No comments about Maintenance Work Management Processes (Maintenance Strategy Series).

5 comments about The Money Tree: Risk Free Options Trading.

1. Over the last five years, I've examined hundreds of schemes for making money in the stock market. Now, I don't want to say anything bad about all those schemes, but I will say this: The concepts in The Money Tree actually work as advertised! I am retired, and need to make my meager resources last out my lifetime. My lack of success in the market had me ready to put my money in a 2% savings account and hibernate. But then I read this book. It has literally changed my life.



2. I found this book to be very interesting and powerful in that it not only provides a simple covered call strategy but a stock selection method that complements the overall strategy. The book gives any one the basics to set up a conservative covered call portfolio that should provide a comfortable income. You can order a set of CD's that implements the book's basics and the CD's are very reasonable.
   I have set up my IRA account to implement the covered call/ stock program set forth in this book.



3. If it so good why would SOMEONE bother writing the same review over and over again. I have written many of covered calls and 25% is a bit lofty for a return. Look into more honestly reviewed/written books for details/strategies and see what you can do experientially. Start small and watch what happens to your returns on an annualized basis. Have an exit strategy before you start.



4. I have not read this book, but I had to comment on its title: I would hate for a novice investor/trader to be taken in by the promise of "risk free" options trading. Synthetically, selling a covered call is identical to selling a naked put, with exactly the same risk/reward profile. The fact that lots of investors do it, and are allowed to do so by their brokers, has a lot more to do with the brokers' risk tolerance than its risk profile for the individual. Yes, you can increase your returns with this strategy, but please, learn how to do it from someone who will tell you the truth about the potential outcomes.



5. I consider myself a very experienced, professional investor. While I agree w/ the comment by another reviewer that "risk free" is too strong a word - I really liked this book. The book is very readable and communicates a basic yet powerful option writing strategy. While I stress that each investor must understand the risks involved in every trade, I also believe that this book is worth a read.

2 comments about The Complete Guide to Becoming a Successful Mortgage Broker: Insider Secrets You Need to Know.

1. This book starts at the beginning and walk through each step of the process to become a successful mortgage broker. It explains all the choices you will need to make as well as the pros and cons of each decision. The book answered all the questions I had and ones I never even considered, like needing a certain minimum net worth. The book is for more than just the start-up mortgage. It's also a great resource for the veteran broker looking to increase business or considering starting up his or her own company. The sales techniques in Chapter 5 are valuable to anyone at any stage of their career. Chapter 17 provides information to help mortgage brokers recognize a slowdown in the coming market and prepare for it. It also provides some tips on how to best take advantage of the time by increasing marketing and education to prepare for the upturn in the market. Unfortunately, no special tips were available for those who might be in the middle of a market downturn without having properly planned. The case studies help bring it all together with advice and experience from three seasons professionals.
   
   If you want to become a mrotgage broker, this is the only book you'll need to guide you through the process. Every profession should have such a thorough guidebook available.



2. Are you looking for a new career? You may want to consider becoming a mortgage broker--a "financial professional who acts as an agent between borrowers looking for mortgages and the institutions that offer them." As Patricia Hughes explains in her book The Complete Guide to Becoming a Successful Mortgage Broker: Insider Secrets You Need to Know, mortgage broking can be a very lucrative occupation, and, believe it or not, a formal college degree is not essential, though, depending on the state, a class may be required before taking the certification exam. The author further notes that though "formal education is a plus" that "an effective mortgage broker needs to have good people skills" along with talent in sales and marketing. And the rewards for possessing these skills can be great. Hughes comments that a broker "with over three years of experience...can easily make a six-figure salary."
   
   This very informative "how-to" book presents the pros and cons of working as an independent mortgage broker versus working for a large mortgage brokerage firm, or a smaller firm. And many other topics of interest are covered: Building business, sales techniques, locating borrowers, finding the best deals for clients, putting together a loan package, how to set up your own company, insurance needs, tips for success, state-by-state licensing requirements, and many more.
   
