stock-investing

I've been following Wade Cook's strategies since 1997. The techniques work. My first trade using Wade's strategies garnered me a 350% return.Free stocks is a catchy title but offers strategies that really work. If anything now is the time to be building your portfolio and using the market swings to benefit.Don't made Wade your only source of information though and never commit more than 2%-5% of your portfolio to option trading.Other books I recommend are 9 Steps to 7 Figures by Carlson and The Mutual Fund Wealth Builder by Dick Fabian.Outside of the stock market, the 16% Solution and Cashing in on Cash Flow are outstanding reads.I also recommend Bear Market Baloney (now WSMM#3) by Wade.You can always make money in the market. During the Nasdaq meltdown from March 2000, I made an average of 50% on no load mutual stock & bond funds and up to 600% bottom fishing undervalued stocks.Try it. It works!tcdefran@webtv.net

Wall Street Money Machine Vol 5 is basically a covered call handbook. In this book, Wade Cook shows you to make the market pay for your stocks.

I have been an investor for over ten years and have a brokers license but never knew you could do this. Unfortunately, brokers are never taught these strategies, only license requirements.

I highly recommend Wall Street Money Machine Vol. 5 for anyone who wants to make some real money in the market.

In Wall Street Money Machine Vol 5-Free Stocks: How to get the market to pay for your stocks-FREE Wade Cook introduces the LOCC (Large Option Covered Call) system. This system is a machine-a machine for generating consistent cash flow in sufficient quantities to better any lifestyle. A system that literally lets you get your stocks for FREE!

There is a saying that when something sounds too good to be true it usually is right? What's the catch you may be asking yourself. Is there a catch? To be brutually honest, yes there is, but it's not what you may think it is.

There is a way to get your stocks for free, which, if you get to the bottom-line root meaning of FREE, is simply that you do not pay for your stocks yourself. We're talking about quality stocks that you get to choose! You can be as diversifiedas you want. And get this-you can pretty much start with any amount of money you have.

This is not a get rich quick plan. Nor is this some ambiguous, nebulous method that only a few people can master and use. It is also not a theory, but an in-the-trenches, workable, cash flow stock market machine. This plan takes a simple yet overlooked aspect of the stock and options markets and puts it to full use. The results are dynamic and far-reaching.

LOCC has a beginning, middle and an end. It puts the emphasis where it should be; on generating income so you can retire. Yes, huge assets are nice, but let's go for simple ways to build steady monthly income so we can do more of the simple yet wonderful things that life has to offer.

If you like the buy and hold strategy of investing, in FREE STOCKS, you will learn how to get the market to pay for your stocks in 5 to 7 months with the LOCC system.

In FREE STOCKS, you will learn:

- Option cycles and market makers
- How implied volatility affects option pricing
- Buybacks and Rolloouts
- Stock Repair Kit
- How to put volatility on your side
- Be a seller, not a buyer
- When to get your money
- Exploration of ways to increase gains and reduce taxes
- What to do if the stock dips-Make more money!

Finally, if you followed more traditional forms of investing and lost a ton of money in the stock market over the last three years, FREE STOCKS may be just what the doctor ordered to get back on track and make that money back.

During the Bear Market of the last three years, I and others used the strategies in FREE STOCKS to recover losses on deep dips. Question: How much money did you lose by not knowing these strategies? And how much money will you lose by not applying these strategies going forward?

Get the book. It's a must read!

I'm kind of scratching my head here, wondering if I read the same book as all the five star reviewers. I wanted a bit more of a discussion on risk, I wanted more on how the money he runs has been performing, and a bit more rigor on the decisions as to choose stocks.

However, I did like the opening chapter, and the discussion on convertible bonds for high-tech companies, even though both could have done with a little more "meat" also.

Good for the novice, but anyone with a bit more experience will be frustrated.

This is a well-organized and insightful book on technology stocks and how to invest in them. Murphy's thesis is that R&D is what makes tech companies unique, and he adjusts P/E's for R&D for what he calls "growth flow". BioTech stocks are rated by an "M" score that compares the stock price to the amount of R&D per share. Coverage of mutual funds is sparse; this is really a stock-investing book. I have also read Ginaturco's "How to Buy Technology Stocks" book; Murphy's book is much more specific both about the technology and his stock-selection methods. While Gianturco is qualitative, Murphy is quantitative and more thorough.

