No comments about Getting Started in Investment Clubs.

2 comments about The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting An Investment Club.

1. I was hesistant to purchase any book that in its title makes reference to the reader being an "idiot," but this book gives the fledgling investment club a good head start in organizing itself. The chapters progress logically from the history of investment clubs, to tax considerations, to keeping records of investments. Some sections are necessarily abridged, and the author points the reader to other, more robust sources (you should consult sources dedicated to the topic of stocks/mutual funds/bonds rather than rely on the section in this book). Each chapter gives good tips and warnings on how to run the club.

   One topic that the author seemed to treat lightly is online brokerages and trading. The author advocates seeking the advice of a full-service broker -- something that fledgling investment clubs may not be able to afford -- to handle the club's trading. Our investment club extensively uses online brokerage services and online resources to keep the monthly club contribution low.




2. Sarah Young Fisher provides excellent value for your $18.95 spent - 325 pages of useful information plus Glossary and Resources. Her thesis is important, even if it is more subtle than explicit: running an investment club is a bit more difficult than it looks. The best proof of this resides in the now famous Beardstown Ladies who thought they were earning 23 percent on their money, only to learn that the true figure was 9 percent. Put another way, as good as they thought they were, the ladies lacked the technical expertise to calculate their rate of return. Sarah is very clear about the start up costs (about $1200) and monthly costs (about $150) paid to lawyers, accountants, and book keepers - no small consideration. Then, of course, there are taxes to consider .... This is a good deal more complex than organizing a hiking club, and yet it is supposed to be FUN! Her most valuable piece of advice is: not even a good financial advisor has the same stake in your money as you do. Her most futile piece of advice is: don't get emotionally attached to a stock - a bit like asking humans not to be human. The contention that most clubs probably need a professional financial advisor to get started almost seems to take some fun out of the group adventure. Essentially, however, the book is very comprehensive, easy to read and understand, and an invaluable guide to any club starting up. Indeed, the book itself is a good investment!

5 comments about Investment Clubs for Dummies.

1. If your looking to start an invesment club - This book is a MUST have! Already have an invesment club - This book is a MUST have! It will prove to be helpful and informative for new and existing clubs. This book along with information provided by the National Association of Investors Corporation (NAIC) will help clubs become successful, long-term investors.



2. This book answered all of the questions I had about investment clubs. Written in a casual, easily accessible way, this book gave precise and detailed information about founding or finding a club.
   In the book, you'll learn about what work is actually involved with club membership; tips on assembling a group of committed people to be in a club with (plus tips on how to deal with troublesome member issues); and how to find and use investment and investment club resources to learn more about investing and to help keep your club running smoothly.
   Whether you are simply interested in what investment clubs are and how they work, or you are serious about starting or joining an investment club, this book is a clearly written and fun way to learn about clubs. By going through each step of starting or becoming involved with an investment club, by dissecting the language of the legal documents your club must maintain, and by providing examples of actual investment clubs, this book covers it all, and will be an invaluable resource for the life of your club.



3. I just got through reading a number of books on investing. I had heard of the investment club movement. I did not know much about them. This book is a gem.
   True to the series, it does have a gentle learning slope; there is nothing overwhelming, no challenging concepts. But it does break down the process of starting and running a club into clear, manageable pieces. I now want to start a club!
   The investment philosophy is compelling. I would certainly encourage anyone interested in starting an investment club to read this book.



4. As usual with the 'For Dummies' books, this one takes it easy. You can read it pretty quickly, it starts out quite simply and builds slowly. You don't think you're getting as much information as you are until you've finished.
   
   Again as usual, this book is written by a couple of people who combine personal experience with a casual relaxed writing style. (For what it's worth, I've tried writing like this and it isn't easy.)
   
   Most of us thinking about investment clubs already have some investing experience and think that we might be able to teach the club a lot. Most of us learn that the other people in the club can teach us a lot. Investment clubs attract the advanced amateur who bring specialized knowledge, their own experience, and above all enough questions that you might have forgotten to ask to make it well worth your while.
   
