Investing Online for Dummies, 5th Edition [Paperback]

Kathleen Sindell (Author)

Book Description

Series: For Dummies (Lifestyles Paperback) | Publication Date: April 15, 2005

Everybody talks about it—how much you can save , and earn, when you start an online investment program. If you’ve decided you’re ready to find out what all the excitement’s about, you’re in luck. Investing Online For Dummies has been completely revised and updated with the latest tools, Web sites, rule changes, and tips that can make online investing easy and profitable.

To be a successful online investor, you need to know your way around the Web and you also need to understand something about investments. Investing Online For Dummies can help you make sound financial decisions by:

• Outlining basic investment fundamentals
• Explaining how stock options work and helping you determine the value of your employee stock option plan
• Pointing out costly traps and ways to avoid them
• Directing you to resources that provide information you need and helping you make sense of it
• Showing you how to use the Internet to become a savvy investor

This 5^th edition of Investing Online For Dummies provides clear instructions and ample illustrations, taking you from the basics of online investing to making your own online stock transactions to purchasing bonds online. A few of the things you’ll discover:

• What’s important in an online brokerage and how to locate one that meets your needs
• How to find Internet resources that help you select mutual funds
• How to use stock online screens to find investment candidates that will move you toward your financial goals
• Where to look for direct stock purchase and ShareBuilder plans that let you invest online for as little as $25 a month
• How Internet tools can help you analyze and choose stocks and bonds
• The secrets to paying the lowest commissions when trading online

There’s so much information available on the Internet that you can easily feel overwhelmed. Investing Online For Dummies leads you through that maze, showing you how to get started, what you really need to know, where to go online to find it, and how to get the process underway. When it comes to choosing which cruise to take to celebrate your success, however, you’re on your own!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Investing Online for Dummies is an invaluable resource for those who want to take advantage of the timely nature of the Internet for online investing. Author Kathleen Sindell covers all the bases for the online investor including setting up stock screens, selecting mutual funds, fishing for IPOs, and online banking and trading. This book is loaded with links to investment resources on the Internet and also includes a CD-ROM with demos of various investment tools and popular shareware programs. Highly recommended for online investors. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

For two consequtive years listed on the Wall Street Journal's Best Selling Business Book List. -- Wall Street Journal, January 2001

Provides clear instructions and ample illustrations so you don't get lost in cyberspace. -- Charles R. Schwab --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 5th edition (April 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764584561
• ISBN-13: 978-0764584565
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #562,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #79 in Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > E-commerce > Online Trading

More About the Author

Kathleen Sindell, Ph.D. has over 20 years of success providing financial analysis and personal financial advice to businesses and individuals to assist them with their investment activities and financial decision-making. She is a registered investment advisor, and certified to teach Business and Industrial Management, Banking and Finance by the California Board of Governors. For over four years she managed the Financial Management and Real Estate programs and faculty at the University of Maryland, UMUC Graduate School of Management & Technology.. For 14 years Kathleen Sindell has been an adjunct faculty member of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, where she teaches corporate finance, personal investing and personal wealth management. Sindell is the author of numerous academic, popular, and professional articles, Web sites and books, including the bestselling book, "Investing Online for Dummies, Eds. 1-5" (listed for two consecutive years on the Wall Street Journal's Bestselling Business Book List). Sindell is regularly tapped as an expert on ABC World News, CNNfn, The Nightly Business Report, and at popular online and print outlets. Kathleen Sindell holds a Ph.D. in management & administration and an MBA in Finance. At the request of Irwin Professional Publishing, she converted her dissertation, titled "A Risk Management Approach for Financial Institutions Holding Construction Loans" to a 520 page book titled, "The Handbook of Real Estate Lending".

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

219 of 240 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Wish I hadn't bought it, January 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Investing Online for Dummies (Paperback)

I figured the "dummy" in the title meant that someone totally clueless like me could buy this book and get all the information they needed about online investing (which is really just investing).

Instead, Sindell's book is a bloated list of links to other people's information - the book itself has little useful instruction or guidance, and the information it does have seems to be written for a more investment-savvy audience. Anyone who knows what a P/E ratio is wouldn't need to buy the book in the first place - so why doesn't she slow down and explain what all that stuff means?

Indeed, I could have gotten the links in her book for free from a search engine - what I really wanted was a central location for all the information I could have gotten in 100 sites if I had the time to browse through them all. Instead of doing that, Sindell gives me the 100 sites and says, go look it up. She still doesn't tell me HOW I'm supposed to use these sites to determine whether a company's stock is solid or not. Some of them were dead links - another point to be made for minimizing web links in print manuals. Altogether a disappointing read.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Possibly the only Six-Star book on the market. A MUST!, July 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Investing Online for Dummies (Paperback)

Investing Online for Dummies is the bible for anyone investing on the Internet, and a book that my broker buddies openly trash, yet privately stock as a handy reference. Intelligent, comprehensive, fat on facts, and loaded with useful hints and advice that doesn't exist elsewhere, Dr. Sindell took me right to the core of finding the answers I hopelessly spent hours trying to locate among dozens of other sources. To top it off, Investing Online for Dummies costed me less than the price of a single trade using a broker. When I asked my nephew what he wanted for his graduation, the smart aleck brazenly snipped: "A cool million". So I slipped him a check for $200 and a gift-wrapped copy of Investing Online for Dummies along with a bookmark that read: "KEEP THE CHANGE". Whether you're a pro at investing on the Internet or just considering it, you have to be a DUMMY not to buy this book.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book for Beginners, September 20, 2001

By 

Grace Reade "Grace Reade" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Investing Online for Dummies, Third Edition (Paperback)

This book does not only explain how to invest online but it also explains investing in simple terms for beginners. Being in my 20s, I know very little about investing but this book helped me get through all the "street lingo". Just a little caveat--some of the information about online companies may be outdated--which is to be expected since it was published last year. This should not pose a problem as long as you do some minimal research on your own.
What I really like most about this book is that it is well-organized. The book is organized to be read either from cover to cover, or randomly. Both ways work as I found out. Although almost all of the information you find here can be found on the internet for free, its nice to have the information in an easy-to-read, well-organized book. Because of the openness of the web the information you get might be either suspect or overwhelming (believe me there's a lot of information out there!) or worse it could be both. This book solves that dilemma, and the headache I get after staring at the computer monitor for hours sifting through so much information. If you're planning to invest your hard-earned money, start by investing your $20 on this book.