Not useful and extremely risky to all except techical analysis wizards with lots of money to play with.
591048
The strategies proposed seem more like gambling than investing. They are extremely aggressive and risky, depending upon extensive technical analysis knowledge and experience. Although he does describe the psychology of a transitioning market, the caveats he applies (such as four months to a year into the bear market) and the criticality of the timing of the trade make the concept only useful or applicable to a tiny fraction of investors. The authors strategy for making money is to sell books because market timing is just gambling.
1597577
This book has some utility, but the main problem is that it is dishonest. The author gives lots of tables claiming that using such methods you can get to X million in N months. The problem is that his tables only work if you have a string of wins during those months. Whenever you have a setback you have to go back in the table, which means that it is almost impossible to achieve the goal he presents. Having an average gain means that in some months you will make more than expected but in some others you will lose money. Thus, the table is practically useless. If just means that you can go up very quickly when there is a string of gains, but you will also have to revert almost as quickly when the loses occur. Later he provides some ideas to avoid the setbacks but, alas, you never know when a string of setbacks will occur. In summary, although the methods are interesting, the way they are presented are basic dishonesty. Using these methods (with luck) you can make a lot of money quickly just to see it all go away in the same speed.
1618918
This is only a book for the beginner.

It is not worth $60 even to them.  It has 170 pages of very large well-spaced print.  There are no studies, statistics or even footnotes to back any of it up.

It does have some common sense advice.  So what?  That is not enough to encourage the "layman" to trade stocks nor will it give the trader anything new.  If they give it great reviews, I would be suspect of their trading record before reading it and after.

There are numerous other books that have much more substance that sell for much less:  Come Into My Trading Room by Elder, $40, 293 pages.  Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Tharp,  $23, 479 pages.  The Master Swing Trader by Farley, $34, 443 pages to name a few.  All of these books, and others, have at least 20 times more information that is more specific and detailed including each simple thought expressed in the "Layman's Guide....

If you use the author's own words, pg. 20 "There is no Holy Grail," you will find that he offers his common sense as the Holy Grail.  His own website also contradicts the thesis of this book.  Check it out.

I received it on Saturday and will send it back as soon as the post office opens.

I am suspect of all the high reviews.  I think the high price and the reviews are simply a great job of marketing.  It takes advantage of the recent crash and current fear.  If I could have browsed this book in a store, I would never have ordered it.

Lew Marks
4279963
This author has no clue about basic probability and money odds.
The book is truly less than worthless.
If the material were not helpful, that would be worthless.
I consider it "less than worthless" because anyone who actually believes what is presented, will have "learned" things which simply are not true.
Don't waste your money.
4808347
The Pareto optimum may be useful in engineering, but for an economy it necessarily ignores the possibility of creating wealth. Applying it to economics is just one example of an attempt to refine economics into hard science.

Exercises in pure mathematics disconnected from actual economies are, by definition, unscientific.  Centrally planned application of such mathematical models is nonsensical pretense: Claiming for economics the predictive power of physics or chemistry.

It reminds me of Luce Irigaray's postmodernist scientism where she recasts fluid mechanics into feminist mumbo jumbo.  So, Paul Ormerod has a point, just not a very insightful one:  We don't have perfectly rational agents; we don't have perfect knowledge; yet the math assumes these things.

Ok, let's build from there.  Unfortunately, that shortly goes off the rails.  When I read this paragraph on page 40:

"In the past twenty years or so of our own century, the ideas of uncertainty, the inherent difficulty of prediction, and the concepts of sudden change and discrete jumps in patterns of behavior, even in smoothly running systems, have become far more pervasive in scientific analysis, through the tremendous growth of interest in chaotic and non-linear systems."

...I fully expected to find a reference to Mises or Hayek closely following.  There was none.  So, I checked the index.  Neither Mises nor Hayek appear anywhere in Ormerod's book.  Sorry, this is no longer "required reading," if it ever was.

