Go-go-fund

Some of the investing books I've purchased have turned out to be great choices and some were disappointing -- disorganized, flawed recommendations, etc -- but this is the first book where I felt defrauded after purchasing it. The book is poorly written and poorly organized, but what really damns it is the actual content: completely unsupported assertions, contradictory recommendations, and (in a surprising number of cases) plainly ridiculous statements.

It isn't even a case of the book offering bad advice; if you attempted to follow the advice within to the letter you'd spend all your time trying to puzzle out vague and contradictory "rules". For example, Thomas goes on for several pages about how you should never listen to the "so-called investing experts", then, ten pages later, spends two pages detailing how you should base all of your mutual fund purchases on recommendations from a single investing advice newsletter.

I'm no financial guru, but you don't have to be at all to quickly recognize how terrible this book is. I purchased it on the strength of the recommendations here, and I can only conclude that they must have been written by friends of the author, because they certainly don't seem to describe the book that I received.

February 10, 2002, I wrote a review about "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy It". I titled my review, "l SURE WISH I'D READ IT SOONER" ...Five months later, it's still true. "I SURE WISH I'D READ AL's BOOK SOONER." Thank you, Al Thomas, for being an easy to read author AND a great teacher. Thank you for being honest. Thank you for your concern for average investors; those who don't have money to lose.

I couldn't believe my profits during the bull market of the 90's. Then along came 2001 and I ate humble pie. During 2001, portfolio values continued to decline while Wall Street pundits and professional advisors proclaimed that Buy and Hold was still the best way to make money on Wall Street. I'd been investing long enough to know this wasn't true. But, I didn't have the courage of my convictions. By late summer of 2001, losses began to add up. Taking advice from my cousin, I decided to read, "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy It!" by Al Thomas. I wish I'd read it sooner.

DESPITE the market's downward spiral this year, 2002, MY portfolios are in the green. MY PORTFOLIOS ARE MAKING MONEY while the Wall Street continues to lose money for most investors during one of the most difficult times in history. I could not have acomplished this if I hadn't read Al Thomas's book and newsletters.

Al's book and newsletters, written in an easy to read manner, added needed structure to my own investment techniques. He's given me the tools I need to invest WHILE the bear is ruling and while the bull is leading us once more. And, he's given me courage to conserve my capital.

If you're a novice or an experienced investor, investing on your own or using the services of brokers or investment advisors,even if YOU are an investment pro, you will profit from investing in reading Al Thomas. "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy It". Be sure you read his newletters, too.

This book is well worth reading. I liked it very much and highly recommend it.

It is the best investing book I have read, and is especially good for people who want to invest in the stock market but don't want to spend a lot of time trying to decide which stocks or mutual funds to buy, and don't want to spend every day watching the market. Al Thomas explains in simple language how to spend as little as a few hours the first month selecting mutual funds to invest in, and from then on spending a few hours each month reviewing your mutual fund selections and deciding whether to remain with them or select new funds. He gives a simple way to use a news letter called "No Load Fund*X" to reduce mutual fund world from many thousands of funds down to several hundred no load mutual funds, and then how to select the best from this subset of mutual funds. He also describes how to decide when to be in the market and when to hold cash.

If you are interested in making your money grow at a rate substantially faster than the market as a whole with much less risk, this is the book to read. Al recommends buying mutual funds because they are lower risk than individual stocks, and he recommends a long term market timing. His approach is to time the big swings for getting in and out of the market. Being out during the 2000 to 2002 down turn, holding cash waiting for buy signal such as the one we have had in March 2003. This approach is likely to insure very few years of losing money and many years of double digit growth.

This book also explains how to grow your money at an even higher rate for people who what to spend more time on their mutual fund investments, and he also explains other types of investments such as Commodities, Options, Bonds, and Gold, but the major benefit of this book is for people who want a safe way to grow their retirement saving at a rate substantially greater than the market as a whole and at the same time be able to sleep at night and not worry about the daily up and down in the market.

If you buy this book you will be very happy you did.

