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Financial Independence The Smart Way shows you how to become your own investment manager. If you're looking for advice and an action plan to help you secure your financial freedom, look no further. I found this investment book to be the best I've seen. The author takes a disciplined, systematic approach to investing, guiding you from your personal objectives to suitable investments for your portfolio. It has helped me to sort through the maze of current offerings and develop a well-designed plan for investing. The book shows how to "invest the smart way" and what it takes to be a successful investor. The author explains why its risky to be out of the market. I liked the strategies he offered to become my own investment manager, to plan for a financially secure retirement, to invest online and to protect my capital.

Investors contemplating retirement, but stunned by losses sustained in the extended bear market that began in the spring of 2000, will find hope and encouragement in Wall Street Journal columnist Jonathan Clements' "Now What?". This is a do-it-for-yourself repair strategy for baby boomers with badly damaged bubble portfolios. First, face facts, we are told: You've got a "bone-head" portfolio, and it's not likely to come back in value, so sell your losers. Forget the "foolish beat-the-market fantasy" promoted by Wall Street's brokerage houses and money management firms. Invest to capture market returns with stock index funds. Diversify with stocks, bonds, and real estate. Specifically, you should own large and small US stocks and foreign stocks. For the bond portion of your portfolio, use inflation indexed treasuries and short-term corporate funds, and to boost your income, consider high yield bond mutual funds. Clements recognizes that "this will be the decade of the dividend and interest payment". So, REITS (real estate income trusts) with their high, single-digit returns, should represent 10-15% of your portfolio. In all this, Jonathan Clements is in good company: W. Bernstein, C. Ellis, B. Malkiel, L.Swedroe, B. Schultheis, et.al., have recently written (or updated) books with similar conclusions. Clements' contribution is in the timeliness of his insistence that boomers can salvage their own retirement plans by acting to keep investment costs in check, diversifying, and saving "like crazy". Indeed, the investment process should be simple to follow. "Why are we such sluts for sophistication?" Clements asks with exasperation. Readers may be skeptical that a fifty-year old, in an example, who hasn't saved a "nickel" for retirement can accomplish much by age sixty-five. But this late starting investor is not the book's primary focus. 'Gilding the Golden Years' (Chapter 7) is one of the author's better chapters. Investing may be "simple", but it is also an art, so this frequently quoted columnist's portfolio advice is of value. Clements is clearly intrigued by a strategy of establishing multiple sources of investment income during retirement. In addition to income from social security, 401k-style plans, pensions, and humbled securities portfolios, investors might consider an immediate annuity, a reverse mortgage, or even part-time work. After all, if it's true that investors should take no more than five percent of their investment assets each year for income, working part-time to earn five thousand dollars is like having another hundred thousand dollars in retirment assets. And an unconventional idea like a reverse mortgage may take on a new practicality for today's generation of soon-to-be retired. Investors paralyzed by their recent bear market experience will find sound, helpful advice in this book.

As a CPA and registered investment adviser, I am always looking for a way to explain investment principles to my clients in a way they can easily understand. This book accomplishes this all-important function, and is a must read for investors. Jonathan presents common sense information which is unbiased. Many investors would profit from following the guidelines Jonathan presents, and should.

Jonathan presents a realistic approach to investing that avoids the day to day stimuli that can lead investors astray. The book also provides hope to those who've truly "lost it", either in dollar terms or in terms of their approach to investing.

People who read and understand this book will be ahead of those who don't, whether they invest on their own or use an adviser. I know anyone who has read this book will be better educated and will better understand investing.

(...) It gives a lot of general info on a lot of different Fixed income topics. It's a good ref. for people just getting involved with fixed income. However if you are looking for focused material, you should look into one of Frank's books on that area. Good overall intuition on Fixed income markets and products.

If you are in the financial world dealing with fixed income directly or indirectly, just entering into the fixed income world, or looking for a great FI reference, go no further. This is it. Very broad with heavy MBS influence as well as the basics of fixed income. This is for novice to intermediate FI users. Academics and advanced portfolio managers might find this general. But, for the large population this is the spot.

This book has been around for years and new editions are lapped up by fresh generations of bond geeks. You will find a copy on pretty much every fixed income desk in the industry (including mine). Why all the hoopla? Because there is simply no other book like it. Because it is simply the most comprehensive survey of the various fixed income markets in print. For a basic understanding of the structure and institutional aspects fixed income securities, Fabozzi is the inevitable first stop. All this being said, it is important to understand the book's weaknesses. There is relatively little depth in terms of analytics and if you want formulae you will have to look elsewhere. But for basic overviews, structural details and the orientation that is a precondition for deeper study, the Handbook is in a class by itelf.

