Any good investing books?

**nodmicks** · 06-14-2006, 05:07 PM

Any good recomendations for learning about investing for someone who just doesn't get it?

Dh has an old ira we rolled over and 6% for 401 K taken every pay check. These are making a small amount but not much. Mainly because we have no idea what we are doing. Any suggestions?

**Telephus44** · 06-17-2006, 04:05 PM

The first place I would check out is actually a website - they have some books there for sale.

The Motley Fool - www.fool.com (They offer free registration to read the article. You can also get a paying membership and get access to the message boards. I don't have a paying membership myself, so I don't know how good they are.)

The book section: http://www.fool.com/shop/books/index.htm While I haven't read any of these, I have seen their PBS specials and spent a lot of time on their website.

This is a GREAT place to begin investing, especially if you want to know the different types of investing options available to you. There are a lot of specific guides (Where to put your short-term savings, how to plan for retirement, how to begin investing, etc) that are very detailed but also easy to understand.

If you are specifically looking for advice on your 401K, my guess is that you have a selection of mutual funds and/or money market funds to invest your money in. If you're looking for information on those specific funds, morningstar.com is a great place to look. For a general overview of mutual funds, I'd check out vanguard.com.

Two other books I've read and would recommend are:

24 Essential Lessons for Investment Success (Bill O'Neil)
A Random Walk Down Wall Street (Burton Malkiel - get the updated version, it was first published in 1973, latest update is 2003)

Both of these books do a good job at explaining the fundamentals of stocks - volume, risk assessment (Beta and R squared), churn, P/E ratios, etc. I'm not sure if this is more information than you're looking for right now, but if not then I'd give them a shot.

**nodmicks** · 06-17-2006, 06:38 PM

THANK YOU FOR THE ADVICE SARA!!! Tht is exactly what I need~ the fundamentals!!! Thanks again!!! Vanguard was actually who the old 401 was rolled from to Putnam.
I'll have tomorrow to start checking the info out!

**BTK** · 06-17-2006, 09:48 PM

I would also look at a book called Investing for Dummies. It's a very basic book with lots of good information about how to invest and what different things mean. It was one of the first books I read when we started investing. Very helpful.