   Great Way to Get Started.



5. A great book on all aspects of starting a club. This is just what some friends and I are doing now - and I am so grateful that this book is available. It serves as a step-by-step "how to". Plus, it has great information on avoiding pit-falls and keeping club life fun and interesting.

5 comments about Investment Clubs: How to Start and Run One the Motley Fool Way.

1. My friends and I at my work place were interested in starting an investment club but we were not sure how to do it until one of the women said: "Aha, Motley Fool has put out a book about it!" So, we ordered the books, highlighted everything, and got excited about starting a club. And we did it all because of this book.



2. My sister and I were looking for info on starting an investment club for our family and we turned to the Motley Fool book. It was great for everyone in our family as we are all novices to the investing game. It was easy to read and everybody got through it before our first meeting. A big, big help!!!!



3. I have read both Starting and Running a Profitable Investment Club: The Official Guide from the National Association of Investment Clubs and The Investment Club Book in addition to this book.

   While the other two books are very thorough and very well done, this one is the easist to read and understand.

   I recommend all new Investment Club members to try this book.




4. My friends and I (all women) just recently started an investment club and this book was just great. It provided useful forms, guidelines and warnings on how to setup your club and who should be in your club. A lot seems like common sense and lot isn't. We took this book with it's nice forms, etc. and ran with it. Today we have a bonafide investment club, filed our taxes and have been making investments that make us happy (not necessarily rich).

   Like some of the others I bought other investment club books but you really don't need them. This one will do just as well and it's entertaining to boot.




5. In starting an investment club it's important that everyone involved has a good idea of what to expect from a club. In signing agreements and feeling as though you are going to be bound to a group for a long term endeavour, this book helps to ease the anxiety that goes along with the club forming experience.

   As with any other Motley Fool book this one has a reasonable balance of good, clear concise information, and foolish humor.

   As a primer for beginners, this book is the best I've seen. It has lots of samples of forms and the agreements and by-laws. It is written at a level that any investor should understand what is going on.

   I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in starting an investment club.

3 comments about The Millionaires' Club: How to Start and Run Your Own Investment Club and Make Your Money Grow.

1. This book is a must have for those taking the necessary steps to a bright financial future. This book provided necessary information on all aspects of investment clubs from startup to management. I highly recommend this book.



2. Let's face it. Personal finance is a drag. So many books, so much advice, and so much confusion. That is until you read the Millionaire's Club. Surprisingly, the author Brown does an excellent job. I say surprisingly because most personal finance writers seem to be just as dense as the very books that they keep churning out to the general public. Brown's book, however is short, clear and helpful. She's a straight shooter that believes in serving up no fuss and no muss personal finance. Millionaire's Club has got to be one of the best how-to investment club books currently on the market. I should know. I started an investment club three weeks after reading the book.

   churning out.do a poor job of explaining difficult of little to of cutting through the morass of information involved in started starting ersonal finance jargon boiling down difficult concepts and Starting an investment club is Brown's book is not original, but it certainly is




3. The author based this book on the official gude from the National Association of Investors Corporation, which is like the bible to organize investment clubs. But this book adds a lot of practical experience from other investment clubs that the official guide doesn't have. Go ahead and buy it if you are thinkiing of getting a good hold in organizing your investment club.

5 comments about A Trader on Wall Street: A Short Term Traders Guide.

1. This may be a decent read for someone newly introduced to investing, but for anyone with any sense about finance looking to learn trading strategies that are both practical and successful, this book is a waste of time. I think the author lives in a fairly tale world.



2. As a subscriber to a service that Mike Coval writes for that I enjoy, I had high hopes for a full length book written by him. Unfortunately, this book really sucks and the money I spent to buy it would have been better spent on just about anything else. Period. There is NOTHING of value here. By about page 10, I was fully convinced that I had been had, and realized all too late that this was just a poor excuse for a book.
   
