hacks series published by O'Reilly. There are exactly 100 hacks, or topics, which are spread across 9 chapters. Each one is an individual entity and can be read and understood without reliance on any of the other hacks.
   
   One minor annoyance I had with the book is that it is geared toward those of you who, for some reason or another, run Microsoft's Windows OS, or have access to Microsoft Excel. Luckily, of the Excel examples that I played with, Open Office's Calc program handled them with minimal tweaking.
   
   I can easily recommend this book to anyone who wants to invest, but is unsure of what to invest in, or needs some tips on making the most of preexisting investments. Those of you who enjoy research and building your own stats and graphs will also find parts of this book rather intriguing, as it covers data acquisition and manipulation with Excel in great detail. It will make an excellent addition to my reference shelf, and I have a feeling it will be well thumbed through in a very short time.



3. Online Investing Hacks by Bonnie Biafore (O'Reilly) is one of those books that can pay for itself in short order, as well as over and over.
   
   Chapter list: Screening Investments; Hacking Excel for Financial Analysis; Collecting Financial Data; Analyzing Company Fundamentals; Technical Analysis; Executing Trades; Investing in Mutual Funds; Managing Your Portfolio; Financial Planning; Index
   
   I worked at Enron from 1998 through 2001, and spent plenty of time during that dot.com era following my stock portfolio. I watched my Enron stock value go from incredible value to a point where it cost more to sell the stock than it was worth. I won a few bets (face it, that's what they were) on a few dot.coms and lost many more. What could have been an incredible nest egg, isn't. This book would have been a lifesaver if I had read and paid attention to it a few years ago. Biafore shows you how you can analyze and invest wisely using a variety of tools available to everyone.
   
   If you're an Excel user, you'll find it an invaluable tool for analysis. She'll show you how you can use it to create financial charts (#13), calculate compound annual rates of growth (#26), and use rational values to buy and sell wisely (#36). #39 - Spot Hanky Panky with Cash Flow Analysis (using Enron as an example) would have literally saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars had I known about it. Even if you don't care about the investing tips, the hack on downloading data via Excel web queries (#7) was something I didn't know how to do (or that you could even do it!). The book has a little something for everyone.
   
   As with all Hacks titles, you probably won't be interested in every single item. Some may not be applicable to your situation or may be too complex for what you care to handle. But all it would take is one hack to work out and change your investing for this book to pay huge dividends. If you do your own investing, you owe it to yourself to get this book.



4. I've been trading for over twenty years, including a period as a floor trader on the Chicago Board of Trade. Even with that experience there are tips and tricks in this book I found useful to the point where I employ them daily. To be complete as a reviewer I will say there is a lot of pretty basic stuff from my point of view, but still well worth reviewing since some of it I had forgotten.
   
   Well written, easy reading, well organized



5. This book is clearly written and user friendly. Biafore gives links to information sources, making it easy for the reader to get more information on each of the hacks. These links alone are worth the price of the book.

5 comments about The Wall Street Journal Guide to Understanding Money and Investing, Third Edition.

1. Most of the book is a great intro to money, stocks, bonds and mutual funds. But the last section, on Futures & Options, seems really rushed and lacks the clarity of the earlier sections (especially the material on options). For example, the authors do not define "calling" or "putting" options; and there is a blatant error on page 150 wherein a description of an option table is laughably out of sync with the table it is trying to describe.
   
   Overall, the book is very good -- just beware of the shortcomings of its last section.



2. I think this book did a great job in helping me understand the universe of money and investing beyong the scope of stock. I have been trading for 1 year and wanted to buy a small book that gave me a general education on the subject. Although much more can be written on each topic covered it is good for beginning to understand the whole picture.



3. A nice introduction to wall street if you were raised on Mars. For people who want to do investing for a living this is a waste of time



4. If you're a beginner, interested in investing, this is a very decent primer to start with. Buy it with Eric Tyson's Investing for Dummies, and you'll be fully set!



5. Although this isn't the largest book in the world, I really enjoyed reading it. I thought that I was pretty savvy as far as the way things worked, but this book definitely enlightened me. I also appreciated the pictures that made things clearer.

4 comments about Stocks Bonds Options Futures.

1. Great book. Complex concepts are explained clearly and concisely. Examples are abundant and helpful.



2. I have to point out that I have the first edition of this book (which did not have Veale's name on it). It is absolutely excellent at introducing the basic concepts behind all types of securities and futures investing one may be considering. They cover what stocks, bonds, etc. are, how they are traded, the terminology used by brokers, and even some historical background. I was really impressed at how clear and understandable all the explanations were. This book was written by someone who really understands the concepts and knows how to explain them well.

   The book does not have a glossary in it, but does have an excellent index, which is really better in many ways.




