The Motley Fool Investment Guide: How the Fools Beat Wall Street's Wise Men and How You Can Too [Paperback]

Tom Gardner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 1997

An entertaining guide to making money argues that not taking risks is the biggest danger to a potential investor's future and outlines a simple but effective strategy for investment success. Reprint. 100,000 first printing. Tour."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Should you let a Fool tell you where to invest your money? If he's a Motley Fool, the answer is a resounding YES! David and Tom Gardner launched the most successful investment information service ever to grace cyberspace, and now they show you how to beat the market, even if you don't know a dividend from a divining rod. With this guide, you'll find out how the information revolution can put money in your pocket.

From Publishers Weekly

An investment guide from the creators of AOL's The Motley Fool.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Fireside; First Printing edition (June 2, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684827034
• ISBN-13: 978-0684827032
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (116 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,635,934 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but out of date, September 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Motley Fool Investment Guide ~ How the Fool Beats Wall Street's Wise Men and How You Can Too (Hardcover)

MFIG was a great book at the time, but Father Time has not smiled on the book or the strategies contained within. In short: if you a market novice looking for a good intro book, look elsewhere.

These are the sections of the book:

1. Mutual funds. They point out that most funds actually do worse than the market averages, and you would do better to invest in the average itself - an index fund. This is good, solid advice, but nothing too revolutionary nowadays.

2. The Dow Dividend Strategy, aka the Foolish Four. Unfortunately, this strategy has been all but shot down - it has done very poorly recently. Even the creator of the original Dogs of the Dow strategy has disowned it, and the Fool doesn't pay much attention to it anymore. Time to move on.

3. Small cap growth stocks. The Fool has abandoned this in favor of newer strategies.

4. Shorting stocks. The Fool doesn't do this anymore, and it is much too risky to be talking about in a beginners book anyway, because you can lose more money - potentially much more - than you invested.

If you want to learn the basics of finances, try Jane Bryant Quinn. If you want to learn to invest in stocks, try O'Neil's "How to Make Money in Stocks", or some of the Fool's newer books.

This is not to book to get anymore.

57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars informative, if somewhat opinionated, February 23, 2000

By 

Ruth Henriquez Lyon (Duluth, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Motley Fool Investment Guide: How the Fools Beat Wall Street's Wise Men and How You Can Too (Paperback)

This was the first book I read on picking stocks, and I still refer to it occasionally. It contains some very good information on how to evaluate companies. Some of this information has since been updated on the Motley Fool website, and continues to be. That's one thing I like about their outlook: they are willing to change their approach as they continue to learn. On the downside, I find that they completely rule out some very worthwhile aspects of investing as being worthless. For instance, they have a section in the back of the book which practically compares technical analysis (chart reading) to snake oil. Although I personally would not pick a stock only on the basis of its chart, I must allow that charts help us pick good entry and exit points, and provide other pertinent information as well. One of my favorite investment authors, John Murphy, has an entire book on technical analysis. I regard him as a scholar and a very astute thinker who would never dabble in snake oil.....with resources like Murphy's books out there I can't understand TMF's cavalier dismissal of the entire field. They similarly denigrate the entire field of options and futures, which I think perhaps shows a lack of understanding on their part. Aside from these criticisms, however, I recommend this book as a very good primer on how to evaluate a company you are thinking about investing in.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Way To Getting Started, December 6, 1999

By 

"lovelycj" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Motley Fool Investment Guide: How the Fools Beat Wall Street's Wise Men and How You Can Too (Paperback)

I highly recommend this book for people interested in investing but are not sure where to begin. It gives you the basics of getting started and the motivation to handle your own money. The Gardner's gives a little more attention to the "younger generation" and therefore makes reading comprehensive and entertaining. A Must Buy, for new investors.