   Please don't buy this - Buy the Josh Lukeman book, or any Alexander Elder book, or even a Cramer book. This thing stinks to high heaven.



3. Mike Coval has a n easy-to-read writing style designed for the new trader in mind. He provides all the information one needs to quickly and easily trade in a short-term manner. All one needs to provide is courage and a lack of emotion.



4. Aside from being liberally peppered with misspellings and grammatical errors, this book is organized in a sloppy and haphazard way. I recommend staying away from it, because any good information that can be found here is just too darn hard to mine out of the copious ore material.



5. If you day trade this is for you. If you option trade there will be parts that are very helpful

5 comments about History: Fiction or Science? Dating methods as offered by mathematical statistics. Eclipses and zodiacs. Chronology Vol.I.

1. There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
   
   For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.



2. Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.



3. Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun (ie. closer), different tilt on its axis (ie. less than 23.5 degrees), different orbit (ie. more circular), different rotation (ie. in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different relative positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently from how we would today? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history or geography is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.



4. Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RAZQNMXM4M9CL Has history been tampered with? Yes, it has! Did events and eras such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Roman Empire , the Dark Ages, and the Renaissance, actually occur within a very different chronology from what we've been told? Yes, they certainly did!
   
   The history of humankind is both drastically shorter and dramatically different than generally presumed.
   
   Why is it so? On one hand, it was usual custom to justify the claims to title and land by age and ancestry, and on the other the court historians knew only too well how to please their masters. The so called universal classic world history is a pack of intricate lies for all events prior to the 16th century. World history as we learn it today was entirely fabricated in the 16th-18th centuries. It's likely that nobody told you before, but
   
   there is not a single piece of firm written evidence or artefact that is reliably and independently dated prior to the 11th century.
   
   Naturally, after what you've learned in school and university, you will not easily believe that the classical history of ancient Rome, Greece, Asia, Egypt, China, Japan, India, etc., is manifestly false.
   
   You will point accusing finger to the pyramids in Egypt, to the Coliseum in Rome and Great Wall of China etc., and claim, aren't they really ancient, thousands of years ancient? Well, there is no valid scientific proof that they are older than 1000 years!
   
   The oldest original written document that can be reliably dated belongs to the 11th century!
   
   New research asserts that Homo sapiens invented writing (including hieroglyphics) only 1000 years ago. Once invented, writing skills were immediately and irreversibly put to the use of ruling powers and science.
   
   The consensual chronology we live with was essentially crafted in the 16th century by the Jesuits.
   
   The world history was compiled from contradictory mix of innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts and other irrefutable proofs delivered by late mediaeval astronomers that were cemented by the authority of writings of the Church Fathers.
   
   Early in life, we learn about ancient history. Children love the magical lessons of history - they are like fairy tales. Teachers recite breathtaking stories; very soon We learn by heart the names and deeds of brave warriors, wise philosophers, fabulous pharaohs, cunning high priests and greedy scribes.
   
   We learn of gigantic pyramids and sinister castles, kings and queens, dukes and barons, powerful heroes and beautiful ladies, emaciated saints and low-life traitors.
   
   Ancient history is based documents, manuscripts, printed books, paintings, monuments and artefacts - called primary sources.
   
   The problem is that neither these ancient documents, nor events described therein can be irrefutably dated, moreover they contradict each other for the most part.
   
   When a school textbook tells us that Genghis Khan in year X or Alexander in year Y, have each conquered half of the world, it means only that it is so said in some of the written sources.
   
   There are no answers to simple questions:
   
   When were these primary sources written?
   
   Where and by whom were these sources found?
   
   It is wrongly presumed that ancient and medieval chronicles, written by Genghis Khan's or Alexander the Great contemporaries and eyewitnesses, are readily available. Actually, only sources written hundreds or even thousands of years after the events are there, compiled mostly in the 16th 18th centuries, or even later.
   
   As a rule, these sources suffered considerable multiple manipulations, falsifications and distortions by editing. At the same time,
   
   innumerable originals of ancient documents under various pretexts were destroyed in Europe under various pretexts.
   