I've been working in computer R&D since the late 60's. I was jealous of friends who paid for their Silicon Valley houses using investments in Hi-Tech. The field just seemed too confusing and too volatile. Now it's like the gold rush of 1849 and even crazier. I found Murphy after a search of Amazon.com and what a great book! He explains the industry and it all fit together with what I knew from experience. A subscription to Murphy's California Technology Stock Letter resulted in a 97.9% increase in my portfolio for 1999 with half of it invested in index stocks. Note that none of the Hi-Tech picks were in internet stocks. (Murphy performs detailed fundamental analysis and believes in value. Only recently has he added any internet stocks.) Note that he concentrates on the Western USA since he insists on face to face discussions with the CEO before making a recommendation. Some complain that Murphy doesn't understand biotech - well his biotech picks are hot now. Others say look at his mutual funds - a fair complaint in 1998 but 1999 his technology fund was up 97%. So if you want to understand the Hi-Tech and Bio-Tech industries you have to read Murphy.

Charles W. Kadlec's "Dow 100,000 Fact or Fiction" is must reading for any serious investor today. I have read many "how to" books over my thirty-eight years of investing, but none painted such a clear picture of the economic circumstances which surround our investment decisions. Kadlec's book is the AAA guide to investing. It gives you not only a clear road map to your financial destination, but it also points out what detours and speed traps may appear along the way. Kadlec is an economist and Chief Investment Strategist of Seligman Advisors, Inc., yet he writes this book in simple language that every investor will find easy to follow, regardless of age or experience. His discussions of our economic history give real meaning to the events of our more recent past and the challenges of the present. For example, Kadlec's references to the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, which led to the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, provide a clear understanding of our trade relationships today and how important they are to achieving "The Great Prosperity" which is the theme of his book. This book is more than an economic treatise; it is also a political study, since politics and economics are inevitably entwined. Not only will the reader learn how to invest, but, by implication, how to cast his or her ballot to insure "The Great Prosperity." In today's world of day trading, undue emphasis on quarterly earnings, and the resultant high volatility of stock prices, Dow 100,000 Fact or Fiction provides a clear picture of the long term direction of the world economy and where the Dow should logically be in the year 2020. Is it a certainty? No, and Kadlec points out the potential problems as well. But no investor with a long term financial plan should attempt to navigate through it without this book.

I highly recommend Dow 100,000 Fact or Fiction by Charles W. Kadlec. This well-researched work clearly and concisley maps out a blueprint for a period of unprecedented economic prosperity.

In a nutshell, Kadlec points to numerous wealth-creating domestic and global trends which should continue to strengthen during the next century. These demographic, economic, and political forces are explained in a common sense approach that both the novice and seasoned investor could appreciate and, more importantly, apply to their investment decisions. While the title surely provides ammunition for the bears among us, Kadlec deflects the ammunition by not taking a pollyanna approach. The risks to achieving prosperity are clearly defined and explained.

Finally, Kadlec includes practical strategies for creating and maintaining wealth during this unique period. Kadlec's vision of the future is predicated on the escalation of individual freedom and choice. Reading this book will provide excellent preparation in order to take advantage of this exciting new era.

I wonder how the authors of this misleading piece of pap feel now? Frighteningly, they're probably still convinced that they're right. Unfortunately many small investors were suckered into believing that money could grow on trees by this and similar pieces of nonsense, and have now seen savings and pensions annihilated.

The amazon.com blurb above has some revealing lines - stocks 'only' need to grow by 11.1% a year in value for the next 20 years for the Dow to reach 100,000. 'Only' 11.1%/year!!!!! Outstripping real growth in the economy by 'only' 5 to 1!!!! Give me a break.

Baby boomers want to have a prosperous retirement? OK, I'm sure they do, but that doesn't mean they can create real value where none exists by rushing lemming like into the stockmarket. Or the housing market, for that matter.

People love to think they can get rich just by magic, but that's not the way the world works. There'll always be a sucker who'll fall for the latest get rich quick scheme. Unfortunately books like this encourage people to fall for them in their thousands.

How smug I feel to have kept my savings in cash for the past few years!

Dutch Tulips! Dutch Tulips!

