Book Reviews Archives - Let's Start Investing

When I first started investing in stocks, this is one of the first books I picked up at the bookstore. Everyone has heard of the "For Dummies" product line so I figured, what better place to start. After reading this review of Stock Investing for Dummies, you will know what's covered in this book, how easy it is to read, and how much value is found within. What's In It? So firstly, who exactly is this book for? It's for the beginner investor that wants to learn the principles of investing in the stock market and lays out a broad foundation to ensure the reader is comfortable before jumping in with their hard-earned money. Online investing can seem overwhelming and this book does a great job of providing a balance between basic and advanced levels of investing. It focuses on a reasonable approach to earning money in the stock market by laying out tried and true strategies that although simple, are used by even the greatest of professionals. This book is broken down into 6 sections and flow in a way that is really easy to follow: The Essentials of Stock Investing – This section focuses on explaining what stocks are and goes into more detail related to individual stocks as well as funds that consist of many stocks. It also discusses analyzing your current financial situation, coming up with goals, and laying out basic strategies and common approaches for investing.Before You Start Buying – This section discusses that stocks can be used for growth and/or income depending on which strategies you choose. It also talks about different brokers and helps you choose what type of broker you want to deal with. Next, it walks you through some technical analysis techniques.Picking Winners – This is one of my favorite sections! This talks about how to analyze companies and determine which ones are truly opportunities and show the most potential to help you earn profits! Sound fundamental analysis is stressed here so you can learn what to look for and not just throw darts at a list of stocks on your wall!Investment Strategies and Tactics – This is where you get to a few of the more advanced tactics. You'll learn how to ensure your costs are kept low when trading, how to set up triggers and conditional orders, and how to pay close attention to what company management is doing to see if you can identify buying opportunities as well as spot when you may want to sell.The Part of Tens – This section goes over a guide of 10 opportunities and challenges for investors and helps you consider what you may want to do if your portfolio is up as well as what action you may want to take when it is down.Appendixes – This section is for resources that the author thinks may be valuable to you. Formats of Stock Investing for Dummies This can be purchased as a paperback, which is the format I used to review this. It is also offered as an audio book on Audible which is Amazon's streaming audiobook app. Audible makes it easy to listen to Stock Investing for Dummies anywhere. Paperback384 pages with picturesCheck PriceAudible12 hours and 30 minutes listening timeCheck Price Ease of Use and Value Stock Investing for Dummies was extremely easy to read and I was surprised after reading the title, just how much information was actually in the book. I was concerned it would be too basic since I had some foundational knowledge already. For a beginner, this a great place to start a journey into becoming an intelligent investor. There were a lot of things I already knew in it but the way the book is laid out, it's extremely modular meaning that you can jump around with ease to ensure you only read sections that apply to your level of familiarity with the subject. There are tons of illustrations and visuals that make comprehending the stock market easy for anyone. Overall, this will not teach you everything you need to be a professional trader or investor in the stock market but it will teach you enough to make you comfortable to get started. As a first book about the stock market, I'd say it's hard to beat this complete beginners guide.