Jason KellyThe Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing: Fifth Edition

I purchased this book for my son-in-law who is starting to learn about investing. Long story short, if you want a well written education in the fundamentals of the stock market, with a bit of a twist to keep things interesting. This is a must read. I've been investing for over 40 years and really enjoyed the information, not just for its accuracy, but the presentation is worth the price of admission.

The reviewer who said that this book is meant for the "serious beginner" said it best. This is not a fluffy book -- it's more like a 3-month investment course packed into a well-written small volume and designed to make the reader fully conversant in the language of the market. Before I picked up this book, I thought that the Dow was an exchange, like the NASDAQ. No joke. After I read it, I knew more about long-term investing strategies, market terminology, and identifying companies with value than any of my attorney colleagues who have invested in the market for years. Most individual investors seem to invest blindly in large- and mid-cap companies like Target or Apple and in mutual funds without conducting their own research. This book is for you if you want to understand not only why traders care about P/E ratios, but also how you hedge against inflated earnings calculations by analyzing other fundamental criteria, like profit margins; not only how a dividend yield is calculated, but why it matters in determining whether a stock is undervalued; and not only how Dow companies are chosen but also how to reap the benefits of leverage when investing in Dow companies.That said, this book is not designed for swing traders or day traders. While Jason Kelly claims to espouse both value and growth approaches to investing, I'd say that the balance is 80% in favor of value (identifying good companies with long-term profitability). He explains the fundamentals of technical analysis, but his primary purpose is not to teach how to speculate or predict trends using Bollinger bands or stochastic curves. His point seems to be that an investor should use graphs and technical criteria as just one of her tools to know when to buy, how to limit the downside potential of leveraged investments.Their isn't much self-promotion. The writing is so clear that it takes the author's personal philosophies out of the equation and focuses instead on the more broadly applicable teaching points (bullet-pointed, even, after each section). If identifying value is not a strategy that appeals to you, you won't like this book. The book is basically a love letter to Warren Buffett and has very little of Kelly jumping off the pages, other than when we mentions his own free newsletter and website in a list of a dozen or so other newsletters and websites. (By the way this list included Kelly's reviews of many stock screener tools, good financial magazines, and the most useful stock newsletters. I used it to build my internet favorites folder, which I look at everyday.)This book provides a comprehensive treatment of fundamental investing concepts and strategies. You can turn to other, more detailed texts if you want to learn how to trade like a trader, not like an investor.

This book is for anyone who wants to know how the stock market works. This book is for anyone who wants to know what influences the stock market. This book is for anyone who wants to make money on the stock market. There is a reason this is the fifth addition of this book, because it work, and because the author wants to keep his readers informed and up to date on the ever changing environment of the stock market.This book begins by spending time making sure the reader understands all of the terms that the author will use throughout the rest of the book. After that he begins to enlighten the reader about general information on the stock market and then starts going in depth more about how the stock market works and how many people have made a fortune through the stock market and how they have also lost a fortune on the stock market. He finishes the book my giving the reader a step by step guide to evaluating any company on the stock market, a key skill to learn when investing with a company.I couldn't put this book down. I was a beginner, not really knowing anything about the stock market when I first decided to read this book, but I quickly became obsessed. I was craving for more and more information on not only how the stock market works, but how to make money using the stock market. This is a very easy read, the words and terms can be challenging, but the book is setup in such a way that the author gradually introduces you to information that you will need to understand for the next chapter.I highly recommend this book for anyone who has any interest in the stock market, or making money in the stock market. The authors ability to prepare the reader for each sequential chapter, by introducing a topic, and then diving deeper in the next chapter makes a daunting topic like the stock market very manageable. If you have any interest in the stock market and are a beginner, then this book is for you!