This is a great book and Julie's a riot. Even though this book is directed at women, I really enjoyed what it had to teach. Her system for investing and understanding the financial markets is clear and makes sense. As an added bonus, I even learned a bit about the female psyche. So now I have tips to succeed not only with the stock market, but also with the important women in my life! This book is worth the read-buy it!

I couldn't believe how Wall Street has made understanding investing so complicated, when it's not.

Julie has taken a so called difficult subject and made it really simple to follow. In fact, as simple as 1-2-3 and A-B-C.

Now I can talk the Wall Street lingo with the Big Boys, while laughing all the way to the bank.

Thanks, Julie.

Businessmen and politicians learned long ago that getting the money and publicity go hand-in-hand. Not just any publicity, but solid personal publicity. If we want people to value our abilities, we must first show that we value ourselves - by making sure our accomplishments are visible to targeted audiences. If we want people to invest in our companies, to buy from us, or to hire and promote us into the corner office, they have to know who we are, what we have accomplished and why they should do business with us! Self-promotion is a valuable business tool that businesswomen MUST add to their strategies for success. Following a careful step-by-step process will help even the most timid become comfortable with the concept of self-promotion. (from Marion E. Gold, award-winning author of "The Personal Publicity Planner: A Guide to Marketing YOU")

I like Tobin Smith on Bulls and Bears, and since I enjoy business books bought a copy of Changewave 2.0. The first 100 pages talk about "Changewave" ideas: cotton gin, auto, radio, tv, computer,web, etc. The idea is to buy the leaders as these trends emerge. Why that took a 100 pages is beyond me. Tobin fills the pages with words like ChangeQuake, FadQuake, Marketquake. (Even a glossary in the back for made up words)
I thought for a minute Miss Marsha had written an investment book. The second half of the book was ok, the most cogent point was that the only way you make money in stocks is when you sell.

My suggestion, is to pick up a copy of the Gorilla Game which I read a few years ago. It is the same concept, but is much more detailed and useful to individual investors. For the technical analysis/ growth investing segment of the book, How to Make Money in Stocks by William Oneil gives a reader far more insight on how to select stocks and protect profits.

I read Tobin Smiths first book "ChangeWave Investing" which was good but this one is better. In 2.0 we get much more on risk and also the importance of selling stocks, as well as a recognition thats stocks have Price to earnings ratios, and that these mean something in terms of value, this is a welcome addition to the new book. I receive Tobin Smiths newsletter via e-mail each week and have bought some of the stocks he has recommended. The results overall have been good, but with some stocks I have lost quite a lot of money. To prevent this Tobin recommends holding some less risky but slower growing stocks like Texas Instruments too. The more risky stocks like Ballard Power Systems have greater potential reward for the investor but much greater risk. The fact that Tobin Smith has employed the services of experts in many different fields of expertise, to give him suggestions on potential changewaves, adds credibility to his recommendations. I think this guy is on to something and I like the way he is prepared to think independently of analysts on Wall Street. In time this book just might become a classic.

To qualify for a changewave company, the company must be $1 billion in size.

Changewave 1st Screen : They must have a growth rate in the top 10 percent companies in the new economy.

Changewave 2nd Screen (Top 10 sectors) : five times S & P 500 growth

Changewave 3rd Screen (Supersectors): Top 10% growth rate in each new economy industrial category.

Changewave 4th Screen (Market): Top 1%

Predicability is essential in changewave. The most predictable winner in a top secular growth space goes to the highest valuation - everytime.

All things being equal, the simplest to understand secular growth and competitive advantage logics wins the growth stock debate.

People buy stocks the same way they buy other products. People buy products they are comfortable with; the product is simple too understand and its indispesible to the consume.

Fundamentalist figure out stock value based on fundamental research and analysis. They predict the stock price will go up. P/E = Price of Share/Retain Earnings. This tells you if the investors are being unrealistic about the price in relationship to earnings growth. However, price is a function of present value and future earnings, It does not consider capital generators, such as, copy rights, intellectual property, and patents. Capital growth companies accounted for 50 percent of all the corporate profits.

When the dust settles in any information technology-based industry, there will be one company with 60 to 70 percent of the market share and the bulk of profits and valuation in the segment. The number two guy will have a 20 percent share.
Technical analysis is employed to decide buy and sell patterns. Technical analysis uses bar charts and indicators to buy and sell.

The momentum investor waits to see what everyone else is doing. If there's momentum behind a stock, he assumes that the momentum will continue and bets on that fact.

