From Publishers Weekly
Neither a hands-on investment manual nor a basic introduction to investing, Kansas’s book straddles the divide between those two extremes, but has trouble finding a comfortable spot. Kansas tries too hard to reach casual readers, as when he compares the New York Stock Exchange to a lemonade stand or a trading specialist to a traffic cop, two simple analogies that give way to a stream of jargon and technical details that may overwhelm readers unfamiliar with…
Buy The Wall Street Journal Complete Money and Investing Guidebook at Amazon
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Tags: Complete, Guidebook, Investing., Journal., Money, Street, Wall
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.