Online Investing (Independent) [Paperback]

Jon D Markman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0735606501 | ISBN-13: 978-0735606500 | Publication Date: July 1, 1999 | Edition: 2

"Online Investing" is intended to help investors learn how to build wealth and manage their finances online in under 30 minutes a day. The book is a lively guide packed with up-to-date information about online trading issues--a must-have resource for discovering new investment ideas online.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Online Investing is a wonderful guide for using the Internet to find, research, and buy winning stocks. Jon D. Markman, managing editor at MSN MoneyCentral Investor, writes that the Internet makes it easy to build a highly profitable portfolio. "It just takes discipline, a computer, the Web and the barest amount of commitment and interest." The first section of the book explains how to operate MoneyCentral's Investment Finder, a "market X-ray machine" for screening equities for fast-growing earnings, sales, market capitalizations, daily volume, and other criteria. It's a remarkably simple technique for assembling portfolios based on momentum, value, or growth investing. Unusually lucid and readable, the book helps investors get the most out of Web sites such as Yahoo! Finance, TheStreet.com, Bloomberg.com, and Briefing.com. A former columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Markman is a champion of online discussion groups, which he calls "the one resource that can keep pace with the market's fearsome flood of information." Online Investing is for both beginning and experienced investors who aspire to be at the forefront of personal finance on the Internet. --Dan Ring

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press; 2 edition (July 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735606501
• ISBN-13: 978-0735606500
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,074,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a Strong BUY, December 2, 1999

By 

SHAWN GOOKIN (Hollis, NH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Online Investing (Independent) (Paperback)

This post is out of chronological order with my additional post as my intitial post was dropped somewhere at Amazon.

This book was a wonderful surprise. Aware that Jon Markman is a quant I approached it with some trepidation. Being more right brain oriented, I feared endless charts, formulas, and complex mathmatical theories. However, I quickly discovered that this book is very readable, gets right to the subject at hand and would definately make me more money!

Jon gives clear insight into what makes a stock move and describes, in plain english, how to find winning stocks. As a bonus, Jon's Supermodels community at MSN.com (FREE) provides an invaluable environment to help you put these ideas into action.

It's certainly working for me...my Year Trader portfolio, started on Oct 29th using the techniques found in this book, is up an amazing 30.4% in just over a month!

Happy Investing!

Shawn Gookin

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Markman gives you all the tools needed to suceed, December 18, 1999

By 

A A. Adamsen (Las Vegas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Online Investing (Independent) (Paperback)

As a long time passive investor in 401 k's, 457's and IRA mutual funds, I felt a more active approach will be benifical as my my investment timeline shortens. Like many others I watched the 8 year bull market from the sidelines and wondered who was able to profit from runup in the narrow band of stocks that was propelling the Dow, S & P, and Nasdaq. Markman's book decsribes in clear, concise detail the most basic and the most detailed interworkings of " mechancial " investing. It's easy to buy a stock, the tough part is the correct time to sell. I followed the steps for months " on paper " with impressive results. After only one month in the real world of momentum investing, do I feel compelled to write this review. One month return - Nov 99 + 27%

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Serious Reservations with Markham's Systems, August 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Online Investing, Second Edition (Paperback)

If you are considering purchasing a book to get you started in online investing, Markham's book is worth a look, but his advice should be taken with a great deal of skepticism. I have used Markham's recommendations to invest in stocks from the middle of 2000 through the middle of 2001 (when I liquidated my portfolio). Unfortunately, I cannot in good faith recommend this system for a novice investor (like myself), as I lost 65% of my beginning investment using this system exactly as specified.

There are several major problems with Markham's investment strategies for the novice investor, but most notably, there is a lack of discussion of risk and return, and an overemphasis on the use of these mechanical systems without what I consider to be proper testing. Markham only uses data that goes back 14 years (to 1986) to test this system. Why? Given the poor performance of these models over the last year, it's probably because these systems perform badly prior to 1986. I am not accusing Markham of being dishonest, but the narrow window of time over which Markham monitored the performance of these systems is suspect.

Using the Supermodel system requires the purchase of a significant stock spread, usually 10-15, to minimize risk. Most beginning investors do not have enough capital to invest in this number of stocks, and will select two or three, which substantially increases market risk. Beginning investors with less than $20,000 to invest are far better served by investing in broad index or even sector mutual funds.

I should mention two additional red flags: (1) Markham used to publish the results of Supermodel picks, but once the models started doing badly, MSN removed these results from the visible public view. They may be on the website somewhere, but I am hard pressed to say where. (2) Many of Markham's own stock picks have largely turned out to be atrocious money losers.

Caveat emptor!