   The names of persons and geographical sites often changed meaning and location during the course of the centuries.
   
   Geographical locations became clearly defined on maps only with the advent of printing.
   
   This made possible the circulation of identical copies of the same map for purposes of the military, navigation, education and governance tasks.
   
   Historians from Oxford say: "hey, everybody knows that Julius Caesar lived in the first century B.C.
   
   `Julius Caesar' statement is only a point of view as
   
   there is simply no irrefutable documentary proof that Julius Caesar or any other great name of antiquity ever existed.
   
   Better than that - extremely rare sources that can be reliably dated back to the 10th-14th centuries A D, do not show the polished picture of classical history.
   
   They show a picture both contradictory and confusing.
   
   All methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts are erroneous:
   
   Radio-carbon C14 method produces dating with exactitude of plus minus 1500 years, therefore it is too crude for dating of events in historical timeframe!
   
   The Almagest tractate, which lies as corner stone contemporary chronology, compiled in the 2nd century A D by Ptolemy, the founding father of astronomy, contains astronomical data of 9th to 16th century!
   
   The Bronze Age,that has supposedly began 5000 years ago. Bronze is made of 90% copper and 10% tin, but the technology for tin extraction dates back to 14th century A D!.
   
   All eclipses contained in manuscripts, like Thucydides one, relating 'ancient' events have exclusively medieval dating. All horoscopes cut in stone or painted in Egyptian temples, like Dendera have exclusively early medieval dating solutions.
   
   Not quite what you have learned in school? Open your eyes, and, you will find sufficient proof to reach step by step the inevitable conclusion that the classical chronology is false and therefore, that the history of ancient and medieval world universally accepted today, is also false. Have a fresh outlook on everything said or printed about "ancient" and "enigmatic" Roman, Greek and Egyptian, medieval as well as all other "lost and found" civilizations.
   
   Antiquity and Dark Ages are phantoms invented in the 16th 18th and polished in 19th 20thcenturies. Human civilization is in fact barely 1000 years old!
   
   This book will change your perception of History forever!
   What if Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt were invented during Renaissance?
   What if The Old Testament was a rendition of events of the Middle Ages?
   What if Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086 AD?
   Sounds Unbelievable?
   Not after you've read "History: Fiction or Science?" by Anatoly Fomenko, the genius mathematician.
   Armed with astronomy and computers Anatoly Fomenko turns History into a rocket science.



5. The professional historians faint as prominent mathematician Doctor Fomenko et al research the known historical data and come to fairly controversial conclusions.
   
   For example, the English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. As the sign of recognition of the special role of the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.
   
   The Russian historians brand it as pseudoscience because Dr Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by over two centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called `Tartars and Mongols' were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a trilingual state and aspiring Global Empire with Arabic and Turkic spoken as freely as Russian.
   
   The ancient proto-Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities and the hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called `blood tax'). Their `invasions' were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion.
   
   Fomenko proves for a fact that official Russian history is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scholars brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs. Their ascension to the throne was the result of conspiracy, so they charged these German historians-imports with the noble mission of making Romanov's reign look legitimate.
   
   Dr Fomenko et al prove Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. These rulers represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate Godounovs and the ambitious Romanov upstarts.
   
   The European historians fume not only because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History but for asserting that all medieval European Kings and Princes were but breakaway vice-regents and vassals of the Global Empire who badly needed glorious and very `ancient' past in order to legitimize their new independence from the Empire.
   
   Dr Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one: the Ancient Rome: the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the 14th century A. D., the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, the Ancient Egypt: the pyramids of Giza become dated to the 11th to 14th century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global Empire, no less.
   
   The civilization of the `ancient'' Egypt is irrefutably dated to the 11th to 15th century A. D. following the breakthrough in decoding of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone and painted on the temple walls.
   
