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No comments about The Motley Fool (13 Steps to Investing Foolishly - A Motley Fool Investment Primer).

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No comments about You Have More Than You Think: The Motley Fool Guide to Investing What You Have.

5 comments about Motley Fool Investment Tax Guide : An Investor's Resource for Smart Tax Planning Throughout the Year.

1. I was looking for a meaty tax guide and should have known better than to buy a 94 page book! The authors spend most of the book bashing mutual funds and praising stock picking while using twisted and contorted logic to brainwash the reader. Tax decisions are rarely simply but these authors seem to think they are.



2. I had never done our taxes. But after reading this most simple and informative book, I am going to try my hand at doing our taxes. I am a 66-year-old woman, and not good at these things. But I shall try this year. This book explained a lot of things for me, so now I'm more confident. (It was entertaining, too!)



3. this is probably too simplified. I foolishly (note the lower case "f") assumed this book would be as great as the Fool's other publications, and never checked, say, the amount of pages the book has (the deal was too good . . .). I was a bit disappointed when all I got in the mail was a mere pamphlet. The IRS website is actually more helpful.

   Still, the book is an ok start to considering investment tax strategies, and will make the unknowing reader knowing enough to tackle more hefty guides.




4. As someone who began investing four years ago and began doing my own taxes just one year ago, I found this tax guide to be extremely informative. It is a quick and enjoyable read - perhaps an unsurpassed feat for a tax guide - with lots of helpful examples. This tax guide provided great tips for dealing with my taxes this year (i.e., what to do with that one worthless security) as well as numerous ideas for how to plan my investment strategies in the future. It also contained the most understandable explanation of the New Roth IRA that I have read this year. I highly recommend this tax guide to anyone who invests. I certainly feel more confident about preparing this year's tax return. Indeed, in a strange way I am almost looking forward to doing my taxes now.



5. I was a great introductory to the basic tax issues to investors. It gives several tips that pay off immeadiately, and opens doors to things to consider and read further upon. It was a quick read, and easy to understand. A good followup, book is the 'Ernst & Young Tax Saver's Guide'.

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5 comments about The Motley Fools You Have More Than You Think: The Foolish Guide To Investing What You Have (Motley Fool Books).

1. This book was extremely easy to read. It was concise, yet entertaining. I held a highlighter pen in my hand the entire time I was reading and ended up highlighting the entire book! All the information was useful and pertinent. An excellent book for novice investors and those who are getting over a "full-service brokerage" hangover.



2. Investment books are rarely entertaining. The Gardners and Andy Tobias are the exceptions. If you can't bear to read about investing and know nothing, you should give this book a try. You may find it to your taste.

   The weakness of the book is a bias towards encouraging you to be out of debt and into common stocks, based on formulas and your professional knowledge. If the financial markets were at an average or below average price level, that would be all right. But the financial markets are at an all-time high, so future returns should be below par.

   There is a historical ratio between household wealth in stocks and housing that favors buying housing right now rather than stocks. Few will be able to buy a home without a mortgage.

   The most frequent path to major wealth in this country has been to found one's own business. Few can do this without incurring reasonable debt to finance receivables and other needed investments. The Gardners don't really address this investment opportunity.

   The formula the Gardners propose for buying high yield stocks in the Dow has had to be revised every few years to be a good way to invest. This formula probably won't work well in the future either, because too many people follow the formula. Markets are bested by only a small percentage of all investors over time, and this rule is no exception going forward.

   The advice about avoiding credit card debt, saving wherever you can, and so forth is quite good. You'd find it in any decent investment book.

   If you decide you want to go into the stock market, I suggest you also read John Bogle's book, Common Sense About Mutual Funds, to round out the perspective that the Gardners provide here before buying stocks. Be sure to consider first how much you want to do with housing and starting your own business. Good luck with your investing.




3. These two Foolish brothers are a Godsend. They are doing a great service for anyone interested in investing, or building a strong financial future in general. It seems that nowdays there are so many 'shisters' out there, so willing to take the last crumb of food from our lips, that it's frightening. From what I've seen on the Fools website, Dave and Tom are both Foolishly excited about us (jr. Fools) becoming financially educated. This book is waaay to full of puns and cynicism. If you can get through the funny business, however, you will find a gem of a book. Sometimes their humor is actually laughable. Advanced investors may find this treatise on investing somewhat simplified, but that's the way it should be. Why confuse a bunch of simple Fools! Good book with a happy ending!