   Hats off to Patricia Hughes, who has done a wonderful job of laying out all this information in a very clear and concise way. She has explained very simply and comprehensibly what would be needed to embark on a career such as mortgage broking, or to improve the skills of an existing broker.

3 comments about CNBC Creating Wealth: An Investor's Guide to Decoding the Market.

1. I am a CNBC junkie -- I just can't get enough, particularly when it comes to understanding what's going on in today's crazy markets. This book not only has same straighforward approach you find on CNBC, it also provides you with an invaluable analysis of how markets work and a list of resources where you can get up to the minute information on world markets. Any book that will help me make sense of what the current stock market is doing will help me feel confident in the choices I make as an individual investor and is worth the price. I highly recommend this book. Thanks.



2. Watching CNBC can be entertaining and educational but sometimes you need more information than the anchors provide about a certain story. This book gives you the background--the basics about how the stock market works and what you need to know to make smart investing decisions. There's lots of useful stuff here and you can peruse the chapters that you're interested in.



3. GREAT COVER I THINK WE CAN DO BETTER. I LOVE CNBC MYSELF.I SEEN MORE BOOKS WITH MORE DETAIL INFORMATION. AS I SAID GREAT COVER.

5 comments about Earn What You're Worth: A Widely Sophisticated Approach to Investing In Your Career-and Yourself.

1. I love the idea of investing in yourself, even if it means going into debt for a little bit - I'm a commodity worth investing in and this book has given me the courage to see that. A completely different way of looking at career success and money.



2. Put down the highligher. Every page in this book is packed with amazing words that promise to jump start you into a bigger salary and a true sense of self-worth. This book is not just for young career-minded women. It truly is for anyone wanting more for themselves. It reads effortlessly and has a genuine tone. Who ever thought a book of this genre could be a page turner? Incredible wisdom...makes me think Ms. Williams is in her 90s not her 30s. :)



3. With her breezy, girlfriend-next-door tone, Nicole Williams, author of "Wildly Sophisticated," takes readers on a journey of financial self exploration. With anecdotes from female entrepreneurs like herself, she encourages women to both explore and challenge their preconceived about success and money - particularly those which come from childhood. Williams also discusses our various "money relationships," from bankers and accountants to employers and even friends and family, as well as how we should approach them all.
   
   Unlike other authors who challenge readers to save more and spend less, Williams encourages her audience to actually earn more. She does this by focusing on the concept of self worth (both tangible and intangible), our true values, and how that all translates into business success - or lack thereof. Highly motivating and entertaining.



4. I recently followed a friend's advice and purchased Nicole William's book Earn What You're Worth: A Wildly Sophisticated Approach to Investing In Your Career-and Yourself. Upon reading the first chapter, I knew I had made the right decision. The book is full of valuable knowledge and career advice that I will definitely never forget. Her sections about discovering how you are unique and identifying what you value really stuck out in my mind. The book made me aware of several essential elements of career success and I have learned to focus on what I really want and proactively ask for what I'm worth. Two thumbs up!



5. This book has very practical advice on how to improve your chance of sucess in the business world, and how to become more financially successful.
   
   There is no content on investing or particulars of fiancnes, rather the author approaches the idea of investing in yourself as the msot important way to improve your success, in all aspects of your life.
   
   A specific example is "the latte factor." She writes taht she isn't ehre to tell anyone they need to stop drinking alt tes. Instead, she urges each of us to deicde why we are having our lattes, is it beacuse everyone else is getting one? Or do we get out of bed inteh mroing only because of the latte we know awaits us? If it's the latter, then by all means make that investmetn in yourself. If its the former, perhops yo ucan cut that latte out of your habit and have room in your budget for something more important.
   
   I read this book twice, and the first time all of her career advice I applied to my relationship (it was all I could focus on at the time). But later, when I re-read it, I applied thea dvice to my career and job hunt and personal finance, and feel that I am actively working towards my goals. It helped me see and create the big picture so I can then work towards acheiving teh various aspects of my life goals.

4 comments about Efficiency Of Racetrack Betting Markets.