   Arabic historians may find some consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire as a part of the Global empire in the 15th - 17th century. The trouble is that this Empire was initially a proto-Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, but built in 1550-1557 A.D. by Sultan Suleiman according to Fomenko and Islam with all its key figures is datable to 15th 16th century A. D.!
   
   The Chinese historians are also an unhappy lot because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such history. Period. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the 17th 18th century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation.
   
   The Divinity excommunicates Dr Fomenko because the history of religions according to Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the 11th century and Jesus Christ ), Bacchic Christianity (11th to 12th century, before and after Jesus Christ), Jesus Christ Christianity (12th to 14th century) and its subsequent mutations (15th to 17th cy) into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on..; and The Old Testament written after the New Testament in xiv-xvi cy A.D., if you please! Everybody served? Saint Augustine was quite prescient when he said: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."

5 comments about Chicks Laying Nest Eggs : How 10 Skirts Beat the Pants Off Wall Street...And How You Can Too!.

1. It sounds to me like people either loved or hated this book. I'm in the middle. The content was excellent for beginning investors. Even though the math may have been a bit elementary, sometimes a refresher is needed! Skip over the examples if you have just graduated from Harvard.
   I am going to be starting an investment club and have read a few books on it now. This one is very light-hearted, even if you don't think her humor is. It does, however, allow one to read more than one chapter without falling asleep, a problem I did have with another book.
   What is comes down to is this -- this book is full of IDEAS, a place to start. Some of us ARE middle-class stay-at-home moms and some of us aren't. It really doesn't matter either way. She is showing us what worked for her and her club. It is up to us to decide which information we would like to use and which information we could care less about.
   I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in forming an investment club, or just learning a few of the ways to go about researching, choosing and following stocks.



2. This book is written in a coffee klatch style, with great ideas and simple explanations. While there is a lot more chatting than content, it keeps the book from being dry and boring. And the content IS good, especially for those who are starting at the very beginning and need the basics explained. I recommend that you read the excerpts to see if her style is okay for you. If so then buy the book!



3. The first problem I had with this book was the incredibly condescending attitude by the writer. Just because *she* was completely clueless about their family investments doesn't mean the rest of the *housewives* in the country are. She continually talked down to her readers and spoke absolutely horribly about her children. Whether she was joking or not, I found her style extremely offensive. This breastfeeding, clothing diapering, homeschooling mother who happens to love her children didn't fit into ANY of the stupid examples she used.

   But I muddled through those first few chapters to get to the meat of the matter - The Chicks Dozen. This is the all-knowing formula that one must run each potential company through before buying the stock. The problem? It worked fine when the bulls were running full steam last summer and they went with primarily tech stocks. Now? Their portfolio is a total loser and they were hit hard. I mean HARD. I notice they don't even publish the numbers on their site any longer.

   As it is now, I don't think ANY company would fit into their standards and, in fact, they've changed strageties completely (I mean a COMPLETE reversal!) and are now going with mutual funds. There was page after page in the book BASHING mutual funds and now they've realized that putting all your eggs into single stocks in this bear market just doesn't wash.

   They may have beat the men on Wall Street for ONE YEAR, but they sure aren't clucking now. So save your money and check out their website to see their current strategies because they've changed their tune. You'll also notice that one of the members has already left.

   Didn't anyone at the publishing company *read* this book with it's hogwash advice before publishing it?




4. Like all flash-in-the-pan popular "investment books" this one had a lucky run, until....errr, uhhhh, ......the portfolio began to stink.
   
   There is an iron rule for "popular" investment books: avoid them.
   
   Instead, look at the easy-to-read books written by investment pros: John Train, Warren Buffett's annual reports (those are very inexpensive), Ben Stein, Joel Greenblatt, and Andrew Tobias.
   
   If you are a frazzled housewife who wants to have an investment club made up of folks similar to yourselves and put together a market beating portfolio this book will lead you astray. For tips you can e-mail me.
   
   Full disclosure: my wife also is a professional portfolio manager, mother of two, and is a better investment manager than me. What Professor of Finance would ever admit that? An honest one.



