Fundamentals of Investing with Internet Guide for Finance (8th Edition)

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Summary: Highly recommended by a Senior Vice President of Investing
Review: Came recommended to me by a Senior VP of Investments at a large city securities group. Touted as the "bible" of the basics of investing, the market types, and everything needed to understand these markets today. If you need to learn about investing, this should be your ground zero...

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Summary: Textbook comes with excellent portfolio simulation -- OTIS
Review: Contrary to what the Editorial Review above states, this textbook does NOT come with StockTrack. Fortunately, it comes with an excellent program -- OTIS, an Online Trading and Investment Simulator developed at Wharton, the world famous business school. The simulation program allows you to "buy" and "sell" a whole range of real securities, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, EFTs and derivatives, so you can test out the investment concepts from the textbook. It's just like using a program like eTrade, except you don't use real money. You can test out your investment ideas, and the software tracks your portfolio value using real market data.

The Gitman/Joehnk textbook itself is a fine textbook for someone who has not studied investment theory before, and is ideal for personal investors who want a solid foundation in the essential concepts, tools, and latest technologies they need to be successful.

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Summary: A "Must Have" book for beginning investors!
Review: Fundamentals of Investing leaves a good deal to be desired as a textbook for a first course on investments. It is too wordy, being nearly 700 pages in length (not including tables or the index), making it somewhat challenging to cover the entire book in a single college semester.

As with any book, Fundamentals of Investing has its good features and its bad features. The chapter on investment planning (chapter 3) is quite good as it gives the reader an understanding of the motivation for investing. Another good feature about the book is the treatment of the security analysis process and how the investor should approach the analysis of investments for inclusion in a portfolio.

However, the deficiencies of the book appear to outweigh its benefits. First, the authors appear to assume that the reader is already familiar with the concept of the time value of money (TVM). Since the TVM concept is vital in assessing the worth of an investment to an investor, a reader that is unfamiliar or not well versed in the TVM concept is likely not to fully understand how securities are valued. Second, many of the examples given in the book are not always of great help in assisting the reader in understanding the concepts that were presented. Finally, the problems at the end of each chapter do not seem to provide much of a challenge to the reader to apply the concepts that were covered in the chapter to reinforce what was supposed to have been learned.

On the whole, the book can be useful in introducing the reader to the investment process and in understanding the variety and value of different types of securities. But a reader who is less familiar with investing can do better than to buy this book.

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Summary: Fundamentals of Investing, 7th
Review: Fundamentals of Investing leaves a good deal to be desired as a textbook for a first course on investments. It is too wordy, being nearly 700 pages in length (not including tables or the index), making it somewhat challenging to cover the entire book in a single college semester.

As with any book, Fundamentals of Investing has its good features and its bad features. The chapter on investment planning (chapter 3) is quite good as it gives the reader an understanding of the motivation for investing. Another good feature about the book is the treatment of the security analysis process and how the investor should approach the analysis of investments for inclusion in a portfolio.

However, the deficiencies of the book appear to outweigh its benefits. First, the authors appear to assume that the reader is already familiar with the concept of the time value of money (TVM). Since the TVM concept is vital in assessing the worth of an investment to an investor, a reader that is unfamiliar or not well versed in the TVM concept is likely not to fully understand how securities are valued. Second, many of the examples given in the book are not always of great help in assisting the reader in understanding the concepts that were presented. Finally, the problems at the end of each chapter do not seem to provide much of a challenge to the reader to apply the concepts that were covered in the chapter to reinforce what was supposed to have been learned.

On the whole, the book can be useful in introducing the reader to the investment process and in understanding the variety and value of different types of securities. But a reader who is less familiar with investing can do better than to buy this book.

Rating:
Summary: Caution
Review: This book although well written was disappointing because it only covers the fundamentals and the basics of investments and portfolios. I suppose I was looking for something more in depth and challenging and this wasn't the write book. But if you are looking to learn the basics this book seems like a good start.

Rating:
Summary: Caution
Review: This book although well written was disappointing because it only covers the fundamentals and the basics of investments and portfolios. I suppose I was looking for something more in depth and challenging and this wasn't the write book. But if you are looking to learn the basics this book seems like a good start.

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Summary: Definately a bad choice for students...
Review: This is your typical beginner book on investments. The book is separated into 6 categories, each category having 2 chapters apiece. These categories are, The Investment Environment, Important Conceptual Tools, Investing in Common Stock, Portfolio Management, and Derivative Securities. Although, one can see that the book seems to broken down nicely in each category, the examples illustrated in this book are very sketchy, and at times hard to follow.

What makes this book so difficult to follow is that at the end of each chapter, you are given a set of review questions to practice what you learned. This is very bad if your professor assigns the book, but doesn't use it. Now, this is the catch. There are NO answers for these review questions anywhere in this book. In fact, the only way one can possibly get these study question answers is if her or she is the professor. In order to do this, you have to login to the author's page as the "educator." Of course, students who buy this book for class, will only have student access which only enables them to see what they "need" to have learned from each chapter, and access to a small pc program that solves everything for you. A nice tool, but kind of pointless if you do not know what you are doing in the first place. Oh yea, did I mention you only have a 6 month subscription to this "service." I do not want to call it a service by any means, since its useless.

In short, if you are a student, or want to get the general ideas of investment, Do NOT buy this book, since you will never know if you are applying the principles that you learned from this book properly. I had no choice but to buy this book, but if you can avoid this book, please do, and save yourself a headache or two.

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Summary: A "Must Have" book for beginning investors!
Review: Time for me to upgrade to the Seventh Edition! I used Fundamentals of Investing, Fourth Edition around 10 years ago in a college course at WCTC in Waukesha, WI. My instructor was a V.P. at a major brokerage house. It was one of the best and most rewarding college courses I ever took. We covered the entire book in one semester.

As with any book, Fundamentals of Investing will please some and not others. This book lays the foundation for investing by covering topics such as stocks, bonds, insurance, and the like along with understanding the risks of each. This book is not a "get rich quick" self help book. You will not find "trendy ways" to invest, hence the title "Fundamentals of Investing."

This book is where I learned Time Value of Money (TVM). Before I learned of TVM and investing, my retirement plan consisted of the value of my home and social security. Now I am well on my way to achieving my goal; retiring as comfortable as or better than I live now. If there is any social security when I retire it will be a bonus.

On the whole, this book (including my 4th edition) is useful even as a reference to the investment process. I use it to refresh my understanding of the variety and types of securities. Others may disagree but this is my investment bible. It has paid for itself time and time again by reminding me of the basic "Fundamentals of Investing."

You can remove a lot of risks to investing if you read and understand those investments in "Fundamentals of Investing."

Rating:
Summary: Look up
Review: Well i found it an interesting book but the thing is that it should also be in eastern economy eddition also.