Jim Cramer’s Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World
Posted by admin on Dec 2, 2007
By K. Johnson
Here are some of the rules that we are pummeled with again:
Cramer’s 25 rules:
RULES:
1. Bulls, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered.
OK, Mr. Gecko.
2. It’s OK to pay the taxes.
Specifics on how to reduce and write them off?
3. Don’t buy all at once.
Dollar Cost Averaging
4. Buy damaged stocks, not damaged companies.
Buy value
5. Diversify to control risk
Diversify, diversity, diversify - if you don’t have a clue what you are investing in.
6. Do your stock homework.
Sounds like a good idea. Or you can pay a venal discount broker.
14. Expect, don’t fear corrections.
Just sell before the tank.
15. Don’t forget bonds.
As set allocation and diversify, diversify, diversify.
23. Beware of Wall Street hype.
Agreed.
“Wall Street is the only place I know where people drive Rolls Royces and give money to people to invest who take the subway to work.” –Warren Buffet.
An important piece of advice for me is to just ‘cut the loser.’ If something has been a dog for a sooooo long, sell it, and move on. How many people just sit and look at a declining chart, and just do nothing? Would you buy it now? If not, then jettison the dog.
Jim Cramer is entertaining. In subject matter such as quarterly reports and balance sheets, his energy, enthusiasm, and eccentricity is needed and welcomed. Otherwise, we might fall asleep. We need a good balance of a hype : substance ratio.
“Confessions of a Street Addict,” was enthralling, and Cramer is one of those “experts,” who has proven himself being a top-end trader and extremely successful hedge fund manager. This said, today is today and his picks for the future in the year 2000 were of companies that have collapsed: they are gone. Don’t even exist.
However, what I like in his latest book here, is that he bucks (a little) the safe, boring, and potentially lethal strategy of “buy and hold” (forever). If a broker or trader is good, they don’t buy and hold, they buy right, sell right, and sit on growth right.
This book is marketed with some “RA-RA” and toward people who want to learn how to calculate a P/E ratio. He does advocate spending one hour a week studying each company that you hold stock in. However, this book is not for those who want to “learn” how to invest or pick stocks and mutual funds better. It’s interesting for those that are interested in the market, even if occasionally, as well as the people in it, and the stories behind it.
Jim Cramer’s Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World
The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey
Posted by admin on Dec 2, 2007
By D.Buxman
This book is extremely readable and contains a tremendous amount of helpful information in the areas of personal finance and debt reduction/elimination. Dave Ramsey makes a compelling argument for the elimination of all debt by rather extreme means. He exposes the common myths spread by the credit industry and offers a solution for eliminating debt through something he calls The Debt Snowball. My only complaints center around the fact that he advocates mutual funds as a means to achieving 12% returns over the long run and that he advocates National Guard service as a means of paying for college. I’m not sure that mutual funds can be counted on for 12% in the long run, and National Guard service these days can involve exciting times in far away locations like Iraq, which make the cost/benefit analysis a bit unappealing. However, this isn’t a book about investing and the college financing advice is otherwise quite helpful. I’m sold on the concept of The Total Money Makeover!
The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
