Customer Reviews

Investing for Dummies, Second Edition

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Wow...this book was (and still is) such a great help to me.

I really do not like money-talk. But let's face it: in our world, you'd better be somewhat savvy in money management if you want to be able to retire on your own terms.

I do not find all the "Dummies" series books useful. However, this one by Tyson was indeed a gem. It took me a week to read through it, and in that time I was educated on all the different kinds of investments, debt reduction, and stock evaluation.

If you have debts, you need this book. If you want to be financially secure on only a modest salary, Tyson is full of all sorts of common-sense strategy.

Like I said, I do not particularily enjoy money talk, but this book presents the essentials in a surprisingly interesting-to-read format. Even now that I have read it, I know that I'll still go back and refer to it for many years to come.

If you are thinking of investing, invest in this book first. It's a wealth of investing info. A tremendous bargain!

(Also very helpful is Tyson's book on Mutual Funds, also in the "Dummies" series)

Eric Tyson's Investing for Dummies in broad in scope, but still written in plain english. Even the most naive to investing can understand and apply what he writes.I also recommend Personal Finance for Dummies and Mutual Funds For Dummies.You will find these books more informative than Jane Bryant Quinn's books. What is the love affair with her anyway? I made the mistake of buying How To Make the Most of Your Money and found it to be a complete waste. Couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Read and apply Eric Tyson's great work. You'll be glad you did.

I like this book by Eric Tyson. It is idea for both the novice investor as well as experienced. You will find great information on investing in stocks and mutual funds.It is also written in plain english so anyone can understand it. You don't have to be a Wall Streeter to appreciate the information in here.I also recommend Eric's Personal Finance for Dummies to fine tune your personal finance know how.Great books Eric!

I found this book useful because of its amazingly wide coverage of investment strategies (stocks, bonds, T-bills, mutual funds, bank accounts, retirement accounts, real estate, private companies...). It is also quite well written, compared to the other books from the "dummies" series. Nonetheless, the reading of this book did not give me all that I expected. The amount of information on each particular method of investing is not sufficient to use this book as the primary and the only reference, and the author himself occasionally recommends the readers some other books on the subject. On the other hand, the book is too detailed to be a basic simple introduction for people who have no clue what the investing is. While I certainly learned a few things from this book, I do not feel that this book was helpful enough to advance my knowledge far from its starting point. My advice: if you know what sort of investing you prefer, borrow this book from the local library to read a couple of chapters which you need, but buy a more focused and detailed book.

I'm a medical student and my loans for my medical education have skyrocketed and realized I need to plan a financially secure future NOW. In addition, I'm pursuing a master's degreee in business. In reading Mr. Tyson's book, I found lots of information that my business courses failed to explain or did explain but at a level way above my head. Like many other people, I would prefer an intimidating subject such as investing to be presented in clear, logical, plain and easily understandable English. Kudos to Eric Tyson for doing just that. I recommend this book especially for those with absolutely NO previous experience or knowledge in investing.

I have been investing in stocks, mutuals funds and real estate for about 8 years without ever reading a book on the topic. I bought this book to learn the nuts and bolts of investing. Despite the fact that I am not a beginner I still found the book informative. For example, Tyson says when a stock plummets don't bale out, buy some more at the lower price. I baled out of amazon.com at $11 and of course I deeply regret it now. I have since learned to hold during the bad times and now I am in profit territory with all of my stocks. He suggests that college savings accounts, such as 529 plans, may be a bad idea because it could hurt your child's chances of getting financial aid. He explains how bonds can go down in value and says instead of buying individual bonds it is better to buy bond mutual funds. I had been wary of bonds before reading this book, now I am thinking about buying a bond fund in the interests of diversification.

I didn't agree with Tyson on everything. He is more conservative than I am. I am only in my early 30s, so I believe I am young enough to take some financial risks. Also, he believes that it is a bad idea to pick your own stocks. Yet he also says that if you buy good companies and hold for several years you will always come out ahead as long as you have a diversified portfolio. I see no reason to pay a financial planner (who may put his/her own interests ahead of mine) to do this for me.

One thing I really like about the book is that he doesn't just focus on financial instruments. He also discusses investing in both real estate and small businesses. I will be buying a franchise within the next year and I found this information very helpful. Of course, I will need to do further reading on this topic.

This is an excellent book that I had a hard time putting down. If you want to learn more about investing I suggest that you start with this book. It will provide a solid foundation, and help you move onto more complicated financial books and magazines.

I enjoyed this book and found the investment information certaintly more practical and useful than what I found in Jane Bryant Quinn's "Make the Most of Your Money", that book, leave alone.I disagree with the author suggesting that you mimic the stocks in top mutual funds though. Just buy the mutual funds. Mutual funds are safer than stocks (check out LU, CPQ, CPN, KM) and the no load funds don't charge a commission. I also recommend ETF's.The author does a good job explaining on how to find and pick a good mutual fund and is definitely a better read than Quinn's book.

Very, very basic. If you are a true beginner then this is for you. But if you have one ounce of experience avoid this book and find something more in depth.

Considering that I know hardly anything about investing in stocks, real estate, etc., this book was a very good one because it introduced me to the basics. It starts with each topic on "level one" and gradually leads you to the level where you understand the topic but do not have useless information. It discusses stocks and bonds, real estate, portfolio buiding, and even the interesting psychological obstacles in investing. I thought an interesting idea was that to succeed long term in mutual fund investing, your portfolio must be diversified and well-researched. This book also discusses the pros and cons of having a financial advisor, and gives resources for more information. The book has cartoons, which add humor and taught me how investing would be applied to my life. The section of the book least applicable to me was about running and buying business, but it was interesting nevertheless. It was a great introduction to investing and I feel much more prepared than I did before reading the book.

This book will provide you with the knowledge and the conceptual 'tools' that you'll need to evaluate your personal situation and develop an investing strategy based on cold, hard facts. If you're serious about being able to form your *own* opinion regarding how you should invest your money, throw out "Rich Dad, Richer Author" and buy this book.

It's written clearly in understandable language that those foreign to investing can understand, and is loaded with humor that makes learning about such a dry topic as painless as possible.

Much like any "101" (introductory-level) college course, this book provides a wide 'buffet-type' variety of information on all major topics that pertain to investing strategy. That is, there is more breadth than depth in the topics that are covered. Basically, after getting the facts from this book as laid out by Tyson, you'll be armed with a *very* solid base knowledgability in investing that will allow you to figure out exactly how and where to dig deeper to actually implement your strategy.

Like it or not, learning (properly) about a topic as complex as investing takes time. This book is where I'd recommend that most people that had minimal knowledge (like myself) start off learning in order to firmly grasp all of the most important fundamental concepts before they continue on to more advanced topics.