5. Put you money into a small company out of Chicago called CytoCore that is going to revolutionize the PAP test. Stock symbol CYOE.
   
   Huge and I mean huge market potential. Will become the "standard of care" in the cervical cancer detection industry.
   
   Get in now and watch your profits grow.

5 comments about King of the Club: Richard Grasso and the Survival of the New York Stock Exchange.

1. A few years ago, when I first heard of Mr. Grasso's salary I recoiled in shock. The presentation of the "facts" by the press led me like the pied piper to this inevitable reaction. Simply stated, I believe I reacted in the way that the news media wanted me to; in a sense I was programmed by the coverage to react the way I did. In retrospect, there may have been some balanced reporting out there at the time; I did not read everything or even a great deal about the case. It seemed so open and shut.
   
   I purchased this book, not so much because it was about the NYSE and Mr. Grasso, but because I admire the author. Now, I admire the author even more and I have, at last, been exposed to a balanced account of the "Grasso story." Although I doubt that Mr. Gasparino intended it, I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Grasso's pay was what his peers thought it should be. Mr. Grasso's detractors say that he stacked the compensation committee and the board with his allies.
   
   All of us who work for institutions have their pay determined by others. Furthermore, some of us, including me, have cultivated those who determine their pay and have received above average salary advancement on a consistent basis, often because of this cultivation. Besides schmoozing those who set our pay, most of us try to excel at our jobs and thus repay the organization for our compensation. In Mr. Grasso's case there is so much objective evidence that he executed extraordinarily as an employee of the NYSE, at all position levels, that I find it difficult to rationalize the attacks made on him.
   
   Bad "optics" is used to explain the awkwardness of Mr. Grasso's salary package at the time of its revelation to the public at large. Having been the victim of negative "optics" about my own salary level, I understand what this meant for Mr. Grasso. In his case, as in mine, people thought they could gain personally by making attacks on the level of compensation. There is no point complaining about the unfairness of this process, e.g. standards being applied selectively by a person to justify an attack on another person. Where "politics" intervenes, and it often does, fairness flees.
   
   Mr. Gasparino's book reveals much about the "politics" of the stock marketplace and how the objectives of various players conflict with one another in this highly competitive world. The oft heard complaint that Mr. Grasso was the chief regulator of the NYSE members and therefore should not have received such a high salary, becuase regulators are never paid very much, smells bad or, at best is simply naive. It is true that ONE of Mr. Grasso's MANY responsibilities was that of a regulator but his primary function was to promote the welfare of the NYSE and its member organizations. This he did superbly and, for what it's worth, I have the impression that he was not such a bad regulator given all of the conflicts of interest that are inherent in any system of what is euphemistically called "self regulation."
   
   Perhaps, I should say that I know none of the players in this story. In fact, I have never been inside the NYSE building and have never had any connection with the financial industry other than as small stock holder. After reading the book, I am kind of glad that I've had no connection. Furthermore, as much as I now admire Mr. Grasso because of this book, I would not want to ever have reported to him. His relentless obsession with the NYSE and his successful job execution make him a "larger than life" figure in the history of the exchange and the exchange, if it has not already done so, should prominently display his portrait with accolades or even a statue with an appropriate positive inscription on its base. His obsession would also have made him an unbearable boss for me, at least that is what my decades of direct experience of bosses leads me to believe.
   
   Mr. Gasparino's book certainly opened my eyes. I believe that anyone whose mind is not already closed on the subject could learn something new about the "life and times of Mr. Grasso at the NYSE," by reading this book. Regardless, for the outsider, this book reveals a great deal about the NYSE and its inner workings. Congratulations Mr. Gasparino on a fine and balanced piece of financial reporting!