1. After reading and researching statistical techniques applied to horse racing this book is by far the most important and complete book I have read. The techniques are proven using complex math and statistical calculations and if repeated can earn a consistant and reasonable profit.



2. William Ziemba and Donald B. Hausch, eds., Efficiencies of Racetrack Betting Markets: Economic Theory, Econometrics, and Mathematical Economics (Academic Press, 1994)

   I believe this is the only review I have ever written for a book I do not own. While I was working at a university in the late nineties, I was lucky enough to stumble upon a copy of this in their library after reading Ziemba and Hausch's landmark Beat the Track. For the year between my finding it and my switching jobs, the book was out of the library and in my hands every day. I renewed as often as I could, and when I couldn't, I would drop it off on my way to work and take it out again on my way home. They were inclined to be lenient, because I was the only person who had ever taken the book out of the library.

   Let me get one thing straight from the outset: folks, this is not your momma's handicapping manual. For that matter, it's not your shady Uncle George's handicapping manual, either. It's a graduate-level econ textbook. And if you have no background in math (as I didn't at the time, and I still have only what I've gleaned thanks to Howard Sartin and Tom Brohamer), your first trip through this large and ponderous tome will be torturous. You might want to bone up on your equations, not to mention keeping a small handbook of "what Greek letters mean to economists" by your side at all times.

   Eventually, however, you will dig your way down to the meaning of the first paper. And then the second. And then the third. And so on. And for the horseplayer with an academic bent (definition, gleaned from some nasty comments during a discussion on the book that irked some folks who didn't like what they were hearing: any bettor who read Rosecrance's The Degenerates of Lake Tahoe and was able to laugh when finding a description of someone a lot like him), figuring out what these people are on about is the rough equivalent of discovering the tombs of Tutankhamen, Rameses, and Nefertiti all at the same time, and finding incontrovertible proof that Anubis really DID carry their souls off to the realm of the dead in the process. It's true that any bright middle-school student who has a good grasp of fractions will be able to get Beat the Track, and praise the powers that be that Ziemba and Hausch are capable of translating this morass into something most people can understand, even if they only touched on a portion of one of Ziemba's papers (which is the first one presented here). If the middle-school student is really, REALLY bright, is what the classifieds today call a self-starter (read: willing to try and figure this stuff out on his own), and has access to a tutor and/or writings that can explain some of the more esoteric facts, and has six months or so free to decipher this stuff full-time, said bright middle-schooler can probably find the keys to the kingdom. And get a pretty solid understanding of econ jargon in the process (which could lead to blowing the curve in Freshman-level econ classes in a few years).

   I've been considering going back to school and learning to be an accountant. Before I do so, I have every intention of acquiring a copy of this hefty tome, which will likely set me back a year's tuition or more, and using it so I, too, can blow the curve. Of course, if it helps me make enough money to pay for school in the process, that would be quite a bonus, but the real value here is in showing, once and for all, that depending on your point of view, either horse race investing is no more a gamble than playing the stock market, or that playing the stock market is just as much a gamble as putting your two bucks on the nose of Glue Factory Refugee in the seventh at Charles Town on Friday night. *****




3. This is a very difficult to locate title and you are likely to pay a significant price premium. I found my copy at Amazon.co.uk and it was a reverse bound photocopy of the manuscript, still carrying a premium price!
   
   The book contains approximately 60 academic papers divided into seven categories. As academic papers, each of the paper goes into significant depth regarding narrow topics. The organization of the book attempts to bridge between the topics. Some of the papers are "classics" written as early as the 1940's. Papers include the classics by Harville, Hausch, Asch and Benter. The authors of the papers include mathematicians, psychologists and gamblers. Some value in the book is derived through identification of these authors to search for their other works. The bibliography and acknowledgements are uniquely useful.
   
   Frankly, after reading the majority of the papers, I am not sure I understand the exhorbitant pricing for the book. I do not see any conclusions or recommendations that aren't contained in a range of handicapping books, and the individual papers are readily available to anyone willing to invest the time to research at a major technical library. The book is a good one, but not as great as the price would lead you to believe.