I would have made it 2 stars, but added to the flaw described above,  the writing wanders about.
4076585
Outdated investing information is worse than no information at all.  Don't take any 'data' in this book at face value.
I was really disappointed in the small number of small investments in the book.
I have a more 'holistic' investment perspective, but I know of a lot more small investments;
Pay off high interest debt!!
A shopping warehouse membership.
A freezer.
A 'cushion' in the checking account to keep any checks from bouncing.  It can also reduce the fees for a double dividend!
Regular maintenance of vehicles and major appliances.
Energy efficient lights.
Water heater blanket.
Pre-pay phone cards.
Continuing education classes.
A consultaion with a Certified Financial Planner.
2193979
LIAR'S POKER explored Wall Street's  rip-off of S&L's and bond investors by means of a flash-in-the-pan computer algorithm which obscurely manipulates the value of financial assets. MBA's got obscenely rich doing  funny (but kind of naughty) things. Taxpayers paid. Author Lewis moved on.  THE NEW NEW THING is the same plot  on an updated set - technology  is  being misrepresented so less than admirable types can vie for biggest  billionaire. The orgy is a boat trip - that's new.
I keep thinking of  "chutzpah." Silicon Valley relies on imported engineers whose  (overseas) education apparently avoided touchy subjects like securities  fraud ("blue sky" IPO's), tax fraud (expensing development  costs), public utility regulation of natural monopolies,  the link between  inefficient , binary code and infinite PE's, how political wannabe's are  romanced into not rocking the boat  ... and the Dewey Decimal system  (search engine of America's scandalously underpaid  librarians). Silicon  Valley's  unthinkable wealth relies absolutely on its army of dim bulbs at  INS, IRS, DOJ, academia and, not least, Congress. Come to think of it,  "chutzpah" is not a crime, so I take that back. There are hints  that Lewis understands but thought better of  blurting out realities that  can well do much greater harm than mortgage derivatives inflict. Wet  blankets don't sell books like funny stories do. No predictions. Read for  laughs. Don't try these stunts at home.
1025452
The scenarios they save you from are so far fetched it is more likely I will hit the lottery and I do not play.  You would have to be an idiot to get into situations where this information would save you.
4843761
My personal and professional focus is mainly on trading, but I do periodically act as an investor as well. That being the case, I thought I'd give this book a read to see what the popular Fools had to say on the subject. I didn't come away particularly impressed.

First of all, the whole book is an advertisement. The reader is constantly being sold on Motley Fool services of one kind or another. Of course you know going in that the book is going to promote Motley Fool, but it doesn't need to be so continuous and overt. Makes me glad I didn't actually pay for the book.

Secondly, there is a painfully obvious error (or rather set of errors) made at the outset of Chapter 3 when the authors are trying to preach the advantage of buy-and-hold investing over active trading. I take no issue with the general argument made about how taxes and transactions costs make active trading more of a challenge than buy-and-hold investing. Their example to demonstrate how this is true, however, is so painfully incorrect in its math and interpretations as to be farcical. Such obvious mistakes makes me wonder about the attention to detail of the Fools, which is a problem when you consider company analysis and stock picking is their proported focus.

Thirdly, while there are some good elements to what the book says, most of it is stuff that's been said before many times in other places - better places. If you're really interested in the subject of stock investing, the first place I would go is One Up On Wall Street, by Peter Lynch. I read that book back when it first came out - a looonnnggg time ago - and found it extremely useful. There's a reason it's one of the best selling stock investing books of all time. Of course there are also loads of Buffett books, but I'm not going to recommend any of those because frankly there aren't many who can invest the way Buffett does.

Bottom line, look elsewhere.
1179145
You can find tons of information online on various forums. This is literally one simple strategy this "author" uses. Boils down to his settings for an SMA cross. No information about forex, no technical nor fundamental analysis, nothing of depth or substance. Do yourself a favor and save your dollar. There are literally hundreds of strategies with settings and descriptions online, don't bother paying for one measly strategy. This was a waste.
4193770
Folks, this book will not apply to most readers.
I really wanted to understand and believe the method of this book because  I certainly could benefit from it. The theme is to extract equity from your home(s) now before the bubble deflates. Then you invest it into insurance products for a guaranteed return. The whole book builds the reader up to find that magical solution, which climaxes at the end with a table of financial calculations.