2. Gasparino proves himself to be one of the most tuned in reporters of Wall Street in this fascinating gossipy book about the rise and self inflicted fall of Dick Grasso as the head of the New York Stock Exchange. Gasparino obviously has done a lot of digging; replete with inside stories, quotes from most of the participants, and leaks, they all paint a vivid landscape of the machinations of the Street and the politics of New York City. What is remarkable is the long term brilliance of some and the myopia of others as the institution of the Exchange is changed by Grasso's fall. The Aesopian tale of the scorpion and the frog comes to mind in the interplay of Spitzer and Grasso. Once allies, they boarded the raft together until the existing pay package scandal was exacerbated by John Reed and his investigation. One can all but imagine Grasso asking, "why me?" To which the now disgraced scorpion responds "it is in my nature." How true that all seems in the aftermath of Spitzer's fall into the mire of call girl scandal.



3. Interesting and informative read about one of the bigger scandals on Wall street in recent years, that of Richard Grasso's huge retirement package. Executive pay is something most of us can easily get riled up about, and the book seems to do a good job giving us both sides of the story so we avoid seeing it as a black and white issue. In the end the issue may not be the pay itself, but the chain of events and lack of oversight that lead up to it. What interested me more than the executive pay issue itself was getting some insight into the power-plays and politics involved on Wall Street, which even today must be playing itself out with the collapse of Bear Stearns and the Spitzer scandal making the most recent headlines.
   
   The book also sheds some light on the internal workings at the NYSE, although I think it could've gone into much more depth about issues dealing with shady behavior by NYSE specialists, and other ways the system seems to be screwing the small investors.There are mentions of front-running, inter-positioning, manipulation, big fines paid by the specialists, quotes such as specialists having a "license to steal".. but in the end, I'm left wondering what became of all this. How much money did they "steal" from the 401K's? Did I somehow get screwed when I bought/sold a NYSE stock? One thread in the book also dealt with the particularly persistent CEO of AIG trying to get the specialist to give more support to the stock. Perhaps this is the advantage a company receives by being listed on the NYSE, but as a normal investor, the idea of the specialist giving artificial support to a stock based on the CEO's wishes is a scary one if not outright illegal.
   
   All-in-all an enjoyable read for anyone interested in learning more about what really happens on Wall Street.



4. I'm not sure who was the first person to make that statement, but after reading Gasparino's book it certainly rings true. I've always been a Grasso fan after seeing him shrug off being called "the little bald-headed crook" on the Imus program. Imus of course makes his living insulting (usually) important people, some of whom don't take it kindly... Grasso (and the NYSE) were also big contributors to the Imus Ranch for Kids with Cancer -- a great cause.
   
   On the other hand, I never could understand how the specialists (whose existence Grasso defended against powerful critics like Fidelity and Goldman Sachs) could actually add value to what is basically an auction. Ebay, for example, seems to work fine by automatically managing its marketplace, and as a private investor I can't tell the difference between an NYSE transaction or a NASDAQ one except on the NASDAQ I can view "level 2 quotes" (an explanation of which is outside the scope of this review).
   
   But Grasso deserves credit for building (and, after 9/11 rebuilding) the NYSE. And you can certainly make a case for some kind of human interface after seeing what happened during the '87 crash.
   
   Charlie Gasparino has an informal but precise writing style. It's as if you're having a beer with him after a hard day trading, and he lightens things up relating tales like Maria Bartiromo (from the floor of the exchange on live CNBC TV) being nearly run over (and then cussed-out) by an NYSE trader in hurry. After questioning 17 of the "animals", the culprit was identified, fined, and had a black mark on his "permanent record". Of course having a glamorous anchor mingling with "real" traders on live TV was at least one area where the hated NASDAQ could never compete...
   
   Now that the NYSE is nearly all electronic like the NASDAQ, and most of the specialists and traders are out of a job, a long chapter in the US stock market history is at a close. A bigger threat to both may be the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, which is causing overseas corporations to question the value of listing on ANY US exchange.
   
   After reading the book, I'm still a big Grasso fan and think if the titans running Goldman, Bear, etc. were worth their (much bigger) paychecks then the "little guy" certainly deserved his...