The innovators: Because only 3 to 5 percent of the world are innovators. The early adopters: 10 to 15 percent are early adopters. The early majority: "I need more evidence"

Change wave looks at marketing, first, and considers how marketing will use product superiority as a compeling motivator to buy. Product superiority does not guarantee a consumer buy trend. (Beta verse VHS, DVD verse CD,CD verse memory stick). Customer acceptance is more important than product superiority. The winning product will have the best marketing.

Suppose a company builds a car that rides on air and suppose it comes with special safety features than are 80 percent more effective at saving lives. Does everyone go out and buy the new car? Probably not because safety does sell just increases cost. Now suppose other companies are starting to build a similar vehicle. Its radical departure from terrestial ground transportation creates a changequake. It looks like the old transportation technology is being abandoned. Suppose, the technology is the hydrogen cell transportation; the changequake may not be felt, if it is felt than it qualifies; we are not looking for an incremental change; we are looking for radical change. Wealth opportunities are found from rapid and significant changes.

Entrepreneutrial companies harness their innovations and create new, order of magnitude improved ways of doing things. The law of distribution is controlled by product creation and consumer demand. Consumer demands does change suddenly, it changes when their is a disruption.

"Investing in the right stock in the best space gets all the money." This is the law of the free market. This is the law of distribution, its beautiful.

Where is the fastest, biggest, and most locked in sustainable growth in the economy today?

Which sectors are biggest beneficiaries of this hugh, predictable, and sustainable growth?

Which companies are best positioned to capture a disportionate percentage of this locked in growth?

The Top 10 Supersectors
1. optical internet infrastructure
2. wireless internet infrastructure
3. b2c
4. b2b
5. data storage
6. eService
7. digital services
8. eProcessing
9. non-pc computing
10 broadband to the home

The Top 10 Supersectors change from time to time. Optics technology investment continues to be appealing because it offers radical differences in change.

The Value Chain: New Economy -> Change Quake -> Killer Value Proposition -> ChangeWave ->SuperSector->SuperSpace->WaveRider companies

SuperSpace Criteria:
1. is the project growing at least eight to ten times faster then the economy in a three to five year period
2. does it hold an enabling control position
3. does it provide a killer value proposition
4. is it projected to become a billion dollar industry

The big idea
1.Buy on upward price movement trend. Buy above the 50-day average.Sell when the 200 day moving average crosses the 50 day average. (shift in momentum)

2.Select companies with 5 to 6 million available shares (float). Take advantage of the float
3.Buy if the stock moves up 20 percent from a temporary downward trend
4.Double up on the stock if has moved up 20 percent in the past three to four weeks.
5.Rising volumes are required to sustain higher prices. Volume increases as mutal funds and hedge funds start buying

The first thing that you'll notice is that this is a skimpy, short book at 134 pages (160 if you include the appendices). This would be ok if the content was substantial and useful. Unfortunately, it provides a very introductory, shallow overview of the covered call writing strategy. This too would be ok if this was a $15 quick read paperback, but it's an expensive hardcover (which is not worth the price). I'd suggest the interested reader should check other books on the subject instead.

In general covered call writing is a conservative option trading strategy, and this book covers the subject in more detail than any other option book I've seen. It is incumbent on me to say several things about it though. For one, writing puts is identical to covered call writing, yet is a superior technique since it involves one commission instead of two. If you're interested in covered call writing, after you get some experience in it learn about put writing. Second, and most important, you can lose plenty of money with covered calls. All that has to happen is the stock goes way down. You'll never get even close to all your money back by writing lower strike calls on it. You do lose less than if you just owned the stock, but get past the idea that this is a perfectly safe way to make money. It's not. Another main point is that over time, its hard to beat the market with this technique. You can match the market with less risk though, so it is a good technique from a risk reward basis. But, especially after taxes, you probably won't beat an index fund.

I have read and applied the strategy for writing covered call options. This IS an excellent manual for trading with far less risk and with much greater return than I thought possible. If you are conservative and yet want better than above average returns with less risk, (heaven right?) then this book is for you!

The 'error' in the title of this book is a representative of the appalling quality of the book. To be fair, the author cites his definition of 'day trading' which is *NOT* the industry accepted definition.