4. this book, as indicated by its title, its genre, its time period, and its authors, embraces theoretical foundations long since discredited even among the academics: viz., that perfect information can be obtained (the true meaning of Kelly); that complete rationality is not only expectable within any game-theoretic space, but also, once realized, can adapt perfectly to such stochastic and discontinuous processes as appear; and that randomness, not persistence, is the foundation of every speculative game.
   
   nearly every mathematical model of an event results in tautologies, in that the model rests upon assumptions not contained within the condition it abstracts. proof of the adequacy of the model, therefore, rests less upon its predictive power--although, perhaps, accurate when applied to a subset of the universe about which it discourses--than its meta-logical, meta-factual persuasions. logical systems are axiomatic, that is, deductive; where-as real systems are conditional and probabilistic, and give rise to frequent contradiction. efficiency market theory suffers from these persuasions, from these tautologies, and insinuates its bias in the conclusions it draws.
   
   efficiency exists only so long as an equilibrium exists in the underlying dynamic: once an efficiency is embraced by the players in a game as a "law", the preponderance of opinion must necessarily neglect the exceptions to its beliefs, and thus, bring about that inefficiency which it arose to defray: the exception is undervalued, and this elevates its worth.

2 comments about Investing in the New Europe.

1. Eric Uhlfelder's book could be titled "Europe 101: An Introduction for Americans." European readers will not gain much by reading this work, which is filled with the very basic basics of Europe's politics, economies and companies. But for Americans looking to diversify their newly constructed stock portfolios, it is a valuable resource, profiling the EU and the economic strengths and weaknesses of EU and non-EU countries. The book also profiles key companies, such as Nokia, SAP, Adecco and others, and discusses which individual stocks and mutual funds you should acquire. We [...] recommend this interesting primer to Yankee readers, who might be surprised to learn how fast Ireland is growing, how much Austria's fling with the far right cost the country and how a French utility firm is positioned to take over the world.



2. For a world political & economic power, Americans can be remarkably parochial. Uhlfelder's book is a valuable introduction to the huge European market, and some well-chosen major players. It comes as a surprise to many Americans just how world class many of the companies operating from there are. To continue to be successful, it is incumbent on Americans not to be complacent about foreign competition - look how Nokia sneaked up and overtook Motorola.

3 comments about 129 Seminar Speaking Success Tips.

1. I've been doing seminars for over 10 years and many of these tips are exactly what I have experienced. The great thing about this book is that it contains strategies that I've never thought of or used before.



2. Do you have a short attention span and need something really good to keep your interest? This book is definitely for you! I needed a book on seminars and public speaking and honestly, I did not have the time nor patience to slog through page after page of tedious reading. That's why I loved this book: It was quick and to the point! I would highly recommend this book to anyone - whether a beginner or expert! Two thumbs up for "129 Seminar Speaking Success Tips"! Well done!



3. I'm a beginner at public speaking and seminars, but sometimes I have to
   speak to groups as part of my job (insurance). What I like about 129 Seminar Speaking Success Tips is that each tip is short and to the point and gives me a powerful strategy or technique that I can start using right away. I can't find any fluff or filler like in some other books I've seen on the topic. I like to open up to any page at random and read that tip and then implement that one specific tip. That keeps me from going into "information overload" and keeps me focused on just one thing at a time. Using this book I'm sure I can build up my public speaking and seminar skills in a fun and easy way. To me, this isn't just another book you read and then put up on a shelf and say "nice book", this is a book you can really use.

No comments about Student Solutions Manual Statistics for Business and Economics.

5 comments about Momentum Stock Selection: Using The Momentum Method For Maximum Profits.

1. this is a good book and well written. very easy to read and understand.

   however, it comes across as too simple. the methods that are discussed here does not really give you the confidence that they are sufficient for you to trade properly.

   another book by this author on the psychology part of trading, 'IQ the investors quotient', is a much better and strongly recommended read. in terms of market momentum, martin pring's 'trading with oscillators' is more useful, and just as easy to read.