5. An interesting work that provides an inside picture of not only the NYSE, Wall Street but also some of the powerful people involved in high finance and corporate America. This book is particularly for you if you are looking for a detailed biography of Grasso. I was looking forward to reading about the pay controversies involving the 140 million retirement cash payout with a contested 48 million additional sum and the battle with Elliott Spitzer over, what was construed, as an excessive payment for a non-profit company. The interest in pay and Spitzer's involvement doesn't really take off until roughly 180 plus pages. However, the first half of the book covers well Grasso's rise from humble means and start with the NYSE, his involvement with the floor traders, his rise, his ability to recruit companies to the NYSE and his ability to promote the NYSE with the ringing of the bell each day with celebrity and his getting the NYSE up and running after 9-11. And there is some glitz about Grasso's high power associations, dinner at Rio's and his celebrity. The fall starts with the emergence of his pay package that grows with one of his strongest supporters on the compensation board with significant salary increases that are often deferred into a NYSE retirement account. Although hard to fathom, even after reading the book, it seems that many on the compensation board, although recognizing the value of Grasso, seem to lose focus on what he is getting paid until Grasso decides to cash out 140 million all at once. Changes on the NYSE board that impact Grasso included current Treasurer Secretary Henry Paulson, with Goldman Sachs at the time, who, according to the author, undermines Grasso's position with the NYSE exchange board through back channels with the intention of modernizing the NYSE from floor traders to a computerized system. In addition, the failure of a former political associate of Spitzer's who acts as chair of the compensation review committee had great difficulty to comprehending Grasso's pay package that leads to conflicts that catch many members of the board surprised. Many of the NYSE board are well known names that range from Mel Karmazin, a Grasso supporter, to former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who allegedly supported Grasso initially but turned against him. The book really takes an interesting turn when Grasso's pay goes public and his rare failure in public relations goes into over drive when he also tries to get a pal on the NYSE board after the individual had just been publicly run through by Spitzer. Also heating up the book is the coverage of the interim NYSE chairman's John Reed's loose cannon statements that irk the recently departed Grasso into fighting back full bore (amazing how supposedly smart people can say the wrong things publicly.) My only misgivings is that I wish there was more detail about the Spitzer v. Grasso fight over Grasso's pay that is only addressed in the final stages of the book and very lightly. However, by the end of the book, the NYSE moves from floor trading to a more modern computerized method of doing business during the chairman tenure of John Thain, formerly of Goldman & Sachs and an associate of Paulson's.

5 comments about Starting and Running a Profitable Investment Club: The Official Guide from The National Association of Investors Corporation Revised and Updated.

1. Everything you need to know about investment clubs. You don't need to be part of a club to profit from this book. The one down side is that the writing style can be heavy going at times. The authors know their choosen field but the worked examples could have been better layed out. The book is full of tips and tools for the would-be investor. This book is the current standard when it comes to this subject.



2. This is a must read for anyone wanting to start an investment club or who is thinking of joining an existing club. While some portions of the book, at first, may be a bit overwhelming for a new investor, it all comes together easily and clearly. The questions to ask potential members, brokers, and others all help to insure that if your club is not succesful, it will be because of the market's performace and not your structure.



3. The strength of this book is that it's quite easy to read. The book is a great resource for beginning investors who are interested in forming an investment club. It can make for a great present to each member of your family. My brother got me this book as a present, and I finished it in a night; the following morning, we had devised a way to start a family investment club. I find myself contantly referring back to this book, especially the Apendices; the Glossary provided is rich with terms every investor needs to know--if you don't know the lingo, how do you expect to make any money?



4. This books shows you how to get started with an investment club. Such clubs are great educational opportunities, yet I have never seen an investment club help its members learn about options. In today's troubled markets, hedging with options makes good sense. THE SHORT BOOK ON OPTIONS explains how investment clubs can use options to generate the "expected" profits more quickly. Get both of these books and establish your investment club as one that reaps additional profits using options.



5. This book will give new clubs information on reading annual reports, preparing and using N.A.I.C. tools such as the Stock Selection Guide and more. This is the Investment Club Bible.