Here is the problem with this method. His base figures are unrealistic to start with. Current rates for equity extraction (home loan/credit or refinance) are *higher* than what he uses in his tables. The returns from a fixed insurance contract are much *lower* than his tables. If you plug realistic figures into the calculations you will see this method barely makes sense.

There are many huge disadvantages to this method. First the upfront and yearly fees are so expensive it does not make sense to withdraw your money for at least 6 to 7 years should you need it. Second, you are paying a price for the guaranteed fixed return in the term of management fees which lower your return. If you invested in a regular taxed mutual fund, over a long period of time you will always do better than the insurance fixed return. Third, insurance contracts are not wise vehicles for passing on wealth to beneficiaries. Sure there is a payout, but should you live far past your average life expectancy, the majority your accumulated funds go into the insurance company's vault forever! Fourth, the method mentioned in the book is convoluted and is in part based on a series of tax loopholes. That means, as the author does acknowledged, the legality and advantages may change or vanish over time.

With all these drawbacks, why was the book written?
This book is essentially a sales pitch disguised as a presentation of logic and calculations. But as mentioned, the figures used for the foundation of the calculations are simply not realistic.

Financial planners make their biggest commissions on insurance products. The author is a financial planner.

Most financial gurus (Susy Orman, etc.) dislike insurance contracts and advise that individuals plan their own investments.

However, for those who would like a lower fixed return for a price and are less concerned about passing on their wealth to beneficiaries, this method could possibly apply.
3778617
More of a book with statistics of how stocks trend after entering certain trend patterns than anything else. The author did numerous tests to find these statistics, which is all well and good, but the results mean absolutely nothing for the average investor. "My research found that this happened 37% of the time." Also a big problem I had was after the author shared a story about a woman who started trading options contracts. From what the author said it sounded like she had a dozen or so successful buy and hold trades under her belt and decided to give options a try. She ended up betting wrong and getting in over her head, wiping out her entire account. Now the problem with this story is that the author's "lesson" to be learned was to avoid using leverage unless you've been trading for 5+ years, which is NOT the problem. The problem was that she went into that trade with risk management as an afterthought; that was where she messed up big, and that's where the author should be teaching people to be mindful. His reaction was more in line with: "People have gotten injured in car crashes, you shouldn't drive a car because they're dangerous!"
2437562
I got this for my techie son-in-law, but many of the so-called "hacks" are low-tech tips and  tricks (carpentry, hand tools) that could be found in any magazine or newspaper column.  I was looking for cool things to do with obsolete computers, cell phones, and tech toys.  Only about half the items have any interesting technology in them.
I was glad I didn't pay cash, only Amex award points.  That's about what it's worth.
2944801
You won't survive retirement with this book but you may survive your investment choices because that is what the book focuses on (annuities, stocks, bonds, financial advisers, etc).  Problem is that income is only one side of the equation and the other side, expenses, are not covered.  For example you won't find anything about health care expenses and Medicare, even though that is or will become your largest budget line item.  Nothing about downsizing (home), but a little bit about reverse mortgages, which is probably outdated since this book was written in 2009.  Not much about budgeting or social security.  The book isn't real bad but I wish I had saved my money (I admit I got tricked by the AARP "stamp") since I did not learn much if anything from it.  I learned much more from Henry Hebeler's "getting started in a financially secure retirement", even though that book was written in 2007 before the financial collapse.  And if you, like me, no longer trusts Wall Street for the "must be safe" portion of your retirement income after the 2008 crisis, then this book will be of very little use to you.  But if you're in the enviable position of having secured your "safe retirement income" and can afford to gamble with the rest of your net worth, then that book might interest you, although you probably already mastered the art of investing if you got that level of net worth.
2317917
Just another expensive tech device to take up table space and gather dust.  Just not into the whole tech controlled devices thing.
4832260
Not that spectacular. Also requires you to get a live trading account before learning anything abuot Forex, which is very risky.
3592827
Way too expensive for what you get, and the fact it's not on LibGen is very disappointing. Access to information is becoming more exclusive to the wealthy and is honestly a crime, this is a racket, and should be illegal.