J. K. Lasser's Invest Online: Do-It-Yourself and Keep More of What You Earn

I really appreciated the way this book explained the ins and outs of investing. I'm fairly computer literate, so I skipped the parts explaining how to get online, but those were, thankfully, contained in a single chapter. The rest of the book is very readable, and contrary to what another reviewer said, the E-Trade affiliation was pretty much limited to a chapter demonstrating how to trade online. To be fair, this book does appear to be a joint effort with E-Trade. But the authors' advice is generic, and very, very well-written. I'd recommend it highly to anyone getting started in online investing. A suggestion to the writers if they're reading this: If you update the book, make a Web site!

There are a lot of books about investing and investing online and a dozen webpages for every book. None of them give to you a really good entry point and they leave a lot of essential fundamental terms undefined, which to us neophytes is maddening.This book might be a little bit superficial, depending on your personal knowledge and experience, but I have found it to be a good review and survey of the subject and it addresses a few things I've over looked.Remember, it is trying to develop a knowledge base in the individual that addresses computer basics and the computer's role as an enabling tool and the really almost unrelataed subject of investing. And, of course how the computer makes it possible for anyone can use the former as a tool for accomplishing the latter.I'm sure many of the web references have changed. I have not had time to check them out. Usually changes mean the page has been up-graded or it has died. The online investor will have to learn how to pursue this from experince. If he is not willing to do this he doesn't want to be investing online.The major weakness I noted was the introduction to part II promises to help the reader develop a strategy. It gets started but peters out. Most importantly they don't discuss development of entry and exit criteria and realization of profits and timing. "Holding and folding" (when), needs to be discussed.They give some pretty good one paragraph descriptions of the most basic technical indicators, but they talk about doing this AFTER you've acquired the equity.The cover talks about saving commissions as being paramount. We all want to do that but our real objective to grow our investment in a way that will suit our needs.Finally, like so many "how to" books, Gold and Post leave out the personal element, which indicates they are pretty fair reporters, but I am not sure they've tried any or all of the recipes they put in their books.Since the book was written in 1997 it is ready to be up-dated. Technology and services on-line have blossomed since then.But my intitial evaluation still holds, It's the best book I've found for the person getting started. But like most things, it doesn't do your work for you, but you might have a clue where to start and where to find out out more and how some of it fits together.

I was looking for a resource that gave me all the answers to my questions, this book did just that. Many resources, e-mail addresses and subjects grouped in a well organized fashion. This is a very easy to read book and I highly recommend it to all beginner and intermediate online-investors