Customer Reviews

Bonds Now!: Making Money in the New Fixed Income Landscape

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I write this negative review because I've benefited enormously from the insights of other reviewers on amazon, positive and negative; my honest opinion is i can't see how this book deserves its current rating of 4.5 stars.

For me this book was an absolute waste of money. I was looking for a guide to bond investing or at least some practical information on it. W/ a ostentatious title such as "making money: in the new fixed income landscape", this book seems to confidently advertise itself as such.

Instead I found generic advice I'd find from any broker or generic free online website. To make it even worse, large sections of the book were written as a political diatribe -- I don't pay for people's cheap opinions; I pay for information. And the less likely I'm able to find this information elsewhere, the more I pay for it.

I would not pay much for this book.

**caveat - adding 1 star for author's emphasis of TRACE"

I was interested in this book until I read the "reviews". Let's see, an obscure bond book is published on December 9 and within a few days six "reviewers", none of whom have ever previously posted a review on Amazon post syrupy ravingly positive but highly generalized "reviews" that sound like advertising copy written by the publisher. I smell (six) ringers here and if the publisher needs to resort to this kind of phony behavior I bet the book's a dud so I'll pass on it.

I only wish that I had the information and knowledge contained in "Bonds Now" a few years ago. I have been a bond investor for 30 plus years, originally municipal bonds and in the last ten years corporate as well.
Buying bonds was a "no brainer" until the financial credit crisis of the last few years. Before the financial meltdown one would buy muni bonds with investment grade ratings and insured by AMBAC, MBIA, FGIC, etc. - no problem, just collect interest and return of capital with bond maturity. Then greed entered the game when the insurers decided to get involved with CDO's and the derivate market while the rating agencies were more than generous with investment grade ratings.
I made some costly mistakes, which could have been avoided by simply following the information outlined in "Bonds Now".
If you are serious about protecting your money and investments I highly recommend following the simple procedures clearly outlined in Marilyn Cohen's latest book, "Bonds Now".
All the necessary bond investment information is readily available free on the web if one knows where to look.

Saw this author on Squawkbox the other day. She seemed intelligent, well-versed in her subject and able to speak clearly and concisely. I don't have an MBA so plain English, or at least language that is understandable by an average person, is greatly appreciated. So glad I picked the book up and ignored the nonsense spouted by an earlier so-called reviewer, who seemed far more intent on reviewing the reviews than the material.

WOW - After reading Ms. Cohen's great book, "Bonds Now!" I certainly have a better understanding on how to navigate through the Bond Market. I had never known where my bonds had previously been traded. Now, being made aware of the TRACE system, I have the knowledge. What a valuable tool to have. With my newly acquired understanding of the Bond Market, I now know how to approach my broker's recommednations. This book is highly recommended for the novice bond trader.

The world of Bond Investing has changed dramatically in the last two years. You must read this book to understand what those changes are, how to make use of new information sources and to revise your investment strategy to align with the new risks facing bond investors. Her previous book, The Bond Bible, was my primary reference until this book was published. Believe what she says. The book is easy to read, provides excellent ideas and gives valuable information so you can balance the risk/reward in your portfolio.

This bond book is the 2nd one I've purchased recently. It has some examples of how things went wrong in the crash of 2008 and how to invest wisely to minimize the chances of losses in the bond market should another crash occur. I recommend it for that reason. However, like many stock books that talk exclusively about their own subject, this book is very focused on bonds. It seems like we could use a book that talks more about combining stocks with bonds investment strategies and provide guidance on blending the two to create a safe and reasonably secure retirement portfolio that includes the benefits of stock and bond diversification.

Also, bond books, in general, do not really discuss the time scale of interest changes, and this book doesn't exactly cover this topic that well either. The time scale goes back ~80 years to a time just after the great depression when interest rates were as low as they are today. This book doesn't really talk about optimal strategies on managing money in the face of such low short term interest rates as we faced then and are facing today. I still strongly recommend the book purely for it's coverage on how to choose bonds that are fully liquid and why that is important as well has how to diversify the bonds and why that is important.

I strongly recommend the book.

"Thank You Meredith Whitney"
Ms. Cohen wrote.

"This Town Cryer isn't crying wolf".
Ms. Cohen wrote of Meredith Whitney.

"Everyone in Muniland wants you to believe the worst is over. I'm not so sure. I think we've only seen the first selling wave. Most states don't even have their new budgets yet. And so far, municipal bond funds have yet to lure back investors after sixteen relentless weeks of net outflows."
Marilyn Cohen prophesied!

And everyone who listened to her missed the huge muni bond rally and lost all the tax freer income from their sold bonds. If you tried to buy those bonds back you sold you would pay a giant premium and get half the yield! So for bond holders who lost money because they listened to Cohen's terrible advise to sell bonds at a market bottom there is no thanks to her only anger!

To those who suspect the publisher resorted to dishonest marketing practices, my recommendation is to rent it from your local library before you decide it's no good. I discovered this book at the library and not on Amazon so I was not influenced by any ratings-- I just needed to learn more about bonds. I must say that as someone who does not have an MBA this book has shed light on some of the underlying causes of the financial crises that are taking place throughout the country (and elsewhere), it offers suggestions on how to manage one's bond portfolio post the 2008 financial crash, and is written in plain English so lay-people can easily understand. The book really is pretty darn good. It has helpful insights that can be compared and contrasted with information found in other texts to help an investor make informed decisions. If you're interested in learning more about bonds, I don't think it's wise to ignore the authors' work simply because the publisher's marketing tactics may be tacky. The Bond Book is also a book I recommend. I actually bought the The Bond Book because I couldn't check it out of the library like Bonds NOW!. It's so comprehensive and easy to understand that the library classified it as a reference book.

Regarding Bonds NOW!, my suggestion is to give it a chance. I give it 5 stars because it's concise, clearly written and has definitive and reasonable suggestions on managing a bond portfolio post 2008. It's a book for people with some knowledge of how bonds operate. Whether or not the suggestions on portfolio management are ideal will have to be determined by each reader. I always suggest reading more than one book in order to make informed decisions... and this book definitely helps to make informed decisions.

The main focus of the book pointed out the pitfalls of bond investing. The book is dense with good ideas. Criticisms might be that the author put too much emphasis on greedy CEO's and the likelihood that we should be aware of this before buying a bond. Most of us will never know about the CEO's until it is too late. The idea of researching the balance sheet of the company and not trusting the rating agencies was very good advice. There is a strong emphasis on "make sure you get your principal returned" repeated. We should be cautious about going for yield. At times it may be a sign for serious trouble. The pricing on bonds is often misleading and she suggests ways of finding out what an accurate pricing is available, before you buy. The author makes a strong case that buying bonds is very tricky. Alot of information seems to be hidden from the investor. Over all this was a useful book and should be looked at by any serious investor in buying individual bonds. My only criticism would be to have more examples of portfolios for beginning and mid level investors. My impression was this book was written for the investor with a multi-million dollar portfolio.