The author argues that people should own stocks for two reasons: 1) because they allow individuals to own successful companies, and 2) because they've been the best investments over time. This book is a great and simple introduction to stocks. It explains the basic concepts such as how stocks trade, preferred stocks vs. common stocks, dividends, stock splits, IPOs, and investment philosophies.

Chapter 2 features investment masters such as Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, Philip Fisher, Benjamin Graham, and many others. All of these managers have different styles and readers can learn that it is possible to make money and be different.

Chapter 5 discusses topics such as choosing the right discount broker and placing orders. Chapter 6 is the most valuable chapter in my opinion. The author shows investors how to research stocks and what tools to use. Without good research, nothing matters. This book provides a good introduction to stock market investing, and I highly recommend it to beginning investors.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

I like this book because it is a good summary on many different things and reader friendly to those who don't have much knowledge on stocks.

However, author strongly recommended on using leveraged index fund. This is a very dangerous move and could be devastating. In the recent down turn, we already saw the problem with this strategy. So far we are still lucky because Dow didn't drop more than 50%. If next time, it drops 60-70%, the leveraged fund may never get back to previous levels. And your most of your life savings could be wiped out. This is certainly not a good recommendation for beginners.

The reasoning in the book is also flawed. For example, it says the down turn in 2001 is probably the worst in life time because the Nasdaq drops 78%. But the trading strategy is not about Nasdaq, it is about Dow or mid cap 400. These two were not hit very hard in 2001.

If you are a beginner, just use the book as a starting guide, don't really invest the money as the book suggested.

This is an excellent introductory book on stock market investing. It is well written and clear, and also superbly edited. The author even throws in some humor here and there. I've learned a great deal from the book -- my first on this topic. The book has helped me form my own investing strategy, and has definitely changed how I trade and how I evaluate a company before buying their stock. I have recommended this book to friends.

This book is very verbose and makes for a tiresome reading. Terms and concepts that can be explained in a sentence or two are belabored. The author's personal views while describing a term is very distracting in the beginning and becomes a nuisance towards the end. For example, EPS is described over a page and a quarter. This makes quick reference impossible.

Juvenile choice of examples and proper nouns makes it hard to recollect them in times of need.

This would make a good book for dabblers looking for grist for small talk. Definitely not for someone who is inspired to invest in the stock market.

The book is written in plain english, so people like me can understand it.
It covers most of the things you need to know to get started and helps you to understand the way stocks are created and traded, and why you would buy one stock over another. I would recommend this book.