A couple of problems with this book:

- the author appears to have no idea regarding the topic of trading;
- it generally has little to do with day trading;
- most subjects in the books are average people who got lucky with apparently no skills (nor common sense);
- the book is written in a style suited to magazines, particularly those for pure entertainment - although unfortunately it is not entertaining at all. The author is unable to direct subjects to the appropriate topics and fails to extract anything substantial in any area; and
- there is very little useful and educational information in it at all (eg statistics / methods / psychology / money management).

There are many other books that are significantly better than this one, particularly Schwager's Market Wizards books.

If you're looking for some possibly fun (for those who haven't read anything in this area), brainless and easy reading - this could be your answer to boredom.

If you want anymore, I'd almost guarantee your disappointment.

This book is billed as a Market Wizards of Day Trading. Well it tries to be but it isn't. It's a fairly shallow knock off.

The main problem that is that author is not a day trader himself which while not necessairly a bad thing in itself means that half the time he doesn't know where to focus. That's what makes the Schwager books so good. His book is written for traders by a trader.

The second problem is that no strict documentation of trading success was required.

The third is that the interview is all rehashed by the author and so you don't get the real dialogue which makes you wonder what's getting lost in the translation.

Having said all that, every book has some value so if you have the money go ahead and get it. At the very least you can take a look at some traders and their style. You may glean something.

But get Market Wizards or Reminiscences of a Stock Operator if you really want an introduction to trading.

This book is a far cry from those.

Ever since completing the Guts and the Glory of Day Trading: True Stories of Day Traders Who Made (or Lost) $1,000,000 by Mark Ingebretsen, I've been pondering the question, "How is it that after reading the following, I've been thinking about becoming a day trader?" "I danced through a minefield for a whole year." "I became obsessed with watching the market." "This was truly an example of addiction..." I got hooked by this book and found myself eyeing my computer and visualized myself trading aggressively in flannels while my daughter packed her school lunch. This represents the perfect read for an aging member of Bowie's coffee generation. Despite our collective caffeine rush, we'd generally rather watch other individuals take risks. Simply put, it was exciting living vicariously through the stories of these twelve day traders. Voyeuristically inclined anyway, I turned the pages as if plowing through a best selling thriller. It's a testimony to the author's interviewing that he was able to get such diverse individuals to openly share the "guts and glory" of their experiences both personal and financial. With an even-handed style, he serves as a steady, dependable and trustworthy guide regarding the effective trading strategies gleaned from the biographical vignettes. Perhaps the question best asked of Ingebretsen is "Why is it that addiction appears to be so much fun?" For now, I'll stick with drinking coffee and clipping coupons at the kitchen table.

Stream of Consciousness

This story isn't about losing money investing (speculating?) in the stock market. It isn't about getting caught up in a bubble, despite the writer's constant recognition of that very fact. It is more about a guy struggling to cope with becoming a middle-aged divorcee. As the Epilogue tells us, his financial destruction was his way of throwing a temper tantrum. He was being careless and bold for the first time in his life, and he chose the financial markets as his medium.

Although this is an interesting story, I think the marketing of this book - thanks in large part to the many reviews - paint the wrong story. This is not an interesting book about investing, it more human than that. Perhaps that is one of its greatest strengths.

Do you think Mr. Denby is splitting his royalties with his wife? He wasted away hundreds of thousands of dollars of her wealth. What a grounded person she must be to only respond with "the market will come back." I wish my wife was that understanding.