2. This book offers a simple but robust method of trading on stockmarkets. The presence of many many (sometimes too many) charts makes it possible to read on the beach, not just behind the computer.
   The Momentum Stock Selection method is good. Bernstein claims that you can use the method on intraday basis. This is true, but not in the same simple way as he shows in the book, it takes a lot more interpretation and experiments (on paper first is my advice!!).
   His rules on do's and don'ts in trading are absolutely valuable and true, and funny to read of you have done all the don'ts already in the past.



3. With respect to this book, I do agree that
   
   1) momentum is a very important trading concept whilst MACD is a very useful oscillator type indicator to identify overbought and oversold situations, and thus change of s/t trend, a TA tool which helps traders not to buy high sell low, especially in a day trading environment.
   2)the author had written a very easy reading book in a very friendly and understandable way.
   
   However, I can hardly agree that:-
   
   1) the author presented momentum as a surefire weapon in the highly volatile market and can be used alone
   2) the author did keep it simple, but it's too simple all the way throughout the 180+ page content. He should go from simple concept to complicated application, and teach readers how to improve its accuracy with simultaneous usage of stochastics or RSI or...In fact, there are many examples/charts illustrated by the author which showed extended period of divergence with very unfavorable price moment that might have already kicked an investor out of his position, in case he/she did not have a strong conviction on his/her position but by sheer reliance on MACD.
   
   As a professional trader, I cant recommend this book to anybody. The quality of this is far below the author's own classic "Investment Quotient" which the author's strength (trading behavioral psychology) rests solidly upon.



4. It is evident that Bernstein appears much more active in the business of writing books than trading; his earlier book Compleat Day Trader was o.k. but the rest with possibly the exception of his book on futures are a assembly-line like rehash of the same old material with the benefit of a new cover, and a new angle. It seems that the author always espouses a "new" breakthrough method in each of his books but in actuality is simply selling basic, unproven ideas at a high cost, extended over hundreds of pages. For example, in Momentum Stock Selection, you're instructed to find a stock making new highs, and corresponding points on the momentum oscillator which show divergence - THIS signals an imminent price reversal. That's it folks. [But you can keep the 30 or so bucks for me having told you. Unproven. Untested. And not accurate. If you want to use one of the most powerful indicators for probability forecasting, I'd suggest looking at the CCI.
   
   In Bernstein's Stock Market Strategies That Work, the author toys with a bunch of theoretical ideas like the MAC Hi-Lo Channel (his proprietary analysis tool that's nothing more than a Bollinger band which roughly equates to a 9 period setting and a standard deviation of 1). When 2 price bars go above the channel look for a pullback to go long, and when the opposite, look to sell. As usual, the book's examples are often unclear (are you supposed to buy at the breakout above the band, or at the pullback??) and often confusing. But hey, this is another "breakthrough" discovery so I guess the reader should be thankful. BTW, if you're really interested in the MAC channel on the charts of your choice. Simply go to Barcharts.com and then the OPINIONS section and it's Free! No kidding. And that's my point. Save you're money, and look for trading books that are a value for your dollar and not the authors'. My recommendations: Technical Analysis by Schwagger, High Probability Trading by Link, Technical Analysis by Kramnick (sic?) and Swing Trading by Jon Markman of MSN.Com. Good luck and always keep the green eyed monster in check.



5. As a stock trader your homework is all about studying and testing different market strategies that will help you take advantage of stocks and at the same time protect your gains.
   
   Just always keep in mind that an effective trading strategy is simple and practical. Teaching your self to depend on to many technical and confusing indicators can make you slow in your decision making process or confuse you from the start.
   
   The momentum approach showcased on this book covers bascially technical analysis. The stock market is always presenting us momentum opportunities that dont have anything to do with TA at all. Breakout opportunities occur every day. The trick is to know how to find them fast and approach them successfuly.
   
   There are very good sites on the web where you can access momentum trading strategies that are far more practical to implement. One of those sites is Momentum Stock Trading ( MomentumStockTrading com)
   
   In the end, momentum day trading is all about picking the best stock opportunities and following your buy and sell signals with ease and simplicity. Once you learn to master your momentum trading decisions, you can aspire to produce consistent profitable results.