Amazing concept and credible, but apparently wanted to lead us, as a Pied Piper to his world. I guess he's pretty smart, because he confused the heck out of me. An academic andeavour to fill a vitae. As a financial planner, I had to take seriously what he wrote concerning the largest demographic having to sell their stock. Left way too much out on solution, Way. Way, WAY too much on the political.

Couldn't get a grip on who he was trying to reach.

Great summary of where we are today, with the current ponzi scheme of retirement that relies on the stock market infinite price growth.
As people below said, the author is quite weak on the solution side, but that's mostly because there isn't any simple one, and they clearly missed the point, which is the main purpose of the book to awaken folks and make them understand what is really going on.
The book is very easy to read and more intelligently written than few others discussing this topic.

The author provides a lot of relevant references and allow you to dive into these issues if you'd like.

In What If Boomers Can't Retire?: How To Build Real Security, Not Phantom Wealth, Thorton Parker draws upon his more than forty-five years of diverse experience and expertise in government and business management, strategic planing, finance and accounting, as well as policy development, to present the reader with a solidly written, informative and "user friendly" guide to protecting personal financial interests, including preparing for stock market downturns, scandals, and ultimately end up being able to enjoy a retirement that is not dependent upon social security. A vital, timely, and level-headed financial preparedness book, What If Boomers Can't Retire? is a "must read", not only for people of the Baby Boom generation, but for Gen-Xers and anyone else who must plan for their retirement despite the vagaries and volatilities of the stock and bond markets.

How do you rate a book that has some excellent advice, but 90% of the text is redundant filler? I chose three stars because even one good idea is worth a few hours of your time. I think I would have enjoyed the audio CD more because it's probably more condensed.

The book warns of many financial obstacles, but has little in the way of strategies to avoid them.

Here. . . I'll save you some time:

The stock market is going to crash around 2016 because of a law called ERISA, so prepare yourself accordingly.

You can make money in up and down markets if you know what to do.

Don't trust your money to mutual fund managers.

Buy, hold, and diversify is not the great strategy you think it is.

Educate yourself financially, but if you don't, stick with buy, hold, and diversify.

Real estate is a better investment for many because you can control it more readily.

There. . . now you don't have to read the book. That'll be twelve dollars.

I did not expect to get much out of this book. I expected the usual litany of admonitions and suggestions available in hundreds of articles and basic books on finance for the masses. Despite that low expectation, the first chapter had me hooked.

With an aging population, turmoil in the stock markets, and lack of knowledge about how much money is needed for retirement, author Robert Kiyosaki gives specifics to support his theory about predictable problems facing those who hope to retire.

The book won't appeal to people who are satisfied with their current job and have no plans to change in the future. But for those who care about government policy and how these policies and demographics are impacting our society, the book is eye-opening as well as easy-to read.

The "rich dad, poor dad" vehicle gets old but is stiff an effective and sometimes entertaining vehicle for conveying information.

If you take a look at the date when this books was released and then go back and check the stock market, you'll find that everything Rich Dad predicted is in fact coming true.

What is really scary is that Rich Dad predicted this years ago!

I highly recommend this book along with Rich Dad's Guide to Investing for anyone who wants to become a successful investor.

If you want to continue to loose money and get broker, then listen to your broker. That is why they are called "brokers" Listen to them and you'll become "broker."

Anthony Spare and Paul Ciotti make a logical, but uninspired, case for making Relative Dividend Yield part of one's equity valuation and also one's buy/sell decisions. The book is clearly written and offers ample graphs to substantiate the notion of buying equities when dividend yields are high, and selling them once they are low.

Actually, the graphs may be too ample...readers of this rather expensive 248-page book will quickly learn that the text is a bit long on charts showing individual equity dividend yields relative to stock indexes over time, and a bit short on specifics concerning the avoidance of issues whose yields are high for good reason.

That's the book's essential deficiency: the authors devote a mere twelve overly general pages to "Pitfalls and Preventative Measures" (Chapter 6). Also, since investors will likely have a difficult time constructing the kinds of charts the Relative Dividend Yield methodology requires, it would have been helpful to offer tips on a cost-effective means to make this methodology applicable in real-time. The authors do, however, provide graphs with prior relative dividend yield histories, with room to continue plotting these yields, on several "blue chip" dividend-paying equities.