You instinctively know that "The New Yorker" movie critic David Denby ought to be able to tell a good story, and that the author of "The Great Books" ought to be able to weave revelation into the most daunting of experiences. Add all this together and we ought to get a rocking good ride through the rise and fall of NASDAQ 5000 as seen from main street's point of view. And we do.
Needing money to buy his soon-to-be-ex-wife out of their Upper West Side apartment, Denby loaded up on NASDAQ mutual funds in Oct 99 and NASDAQ stocks in Jan 00. The rest is history, as they say. But the process (losing $800,000 from March 2000 to October 2002) is what makes this heart warming tale of decline and fall, and redemption, well worth the read.
Taken from an investor's viewpoint, the book should have been entitled "How to lose money doing everything an investor ought not to do." (1) Don't go into the stock market with a goal of making 1 million dollars in one year - if you want to gamble, go to Vegas. At least you get free drinks. (2) Don't ignore history - every possible danger sign was flashing by the end of 1999, a fact Denby acknowledged. (3) Don't attend high-tech investment dog-and-pony shows and blindly step in the manure spread around by the hosts. (4) Don't be afraid to take responsibility for your own investments. Putting the onus off on somebody else to escape the ultimate decisions is a fool's game. (5) Don't give way to emotionalism, especially when your heart doesn't understand what your head is saying.
All of this is instructive, but the true gems come to light when Denby goes searching for the reasons why. Why did he do what he did, and why did the investment process treat him so shabbily? Up front, Denby admits to being politically liberal with a strong distrust of the business community. After all, he's a movie critic by trade. He goes into deep ruminations on the anti-capitalist, anti-materialistic, anti-consumerism philosophies of luminaries from as far back as Thorstein Veblen and as current as Juliet Schor. Still, he wanted to be part of the Wall Street crowd, the wealthy, as he calls them, and he gladly entered into the dance.
His most revealing, and important, commentary is through his love/hate relationship with ImClone founder and now felon, Sam Waksal. Happy to become one of "Sam's pals" and bask in the light of his dinner parties, Denby's exploration of what made Sam tick is worth the whole book. As he pounds the pavement of Manhattan's sidewalks, searching for meaning, Denby conjures up the 7 deadly sins, and settles on envy leading to greed as the two best fitted for himself and his new cronies on his chosen way to wealth. Near the end of the book, he even tries to offer just how much a "wealthy" person needs to have before becoming "greedy." Yet, as if to argue with himself, he makes the following observation, certainly the most cogent of the work: "The one thing shadowing their (the high-tech entrepreneurs) triumph was aging and its scything climax, death. It was the final victory that capitalism, which had swept all before it, could not achieve - immortality, or at least a long, disease-free ascent into a happy and productive old age. And yet they were arrogant enough to want to lick death. And I believe it was that realization, as much as the drive for efficiency and wealth, that pushed the all-optical network (and tech/biotech revolution) forward." And of Waksal in particular: "He looked to be in superb health, but the threat of a sickened old age was haunting him. This specter ('Every man, if he lives long enough, will get prostate cancer.'), he thought, had to be vanquished, - age postponed, vitality prolonged."
But why does this motivation surprise Denby? Is this not why we have an economy - and capitalism - and progress? To supply the necessities of life for as long as life can be sustained? Continuing, on pages 196 and 197, he sums up the driving force of the George Gilders, Waksals, etc.: "These men were not just fighting off thoughts of death, they literally were not going to accept death, and that made them more ambitious than men of all other generations." That's as heroic a vision as mankind has ever had.
Denby also asks the most important questions for our society today as we sort out what happened. "Does speculation like this...do any permanent damage to an economy? Or is it, despite the ruin it sows among the unwise, a useful and socially benevolent event in the end? And the lesser question is: Must speculation always be accompanied by fraud? Is there something inescapably criminal in the process of quickly raising money for some new enterprise?" Later, he responds: "The answer, of course, is that there's something 'escapably' criminal, and that's why we need regulators, prosecutors, and an ethics that the ambitious and wealthy live by."
In the end, Denby comes to terms with his losses and his failings. It was the breakup of his marriage, the apparent worldwide victory of capitalism (supposedly commercializing all the arts), and the threat that creativity had been siphoned off from the arts into science and technology that had blown a hole in Denby, causing him to question his whole life's purpose. I'm not so sure that Denby didn't secretly rejoice that Wall Street failed him as a God. It freed him to return to his chosen profession, giving two thumbs up to Eminem's "8 Mile" for its "renewal out of economic decline and cultural despair." But as he comes closer to that dreaded "threat of a sickened old age" that drove the Waksals of the world, Denby just might go looking for life's renewal in the companies that the Waksal's of the world built. And then, perhaps Denby will question whether he really was a sucker after all.

This is not just a book about finance, though at first glance it would be easy enough to mistake it for one. The clever cover design resembles a stock ticker, and if you dip into the opening pages, you will learn that this story begins with author and critic David Denby's goal of making a million dollars. Denby wasn't seeking wealth merely for the sake of wealth; at the beginning of 2000, his wife had told him their marriage was at an end. Denby became obsessed with the idea of holding onto the seven-bedroom Manhattan apartment he had shared with her and their two sons. If only he could ride the seemingly steadily rising tide of the stock market and make that million, he could buy out her share and preserve their home.

