Mutual Funds for Dummies [Paperback]

Eric Tyson (Author), Jim Collins (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764571915 | ISBN-13: 978-0764571916 | Publication Date: October 1, 2004 | Edition: 4

Sooner or later, we all need to plan for our financial futures. The rich can afford personal financial advisors to help them out — but what about the rest of us? Offering you instant diversification and low-cost access to some of the best money managers in the business, mutual funds are the great equalizers. The problem is, with 10,000 mutual funds to choose from, even experienced investors can suffer from information overload. To make them work for you, you need expert advice from someone who knows mutual funds inside and out and who understands how they can help you realize your unique financial goals.

Mutual Funds For Dummies, 4^th Edition is just the ticket. Written by leading financial journalist and author Eric Tyson, it cuts through mutual fund confusion and shows you how to make your money work harder for you. It quickly gets you up to speed on how to:

• Pick the best funds and avoid the losers
• Avoid common pitfalls
• Assemble and maintain a portfolio
• Select the best stock funds for growth
• Choose bond and money funds for long-term security
• Access mutual fund information online

Mutual Funds For Dummies, 4^th Edition offers you a unique opportunity to cash in on the investment savvy of a personal financial expert. Chock-full of useful examples and insider tips of the trade, it helps you navigate the mutual funds landscape and tells you what you need to know about:

• Making sure a fund you like is managed properly
• New tax law changes and new theories on socially responsible investing
• Finding great funds and where to buy them
• Establishing a solid fund portfolio
• Knowing when to sell, buy, or hold
• Understanding tax forms for mutual funds
• Fixing common fund problems
• Making sense of fund ratings
• Investment gurus and financial newsletters
• Money management software, investment research software, and retirement planning software
• Getting information on the Web

Whether you’re growing a retirement nest egg or saving for your kids’ education, you can’t go wrong when you invest in Mutual Funds For Dummies, 4^th Edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Completely revised and updated

Covers all the new tax laws and their impact on your fund portfolio

Cash in on the investment savvy of personal finance expert Eric Tyson with this freshly updated classic. It offers the latest fund data and wealth-building techniques – including new fund recommendations and full coverage of changes in the industry. If you want to build wealth, make Mutual Funds For Dummies your first investment.

Discover how to:

• Pick the best funds and avoid losers
• Assemble and maintain a portfolio
• Select the best stock funds for growth
• Choose bond and money funds
• Access mutual fund information online

Praise for Mutual Funds For Dummies

"You don’t have to be a novice to like Mutual Funds For Dummies . . . Eric Tyson clearly has a mastery of his subject."
– Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine

"A light touch . . . the pages fly by. A primer for those who flinch when contemplating the thousands of funds you can now buy."
– Brian Banmiller, KTVU FOX-T

"Injects common sense into the dizzying world of mutual funds."
– Oakland Tribune

About the Author

Eric Tyson, MBA, is a financial counselor, syndicated columnist, and the author of bestselling For Dummies books on personal finance, taxes, and home buying.

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 4 edition (October 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764571915
• ISBN-13: 978-0764571916
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,034,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eric Tyson is a best-selling personal finance book author and has penned five national best sellers. He is also the only author to have four of his books simultaneously on Business Week's business book bestseller list.

His Personal Finance for Dummies, a Wall Street Journal best-seller, won the Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Business Book of the Year. Eric's syndicated newspaper column is read by millions of readers weekly. He is a former columnist and award-winning journalist for the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle. His website, www.erictyson.com, rocketed into the top one percent of financial websites within its first year of operation.

Eric's work has been featured and quoted in hundreds of local and national publications and media outlets including Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Money, Worth, Parenting, USA Today and on the NBC Today Show, ABC, Fox News, CNBC, PBS Nightly Business Report, CNN, and on CBS national radio, NPR's Marketplace Money and Bloomberg Business Radio. He's also been a featured speaker at a White House conference on retirement planning.

