Customer Reviews

The Wall Street Journal Complete Money and Investing Guidebook (The Wall Street Journal Guidebooks)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The "Getting Going" series in the Wall Street Journal is a good one, well worth reading, and has helped the WSJ become more relevant to those of us who have less than a billion dollars net worth. (In my case, $999,999,999 less.) That's why I had high hopes for this book. While it does its job admirably, the question is: What is it's job? The title suggests it is "Complete" and a "Guidebook." In reality, its job is to be "A brief, concise introduction at a high level to financial and economic terms."

THAT job, it does admirably. You'll get a overview of all the terms you're likely to run into: stocks, bonds, options, futures, etc. But a brief overview is about all it does. There are some pearls, a few insightful comments, and (the best part) a nice selection of web sites for future reference.

If you're looking for a quick read, and a concise overview of finances and American economics, this book is very good. But if you think it will actually help you do something practical with your own finances, you may be disappointed by its superficial treatment.

Scoring note: The book would have been a 4 if the title had been "A Brief Overview of American Economics and Investing."

This is a good general book describing financail terms, invetsting, and monetary tools. Historical background is provided. Very readable. I got this to use as a primer for my teenager. It worked well for that. Very up to date with descriptions of even recent investment instruments.

Does not pretend to give investement advice or guidance.

I bought this book as a refresher for my wife. As an avid investor of stocks, bonds, munis, etc, I thought I would bring my wife up to speed with the fundamentals of investment strategy.

I read the entire book on a business trip and discovered that I wasn't as wise as I had once thought! This was the perfect refresher for US monetary basics. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in balancing their investment funds.

As often happens, the marketing title does not accurately reflect the author's purpose in writing the book. As a brief introduction to Wall Street terminology, history, and trivia, this book is an absolute gem. It is not, however, a "complete guidebook" to "money & investing." The book does offer excellent layman overviews on "money & investing" topics including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, options, futures, real-estate, and retirement investing. The coverage is as "complete" as can be expected from a 200-page book. The author's emphasis is in clarifying concepts at the operational level rather than getting lost in the mathematical details. True to the spirit of a "guidebook," there are sections on "online resources" and "suggesting reading" at the end of each chapter. However, even the "suggested reading" does not go deep enough. So, when you're ready to dig deeper, you would be well advised to pick up a college text on corporate finance.

I've been paging through this book for a few years now - this is the latest rendition - and always find useful stuff. The writing is clear and concise and the concepts are adequately explained. This won't satisfy the more seasoned investor who will want books that delve more deeply into the arcania of individual investments but for most people who simply want to better understand investing and money management this is hard to beat.

For beginning investors this will be a trove of information. The authors explain how particular investments work, what to look for in different vehicles, and how to make decisions concerning investments and your portfolio. For more experienced investors it serves as a reminder for the basics that seem to get lost so easy in all the options of more sexy investments (that are usually less profitable.)

Great book.

For those people out there who are absolutely new to investing this is the first book that you must read. It will help you understand exactly how the stock market works and teach you all the technical jargon that would normally confuse the hell out of you.

Don't let the title fool you! This is by no means an investment guidebook. It is a great introduction into the world of investing, and demonstrates the "ins and outs" of money in Layman's terms.

Great for someone looking to get started in investing.

I found the book very informative for the beginner investor as well as the novice investor needing a review of the basics. It was very well organized, easy to read and covered enough to give one a good basic understanding of the investing world. It's a book that I will maintain as a reference book in the future.

I found this book to be a fairly good investment guide. It was easy to read and explained all the terms and investment in's and out's in a way that even I could understand. If you are looking for an easy to understand guide to Wall Street terminology and investment pointers, this is a good place to start. While investment books are not really my genre, I found that I could actually read through this one cover to cover. Most of these types books make my eyes glaze over, but this one kept things simple and straight forward. A good book for people like me who are not financial gurus.

Dr. Bohdi Sanders, author of Wisdom of the Elders

I am 50 pages into the first edition (2005). It's an enjoyable read because I love the subject area, but its lack of depth makes it a little unsatisfying, and it does contain errors.

Was it worth $11? Yes. Is it a good introduction for a novice? Yes, but it's only a first step and you'll need deeper more specialized knowledge to actually invest/trade/work in the markets.

In the introduction, on page 7, the contents are sold as good for slipping into dinner party conversation. The errors in the first 50 pages do not, however, give me confidence about the next 150 pages. Don't use this (first edition) at a dinner party with market professionals unless you want to break the ice by asking about the errors.

I would be happy to buy the second or higher edition to give as a gift to a friend or family member (assuming these and any other errors are cleaned), but I would not give the first edition.

Examples of errors in first 50 pages:
First example: the discussion of ticker symbols on page 36 may have been correct 20 years ago, but not now. NASDAQ stocks are no longer restricted to four-letter symbols, and five-letter symbols are not necessarily primarily listed overseas (look at CA, or PWX, or CMCSA as counter examples). Second example: the definition of a "growth stock" on page 26 is just plain wrong; I almost coughed my lunch up when I read it. I showed it to two CFAs in my office who each laughed out loud. Third example: in the discussion of the dividend payment timeline on page 35 and 37 the "date of record" has been confused with the "ex-dividend date." Even after correcting that, the discussion is still misleading.

A WEEK LATER: OK, I kept reading. No more blatant errors. Kansas does talk about Growth versus Value (pp 139-140) and that sounds much more sensible than his earlier analysis. I do, however, find his description of options (pp178-181) to be too light. I know it is complicated, but you cannot really compare profitability from owning 100 shares to profitability from owning an option on 100 shares unless you also compare all that to profitability from investing the same amount in each alternative. Contrary to his assertion (page 180), I would feel much happier owning the stock and watching it drop (mabye lose 50%) than owning the call option and watching it expire worthless (lose 100%)---because I would be thinking of having the same investment in each.