Money-market

This is the benchmark book on bonds and fixed income, it is very comprehensive and very reader-friendly. What I like about it is it covers everything. If I did not have this one book I would need 5 or 6 others instead. It covers bonds,pricing, duration, risk management, swaps, futurers, options, yield curve modelling, fund management, charting, and a whole lot more.As one endorsment says on the back: an encylopedia on bonds written like a thriller! Very good buy.

Anyone with an interest in debt capital markets will still be referring to this book many years after purchasing it.

This is an enclopaedic reference work on bonds and money markets, but written like a thriller. Oustanding work, great value and highly recommended to banker or student.

This book is one of a kind! It is the first book I've read that speaks the truth about the perils of investing in the stock market. The suggestions are clear, sensible and a must for anyone who isn't buying into the old worn out advice that no longer works in todays environment.

It seems that all the books on low risk investing emphasize picking good companies or funds and keeping them for a long period of time. Blind Faith is different.

I'd love to be stress or worry free but traditional Cd's and money markets pay so little and I certainly don't believe that corporate America has cleaned up its act. This book taught me another investment strategy and discussed in detail investments that I never heard of before like market-linked CDs.

I enjoyed the authors cynical approach and found the book to be entertaining as well as enlightening.

Finally, a book that speaks to concerns that I've had about investing since I read my first investment book but that no one seems to talk about.

The author covers topics that are taboo in most investment texts, such as how the investment industry is rigged against the individual investor (corporate structure, taxes, investment banks, government regulation, etc.), and what you can do to protect yourself from market risk. Diversification doesn't help when the whole market collapses after a catastrophic event like 9-11 or in a deep recession.

If you want to take advantage of up markets and hold onto your gains in down markets, then read this book.

This book was great! A headhunter caught me off gaurd with a great opportunity, but I had to make a decision faster than I was comfortable with. I got myself smart in about 2 days, and was able to negotiate a much better compensation package. I'd recommend it to anyone in a negotiation-situation.

Stock options have always been a big mystery to me. This book helped me understand what employers are talking about with stock options. I found tons of "insider" tips and real-life examples that I will put to use right away. In particular, I found the "secrets" of negotiating for stock options-- especially the tricks companies use to reduce stock options grants--to be especially eye-opening. I also learned how to think of myself as an investor and not just an employee--something I had never done before.

I've been able to adjust my own opportunites to negotiate for options. In addition, I found the book fun to read. The writing is fresh, clear, and the concepts easy to understand, even for a novice like me. I also found the glossary of terms and Internet resources to be very helpful tools. I highly recommend this book for job seekers and those who really want to know how to negotiate for all they're worth.

This book, written in 1993, simultaneously comes at the end of Mr. Lynch's career in money management and the beginning of a long sprint in the broader stock market, largely fueled by tech/internet stocks. In any period, one can expect 1 of 100 money managers to far outperform both his or her peers and the broader market by chance. Mr. Lynch was that one money manager.

Mr. Lynch starts the book by turning investing into a game. Although his method was subtle (using an example of grammar school kids picking stocks), the implications are profound. Investing does share some resemblance to many games we play in life, and one of the Great Money Masters, the fictitious 'Adam Smith' readily admits this in his classic book on investment, The Money Game.

However, Mr. Lynch takes things one step beyond the game, and as the book's title hints, he turns all investment activities into a competition. In so doing, he pits the small investor against the institutional Players, and as a result, sets up the naive reader to walk a well-trodden path littered with sorrow and the bones of many foolish investors.

Granted, 'Adam Smith' once said, "The Players aren't smarter than you. They just have more information", and there also is a certain level of truth to Lynch's assertion that the Little Guy can outperform the Big Boys. However, Lynch fails to disclose one important and critical difference.

I believe it was Hemmingway who said, in response to Fitzgerald's observation that the rich were not like the ordinary schmuck, that "Yes, I know. They have more money." Something frightfully similar can be said of the key difference between the Little Guy and The Players, but with one critical insight: The Players do not merely have more money, they have a lot more of Other People's Money. That in essence is the fundamental difference between The Players and the Little Guy, who must wager his (or her) own hard-won funds in order to play the Grand Game- the stock market.

Needless to say (but will be said anyway), the consequences of one's actions weigh heavily on one's shoulders when one's own money is at stake, but really aren't felt when Other People's Money is on the line. The Players play with Other People's Money, but you, dear investor, play with your own hard-won earnings. That said, the intelligent investor must ask herself, 'Do I really want to play with my money?'.

Beating the Street rests heavily on this undisclosed truism and a host of faulty assumptions. The book really is a sales pitch to buy stocks and to participate as much as possible in stock mutual funds. To that end, Mr. Lynch places before the reader a number of questionable arguments. Here are just two:

First, perhaps the most flawed argument of the book is that the small investor, upon retirement, will spend more than she earns in investment income. This is stated as a bona-fide fact when in reality, it is a generous assumption. From this assumption, Mr. Lynch then argues that one should invest in stocks and use some portion of the capital appreciation in addition to the dividend income for the purpose of meeting one's spending needs. He then fortifies his argument by citing inflation and emphasizing its ability to erode fixed income.

The facts are 1) how much investment income you will need is determined by how much you plan to spend, 2) many people choose to work either part-time or full-time after retirement (either out of necessity or desire), and thus have some supplemental income, 3) though the general historical trend for stock prices has been 'up', there is nothing that says that stocks have to go up, and finally 4) inflation can adversely affect stock prices (and have actually done so in the past). Lynch invokes the inflation argument when trashing bonds, and abandons it when touting stocks, even though inflation acts on both. Nor does his idealized comparison of stocks vs. bonds on pages 52-56 take into account taxes and transaction costs incidentally.

Second, on page 69, Mr. Lynch boldly says that, "If you plan to to stick with a fund for several years, the 2-5 percent you paid to get in will prove insignificant". This last statement may actually be worse than his first (of many) flawed arguments, for the following reason: the money lost to the load fails to compound at whatever investment rate of return, and over long periods of time, the difference between what you committed and what gets actually invested grows- and this is before we even consider the effect of annual expenses.

These and other flawed but superficial arguments for stock investing make for very difficult reading. Apart from the gross argumentative errors, the book presents many of Mr. Lynch's reminiscences of a stock market long gone. However, there are some useful hints in the book, most likely put there by Mr. Rothchild, but they are far outnumbered and over-shadowed by Mr. Lynch's deceptive pitch to buy stocks.

They've has done it again, this book is very funny and filled with useful tips from seasoned investor Peter Lynch. This book has several of "Peter's Principles" (which are very humorous one-liners that make a lot of sense for investors.) My favorite parts of this book are: The story about the St. Agnes 7th grade portfolio managers (these kids beat out 99% of fund managers when they had a two year gain of 70%.) Another part of this book that I enjoy are the subtle tips for evaluating stocks. Mr. Lynch doesn't tell you to do this, that, and another thing to find the ten-baggers, but he does give clues throughout the text.

Reed Floren

My profession is writing, but my business is investing. With over 50 years of experience in the stock market and having made millions, I think I know what's up. Not only is this book definitive on stock picking, it is also fun and easy to read and the author's humanity comes right through. And the core message that you can do better than the fund managers (for a variety of reasons) is, from my own experience, true. Try Lynch's system: What worked for him, might work for you. Oh yes, by the way, this book is mainly a repeat and better version of his previous work and represents a more masterful and confident telling of the ways to beat the street.