3. I am making the transition from hard sciences to financial markets. I have started reading many math oriented books on quantitative finance, like the great two volumes by Shreve, but guess what, I still could not understand a Bloomberg article or a report on the radio, all these market terms were a mystery to me. Not anymore. This book did it for me. It requires ZERO financial knowledge and yet it is not for dummies. It is perfect for the level of someone who never had a formal training on what is the definition of a stock, what kind of departments exist inside an investment bank, etc. etc.
   
   It is a clear book, I would not call it technical, it reads like a novell, and I can not overstate any more how cleat it is. I definitely recommend it to people who want an introduction on the subject.



4. This is a must read for all who feel the need to learn about these important investment vehicles. The writing is stellar and easily understood, even on such ideas as futures, hedging, and more difficult concepts like the yield rate curve.
   
   Mr. Veale is an excellent writer and deals with the common and uncommon uses of these vehicles. You will understand how to read any kind of quote, from stock to bond to esoteric qoutes like T-Bill spreads and ED futures.
   
   I usually sell books like this once I have absorbed the knowledge, however this is a keeper since it will be an important reference for well into the future.

5 comments about The Strategic Bond Investor : Strategies and Tools to Unlock the Power of the Bond Market.

1. By far the best introduction to bonds is Annette Thau's The Bond Book. But Thau makes no attempt to explain why the price of a given bond fluctuates over time. Crescenzi, one of the most frequently cited of the legion of professional Fed watchers, tries to make up this deficiency, describing the impact of Fed moves, market perceptions of the state of the economy, the supply of new issues, etc. on bond prices.
   But Crescenzi has a much more ambitious agenda. He explains how the yield curve can be used to forecast developments in the economy. Other chapters summarize how to predict trends within the bond market, from analyzing the put/call ratio to interpreting the economic data that a dozen or more agencies spew out every week. He makes the case that knowing the bond market will be useful to anyone with a credit card in his or her wallet.
   Crescenzi also wants the book to serve as a general introduction to bonds. There are chapters on "bond basics," types of bonds, risks facing the investor, and then inexplicably late in the book, chapters on credit ratings and using the internet. The latter is particularly weak chapter (Thau's isn't much better.) For whatever reasons, Crescenzi doesn't explain clearly how to use the internet to research individual bonds and check recent trades, and doesn't give the URLs of the sites that let you do this and purchase bonds.
   If it sounds like the book is a bit of a hodge-podge, that's because it is. The book's organization leaves a lot to be desired, apart from the scope being too broad. Not only is the sequence of chapters mysterious, but there's a fair amount of repetition. While the writing itself is pretty lively, or at least conversational, I'm not sure Crescenzi has figured out his intended audience. Even though this is an introduction, some readers are bound to feel he's assuming too little and being condescending at times.
   The best chapters are probably 7,8, and 9 on the yield curve, real yields, and rate forecasting. Crescenzi apparently wasn't trained as an economist or historian, and when he tries to describe the effect of interest rates on politics, he goes awry. A big fan of Clinton, he imagines Hoover believed in and practiced "laissez faire" and that budget deficits inevitably result in high interest rates. A chart of deficits as a percent of GDP vs. the yield on the 10 year note would reveal the wrongheadness of this claim. In general, there are far too few charts and graphs thoughout the book. Many more important points ought to be represented graphically--like changes in yield spreads in Ch. 12.
   Still another gripe--munis get slighted throughout the book.
   Despite these negatives, The Strategic Bond Investor fills an important niche and is definitely worth reading. Crescenzi is an ethusiastic teacher and he makes a fairly complex subject accessible. Though there are certainly books introducing readers to the economic indicators and explaining the Federal Reserve System, I don't know of another book that tries to make the bond market as a whole intelligible to outsiders. Hope he gets a chance to revise this in a second edition.



2. Although this book contains good information on types of bonds, yield curves and things that affect the bond market and interest rates, I found it disappointing. To me, it was overly wordy and sometimes repetitive. At times, I felt that I was slogging through molasses. My biggest disappointment was that it did not get into the specific bond investing actions that an individual like myself would take using the information presented. There was nothing about things that I was interested in i.e., bond laddering, bond mutual funds, convertible bonds, when to buy or sell short, intermediate and long term bonds, etc.



3. The Strategic Bond Investor is much more thorough and relevant than most bond books. Others who commented discussed the lack of certain strategies, but those reviews miss the point. The book offers strategies and insights that are the most important ones to grasp: those which help investors to forecast what to expect next in the bond market. Sure, laddering, and other traditional strategies are important, but they do not represent the path to big money, understanding trends in the markets is far more important and this book is a major help in that regard. Other books are very weak in talking about the things that move markets. For example, there is an excellent section on the inverted yield curve, and insights into tools for tracking market sentiment and how to use futures to gather market intelligence. Mr. Crescenzi works on Wall Street, so his insights are better than anyone on the outside could deliver.
   