4. I've read the other Fool books -- this one is much more basic and covers much more than just stock picking methods. If you believe that your financial advisor is a real expert, or you have credit card debt, or you don't know how to get the best price on a car, this is a must read. I knew all the basic stuff until I got to stocks which I'm far from an expert in. What I like about the Fool books (besides the humor and light tone which is always appreciated) is that they explain in plain English the meaning behind the numbers. Want to know what a dividend percentage yield really MEANS? You get the idea. Their basic Dow 4 strategy seems a bit oversimplified, but the point is that we should all realize that WE have all the information we need to make well-informed decisions for ourselves and do not need to rely on others. That idea alone (and a common theme running through the books) is worth the price of admission.



5. I tried to listen to this audio book and couldn't. While the advice in it is good - I've subscribed to the e-mail newsletter in the past - the arrogant tone of the reader is too much for me. Gladly David Gardner reminds you that the recommendations that he is giving you are simple and any Fool should be able to do them and become rich. But after being reminded of this time after time in the introduction you wonder what they REALLY mean by calling themselves Fools. You are talked down to and some start to wonder why would you submit yourself to such irritating drone.

   My advice: Don't be a Fool, buy the book, skip the arrogance, and go straight to the financial advice.

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5 comments about The Motley Fool's What To Do with Your Money Now: Ten Steps to Staying Up in a Down Market (Motley Fool).

1. I didn't want to go to a one because some of it was useful. Their admission on how poorly they performed in the market downturn says it all. So now they're saying, along with countless others, "We have the best hindsight of anybody!", rings absolutely hollow. Very bland humor too.

   If you've read or heard them before, there's no need for this one. Try to find somebody who has beaten these bad times.




2. While minimally entertaining, it has the feel of "hey we have the best hindsight of anybody!" They admit they lost big time during the Market downturn. I gave them two stars because there were a couple of things said that not everybody else was saying.

   I'm looking for information on how to avoid or benefit from the market, without listening to all the losers. Anybody know of someone who continued winning even during the downturn. Now that would be valuable information.




3. After owning a couple of the previous works from the Motley Fool (and subsequently throwing them out because the advice is pretty bad) I took a look at the latest edition by borrowing it from someone.

   First of all I've always found their advice frustrating. On one hand they kind of half-heartedly recommend passive index investing and then they go about telling you about the latest stock-screening get-rich-quick fad. Toss in a couple dubious stock picks along the way and you have nothing but a mixed message.

   I think this book is a pretty shallow attempt for these two to make up for the really bad advice they gave in their other books over the years. They take several chapters explaining away (in hindsight) how wrong they were, but even in this light they fail to embrace proven strategies and instead go about telling you what stocks to own (Starbucks anyone??). Basically this book is trying to convince you that "This time it's different." They are now trying to mend their ways and show that now their advice is worth listening to and all the stuff they said before was wrong and they're very sorry you lost so much of your money using their strategies. And oh, by the way, we still offer for sale this nifty stock investment newsletter and website for a really great price!

   I really think the best approach is to concentrate your portfolio on passive index funds compromising various asset classes (domestic, foreign, bonds, real estate) and just rebalancing once a year. This is a very proven strategy that will beat virtually every actively managed portfolio/fund with far less stress (and taxes). Most major pension funds follow an indexing approach for a good reason: It works.

   For a much better read try out The Coffeehouse Investor, books by Larry Swedroe, Bogle, and William Bernstein. Send these two jesters back to the circus...




4. Although the Motley Fools have shown their inexperience, like some of us knew they would, they have also started maturing. Much of their advice is generic enough to be good and hardly any of their advice is "bad" (like much of their competition). Also, there are some gold nuggets later in the program, so it is worth a listen if you are at any transition points in your life.



5. If you're a somewhat experienced investor, don't waste your money. While Gardner has an involving speaking presentation, there isn't much here beyond some superficial financial planning and investing advice, with a little history of the dot com bubble burst and some mea culpa on the Fool's business foibles. One major investing theme in the book seems to be index funds. He repeats over and over that 90% of managed funds do not beat the S&P index. While that may be true, don't tell Bill Miller, Wally Weitz, Will Danhoff, Ron Muhlenkamp, Bruce Berkowitz..... Of course, he also fails to mention that many funds do not invest in anything remotely associated with this large company index, so it's not fair to compare. Gold funds, small cap funds, international funds, sector funds..... While the average person would be better off following this advice in lieu of uninformed, uneducated investing, it's really a lazy investor philosophy. Not to mention that while repeating over and over that the only mutual fund you need is an index fund, the Motley Fool has begun a newsletter called 'Champion Funds'- makes one think they're OK with managed funds, as long as they can get paid to tout them.....