I can't say enough good things about this book. What I like best about it is that its useful no matter how much time you have left until a scholarship application is due. As a high school senior, I have some applications due in a couple weeks, some due in a couple months, and others I'll apply for when I'm in college. The author shows you how to package you application in a short amount of time for those coming deadlines, expand upon what you've done for those medium-term deadlines, and employ "content strategies" to position yourself for those long-term applications. This book is a really, really good starting point for any student serious about winning scholarships.

This book is literally the best resourse for scholarships. Period. I'm a high school freshman, and I got this book to start a quest for keeping my financial stabibility. I've read pretty much the whole thing in no time and I'm ready to apply the strategies and tactics to my scholarship quest.

Now, I really can't tell you if this book WILL suceed in paying for most of my college tuition but, frankly, I realize it is really up to me. If I am ready to put in the time, if YOU are ready to put in the time, I am sure either you OR I could win, with or without the book. But, this book will surely make it a lot easier. It has strategies of how to win as well as a fair selection of scholarships to begin applying to. Enough to keep you busy for a very, very long time. Even if these aren't enough, it offers suggestion of how you can find more scholarships you're eligible for. Supposedly, the author is also putting together a companion book with many more scholarships, though it's not out yet. All and all, I highly recommend you get this book. It won't win the scholarships for you, but, with a little preserverence, it will certainly assist you win the contests yourself!

When I saw the title of this book, I began salivating uncontrollably. Imagine, having someone else pay to send your kids to college. That may have been an overreaction. Surely anyone else that has college-bound kids should sympathize.

The book is well organized and written on a level that will not challenge a high school student. However, there are tips for a wider audience including the very young, older returning students, graduate students, and students that fit into special groups.

Clearly, the competition for scholarships can be intense, but with a logical game plan engaged in consistently, an applicant's effectiveness can be increased. The one consistent theme in the book is that a steady approach will lead to success.

I will take issue with a combination of techniques mentioned in the book. Kaplan suggests that students get their recommendations in electronic format so that they can print them out as needed. He also suggests that you solicit "small" changes to recommendation letters to make them "great" letters. I feel this may present many an ethical challenge to some applicants. To be clear, he does not suggest manufacturing recommendation letters.

He also provides access to his companion web site to add extra punch to the process.

In the final analysis, it is hard to argue with his success, and Kaplan was very successful on his own behalf. He interviewed many of the people involved as applicant and administrators and their tips appear in the book.

Where do you think the book advanced payment coming from? THe book only tells half of the story.

Some books set out to accomplish the impossible and come admirably close. Barbara Garson's volume is a prime example. Can you deposit money in a little rural bank and really trace its spread across the global monetary system? How do you know that a multi-million dollar loan to, say, shrimp exporters in Thailand, really has anything to do with the actual dollars you deposited? But that's not the point of this book. The author embarks on a whirlwind, worldwide tour of the global financial juggernaut, and shows how money falls like a drop in a pond and emits waves of disruption that seemingly spread out forever. Garson concludes that deregulation needs to be reigned in, a reasonable anticipation of the Enron mess. We from getAbstract highly recommend her book to business people and consumers who want a better feel for what the "global economic order" is all about, why people are protesting at each meeting of the WTO and whether you should be steamed as well.

As a fairly intelligent individual who has never taken an economics course, I've been trying to make sense of the world of investing on my own. The author takes us on her own journey to do the same, and in the process we come to meet the faces and the people behind the whole process. She goes about it with a very open-minded, down to earth approach, and for the most part, doesn't draw a lot of her own conclusions. Rather, she lets you come to your own. At last, some information on investing that is more than just numbers and returns. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is looking for where to invest their money, or is just trying to understand how "money makes the world go around." After having read the book, now I can go to the Reuters newswires and have an understanding of just what is behind the latest news announcements, what they mean in real terms for real people. The book has made me think twice about what it means to be chasing the high returns, and what implications that may have on the lives of others. I found this book to be very heart opening, and my compassion for the world is immense.