Online Investing For Dummies

I had requested this for review copy of online investing for Dummies as I have had something of a "hobby investor" interest in shares and trading for some time after speaking to someone at a social gathering who was discussing their "portfolio".As it turned out this book has way, way more information than any "hobby investor" would need, I am unsure if it would qualify as sufficient for someone planning an investing career path but its definitely enough for someone who wishes to invest with a lump sum. The writing is accessible and I did not feel that you needed any prior knowledge, it also exhibits nothing in the way of "padding out", at all, this bares a mention as I've bought plenty of books about investing that were absolutely useless and the opposite of enlightening or informative. Also the style and pace of writing is good, you could simply be reading this out of interest without any plan to invest and I believe it would prove interesting and informative (which I actually would recommend to the general reader).The book has all the usual features of a Dummies book, fans will be familiar but anyone new to the genre can expect to find a condensed contents, an expanded/concise contents, (all of which makes searching for specific details that much easier) there is a good index, chapter point summaries on the first page of a chapter, good use of headings, subheadings, indented text, bullet points, (all of which avoids the dreaded "wall of text") and some useful eye catching key indicating hints, technical information, warnings etc.Recommended, this is a good addition to the Dummies range, its also good if you are interested in finance, and finally I found this more useful than the two other books in the Dummies range on personal finance that I have read (one on investments and one on personal finance). The section of tens, was very good, particularly some of the content about protecting information online. Recommended.

I am an extremely novice investor and to date, my approach has almost been scatter gun in nature, believing that diversification is key. As such, I have invested small amounts in a large number of funds, picked almost at random. This might explain why I got burnt in the Neil Woodford debacle.As I progress throughout my working career and hopefully build up a pension pot for retirement, I thought that there was probably no better time to become more familiar with investing and its terminology (particularly when markets have scaled back quite significantly from their recent peaks). As such, I thought this book might be an ideal reference guide. However, as it turns out, it isn't.Unfortunately, this book is much too focused on the USA investor to be of much practical benefit. As part of the explanation of key considerations which need to be made as part of any investment decisions e.g. what risk you're willing to take, whether to be an active or passive investor, researching shares (it calls them stocks), there are links provided to various external resources where further research can be undertaken. However, these are typically USA based websites, focusing on the USA market, rather than markets generically.In addition, the whole of chapter 3 of the book is almost completely irrelevant because it explains the impact of tax on your investment and tries to explain the benefits of investing via a 401k and whether you might pay 0%, 15% or 20% capital gains tax. All of this is completely irrelevant for the UK investor because we have a completely different system of taxation.There are some aspects of the book which are useful in providing generic guidance, such as explanations as to why markets move and the importance of earnings on the prices of shares etc. However, if you're looking for practical, investment advice as to how to get started and specific things to look out for as a UK investor, unfortunately, you won't find it in this book.

This book is a beginner's guide to online investing. It is a very comprehensive and detailed book but it is written for an American audience. Some parts of the book are still useful in that they cover all the different types of online investments that you can consider. The problem is that the majority of the book isn't that useful for a UK audience. For example, the tax section is pretty much useless given that it spends multiple pages explaining things such as how to set up your 401(K) plan which is obviously not relevant to readers outside the US. Even in the more general sections the resources they suggest are all for US readers or are at least better suited to US readers. I think someone in the UK interested in online investment would be better off buying a book published for a UK audience even if the online investments themselves are available internationally.

Online investing is very interesting and enticing, the promise of high returns makes you want to keep going, and the idea that it is safer than betting is very appealing, however, you still risk losing a lot of money and especially so if you do not understand what you are doing. So having a book that clarifies some distant concepts and the overall process is much needed for a beginner.Although it is targeted at the US market with some of the things such as 401k, there is a lot of useful information about investing as a whole which is important for the beginners to understand and know more about. And as it says in the book, the information that has been assembled there is verified and ensures consistency rather than looking it up online where each person might have different views and approaches.Online investing is investing in the comfort of your home through smart devices, you just need to learn where to find useful information about investing and put it to the good use. This book provides ideas on where to find the information, a lot of websites, especially newspapers and reports from stock exchanges. The tax section is not that useful for the UK, but you can easily find the information on legal websites.Overall, this book provides ways on how to get started with investing and not actually in which ways to invest and how much (stocks, shares, bonds, etc.), usually you will need to do your own research before investing (stock trends, economic trends, company reports).

I have bought a few "for dummies" guides over the years and as a result have become quite proficient in photography, astronomy and critical thinking, but like most people I have dreams of retiring and making my money work for me. Also, again like most people, I know very little about investing and turning acorns into oak trees. I had high hopes for this book.Make no mistake, this is not an idiots guide and makes no claims about making you a millionaire, but what it does do is explain a lot of very complicated stuff in a less complicated, step-by-step way that the majority of people will be able to follow if they put in a bit of time and effort. It seems to me to be written for an American audience and I'm guessing the author is an American (references to baseball cards, etc) but it work s pretty well for a UK based person too.Have I invested in anything yet? No, because I'm still researching and deciding how I want to go about doing this, but rather than putting me off it has made me realise that it's not as simple as buying a few shares and watching the profits roll in. This is a serious book to help you achieve a strategic aim, it's just has no pretensions and is written in an accessible way.