Denby is a long-time film critic (New York magazine, The New Yorker) and author of "Great Books," a passionate account of his return to college in middle age to rediscover the seminal works of western civilization. Although ostensibly about his financial quest, the reader slowly discovers this book is really about his quest to rebuild and maintain a meaningful life. He comes under the spell of New Economy stars who would fall mightily within a couple of years, including ImClone founder Sam Waksal and Merrill Lynch Internet analyst Henry Blodget. Denby adopted a course he knew was risky (though how risky, he didn't realize) by focusing on new technologies such as ImClone's cancer drugs and the firms producing the tools that would usher in the true Information Superhighway, with the entire contents of the Library of Congress transmitted to the other side of the globe at light speed. Denby works to learn as much as he can about those to whom he has entrusted his money and dreams, and the more he learns, the more aware he becomes of the betrayal that eventually wiped out the savings and shattered the faith of tens, if not hundreds of thousands.

Throughout, Denby is engagingly, openly frank about the impacts of the financial roller coaster ride he experienced. At one time or another, his sleep habits, his bowel habits and his sex life suffered. But what seemed to have been at stake most of all was his sense of self and the realization of the things that really matter in life, including making the most of the limited days we are given. His narrative closes with a hopeful reaffirmation of these core values.

This is passionate, vivid book with lessons for us all.--William C. Hall

Don't bother buying this book. It is so general and vague it's not worth the money. It rehashes tech analysis etc., that most would already know. It sheds no light into the world of SSF at all.

This is would serve as a great introductory piece for those unfamiliar with the futures market. It does a great job of explaining what single stock futures is all about. But for those who are really interested in profiting from the market I will suggest they turn to specialised technical books like those of John J.Murphy("Technical Analysis Of The Financial Markets") and Edwards & Magee("Technical Analysis Of Stock Trends"). The basics of technical analysis espoused in both books apply well to the new single stock futures.

Good introduction to trading with futures. I appreciated the trading indicators and methods shared by the author. Knowing what stock futures are and knowing how to actually trade them are two different things, and this book does a valuable service in sharing good trading strategies with us. Thank you!

I found this book a waste of my time.

Contrary to what some may think, there is a secret to good investing, and Glassman does a good job of explaining it. It's an open secret, to be sure, but one most so-called investors ignore: generating cash (for example, through day trading and other high-turnover practices) does not lead to the accumulation of wealth. Only through a disciplined approach to investing, involving (1) the accumulation of quality stocks, mutual funds, and/or other preferred financial assets, and (2) patience that allows time to let these investments work for you, will it be possible to achieve your financial goals. Following the heady, market-drive craze of the late 1990s, it's a secret that even the most seasoned investor would do well to reconsider.

No question, it's the new or inexperienced investor who has the most to gain from a read of this book. For one thing, Glassman's review of the many investment vehicles available today provides, in one readily accessible volume, the information needed to make intelligent decisions regarding asset allocation. And the explanations that attend the presentation are written in language that even the novice will understand.

If you've already made your millions and view playing the market as a pastime, this book is not for you. But if you believe that there must be a better way to select from among the many investment theories touted and to identify, and invest in, preferred investment vehicles appropriate to your age and temperament, purchase of The Secret Code of the Superior Investor may well be among the best investments you could make.

In a world that starts each business day with someone broadcasting from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as if investing were some sort of a horse race, this book is much more than enjoyable. It's important to read.

Glassman takes the fear, uncertainty and doubt out of investing heightened if not created by the broadcast media's constant focus on what the fed, economy or Osama Bin Lauden will or won't do next and what it all means for the price of stocks tomorrow. He deals with the implied "action imperative" using what amounts to a logical, easy to read and understand three step process. First, he provides basic, factual and well-researched information that every investor should know. Second, he details a sound and time-tested investment strategy that anyone can understand. Third, he provides the information sources, tips and techniques to execute against that strategy. The sort of how to information that moves concept to action. Along the way he explains what is important to consider and to ignore. He also offers some really good advice on things to avoid.

The Secret Code of the Superior Investor has the rare qualities of being informative, enjoyable and actionable. The content is as superb as the writing. I am 53 years old, financially independent and retired. I have been an investor for nearly 30 years and read many books on investing. Take it from me. Glassman nailed it! Turn off the TV and read this book.