Tired of working as a management consultant to Fortune 500 financial service firms which more interested in maximizing short-term profits than in providing sound financial products and services, Eric founded in 1990 the nation's first financial counseling firm which works exclusively on an hourly basis. He started his new company with a simple mission: to provide objective, cost-effective personal financial advice, especially to non-wealthy Americans. Through family and friends, Eric had seen many otherwise intelligent people make horrendous mistakes in managing their money, in part, because the failure of our schools and colleges to teach personal finance.

In addition to his counseling work, Eric also hoped to make an impact in the writing and media fields. Much of the personal finance writing and reporting he saw and heard was biased, jargon-laden and, in some cases, filled with bad advice. For example, rather than telling people the hard truth - that one must live within one's means as a prerequisite to building wealth - many publications offer up hyped and unrealistic "get rich without making sacrifices or taking risk" type approaches.

In addition to his writing and counseling, Eric also taught the nation's most highly attended personal financial management course at the University of California. He has spoken at many corporations and non-profits. His educational background includes having earned his bachelor's degree in economics at Yale and an MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Eric is the only best-selling personal finance author who has an extensive background as an hourly-based financial planner and who does not accept speaking fees, endorsement deals or fees of any type from companies in the financial services industry or product or service providers recommended in his articles, books and his publications.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

155 of 157 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a book you cannot be disappointed with, May 31, 2000

By 

+++ (OR, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mutual Funds for Dummies (Paperback)

"Mutual funds for dummies" is the third book from the "Dummies" series I got my hands on. Reading the first two was a waste of time, and frankly speaking I did not expect much from this one either. However, this book was a pleasant surprise, which changed my opinion on the "Dummies" books. The first half of the book is a comprehensive study of the basics of mutual funds and of the criteria for evaluating their performance and selecting the best funds. It is so well written that I asked myself many times while reading what this book had to do with the "Dummies" series. I got the answer to this question at the end of the book, where the author offers detailed instructions which funds can be recommended to start with, how to obtain and fill out an application form, how to understand statements from the fund, and finally how to calculate your taxes at the end of the year. This book is indeed a benchmark which other books from the "Dummies" series should be compared with: a combination of sufficiently detailed information for those who want to know what they are doing, with step-by-step instructions and detailed advice for those who want to get started right away and do not have the time or the background to study the possible options and make their own independent picks of the funds. Another impressive aspect of this book is that the author makes every attempt to convince the readers not only look into the performance of individual investment vehicles, but also to take into account their individual financial situation, such as long and short term financial goals, tax brackets, availability of retirement accounts, etc. Most other books leave this important aspect completely out of the scope. Finally, Eric Tyson offers a very realistic approach: he makes an excellent job convincing the readers that one does not have to have an MBA to be a successful investor, he explains why mutual funds is possibly the best option for the most of us, he is very frank with the readers as what returns one can (and should) expect from an investment, and finally he suggests the ways how these returns can be reached by offering a choice of 30-40 decent funds. It is hard to get disappointed with this book!

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical mutual fund suggestions you can use today, November 30, 1999

By 

mpozner (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mutual Funds for Dummies (Paperback)

After having read many mutual fund books over the last 7 years, this one cuts through the complexity to give you down to earth suggestions you can use. He names funds to buy and some not to buy. He clearly explains the impact of low operating expenses on total return. He is not afraid to criticize financial newsletters and the Morningstar rating system (it has not done very well in predicting future performance). Best mutual fund book I have read.

62 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Good Primer For Beginning Mutual Fund Investors, October 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Mutual Funds for Dummies (Paperback)

Eric Tyson has put together a very good book for new Mutual Fund Investors. This book will act as a "coach" to get new investors going and growing a portfolio of mutuals. For even more powerful strategies, I strongly recommend "Mutual Fund Strategies" by J.W. Dicks and "More Wealth without Risk" by Charles Givens. These books will "turbo charge" your portfolio.