   There is also an appendix in the back of the book that gives great insights into the major monthly economic news that is released each month.
   
   The Strategic Bond Investor is far above other bond books and is easy to understand.



4. This book is worth the money, it belongs on your bookshelf next to Malkiel's Random Walk down Wall Street. Anthony Crescenzi leading fixed income analyst at Miller Tabek and creator of Bondtalk does an excellent job with this work. I myself received my undergraduate degree in Finance and was honored to participate in my university's first two invitations to the Federal Reserves education challenges for undergraduate and high school students.
   
   I found this book an extremely good reference, outline and compandium for the understanding of fixed income investment vehicles and the economic market environment in which they exist. This book would be ideal in combination with say the Princeton Professor Malkiels book Random Walk down wall street which explains equities, their analysis and the markets in which they trade.
   
   I would suggest this book to the lay investor who maybe doesnt even manage the majority of his/her asset just to understand the fundamentals. Ofcourse, the world of finance and in my opinion especially fixed income can be the drabbest, greyest, quantitatively complicated and mind numbing topics. But I must say that Mr. Crescenzi breaths a light humor and a little youth into the subject matter.
   
   And to the person with say a degree in business, finance or economics this book elaborates on topics probably already discussed into further detail. After reading the aprox. 300 pages and the appendix entitled a power tool for investors which describes the leading economic indicators and extrapolations one can take from them. The student can expect to be able to render even better analyses of the domestic economy with better understanding of stimuli that effect the price of fixed income securities.
   
   All over this book is great should you be the least bit interested in fixed income it covers all the bases. I am almost positive that you will fail to find a better book on fixed income/bonds out there the man who wrote this is very highly respected in his field and also worth checking out is the website his pioneered bondtalk. Perfect for the financial scientist!!!



5. Reading this book was so boring it was like... Well it was like reading a book on strategic bond investing. That being said it had a wealth of information. The price I got it for used was well worth the Fed speak chapter, and the detailed explanation of the various monthly economic data (employment, housing starts etc). Also each chapter has a summary that is helpful if you are just scanning the book. For non bond investors it is quite good to have for reference.

5 comments about Investor's Business Daily Guide to the Markets.

1. This book is a *primer*, and as such will likely be neither the best nor the worst book you'll ever read on the subject of investing (fwiw, I actually found the content average, and the writing style a bit like summertime in the Sahara). For me though, the book earned its fourth "star" for a single--yet *really* important--reason: its connection to the IBD newspaper. For about $25, _Guide to the Markets_ explains much of its information using the same graphs and other formats as you'll find in the company's daily. *That* is a great deal considering that IBD is one of the best, if more expensive, investment tools available. For its ability to cheaply provide access to that very powerful tool, while also providing other occasional insights, _Guide to the Markets_ is a very good value. (It's nicely indexed enough to serve as a solid reference as well).



2. This book is actually half decent it isn't near as good as How to make money in stocks but it covers a lot of relevant information for newer investors.

   The chapters cover these wonderful topics:

   * Capitalism: What it is and why it works
   * The stock market: Primer on what stocks are and how the market works
   * Mutual funds
   * Options
   * Bonds
   * Futures market
   * Economics and economic indicators

   The book reminds me of Investing Smart however Guide to the Markets is at least 10 times better and covers more topics, not to mention the writers are much better than Dhun H. Sethna.

   I recommend this for beginning CAN SLIM investors.

   Reed Floren




3. This book is pure gold for investors who are just getting started in playing the market. Coupling this book with a subscription to Investor's Business Daily will help you make good decisions quickly and minimize the punishing losses that naive investors sometimes take. IBD does a good job of explaining technical issues in easy to understand language along with showing pertinent charts and graphs.



4. Even a novice could learn the working of western
   economics ( capitalistic ), the influence of Government
   intervention, the mechanics of the stock market, and
   the way to use the best investment paper today: Investor's
   Business Daily. Only criticism: you should have noted
   that the book is the same as the one published 10 years ago,
   and not a new edition!



5. This is one of the best books on the market for beginners. It contains all things that a beginner needs to know about what a stock is, how the stock market operates, capitalism, how free markets operate and much more. It explains how to really invest and trade for profit using valuations, technical stock movements and emotional factors. It also expands into the futures and bond markets and explains options and selling short. I found the chapter that tracked all the greatest performing sectors for each year over the last century very informative. This book is just packed full of information that you will learn from and be able to profit from in the markets. The only reason I did not give it five stars was due to it needing an update, it is a 10 year old book and I would like to see the last ten years added in to an updated version of this book.
   
   Also check out Jason Kelly's "Neatest little guide to stock market investing" for another great book for beginners.