[.ca] The Irwin Guide to Using the Wall Street Journal (ISBN 0071416641)

From Amazon.com:
It's quaint that in this day of search engines to help us find more search engines, some old-fashioned reference books are still perennial sellers. When The Irwin Guide to Using The Wall Street Journal premiered in 1984, the future day traders of the world weren't trading much more than Atari cartridges. So, the advent of this sixth edition--penned, as ever, by Michael B. Lehmann, a University of San Francisco economics professor who has developed a popular seminar class around it--receives a round of well-deserved kudos. Even if, that is, its title remains a bit of a misnomer. For this is not, nor has ever it been, so much a guide to using the WSJas it is a tidy primer on the fundamental workings of the U.S. economy and stock markets, intended not just to help readers enjoy the WSJ more, but to help them more fully comprehend what they read there. Lehmann covers just about everything, like a rigorous-but-not-draconian year of Economics 101: from how and why interest rates affect markets and when to expect the next recession to the Federal Reserve's impact on your investment portfolio and which fixed-income market is right for you. The guided tour Lehmann gives is well organized and accessible to the average financial layperson who can handle sentences slightly longer than those in USA Today and doesn't think "Federal Reserve" refers to an early 19th-century architectural style. A certain amount of patience may be called for, too: though no opaque academic text, The Irwin Guide is far from one of those Dummies/Idiots books that somehow crams the greatest matters of civilization into what generally look like coloring books for adults. Lehmann's text is dense, relieved only occasionally by various charts or articles previously published in the WSJ. Curious is the near-total absence of terms you would have expected to see in an update from the 1996 edition--terms like "Internet," "dot-com," and "WWW." But after six editions you have to think that Lehmann's a sly one--maybe he speaks most eloquently of how the current dot-com/IPO mania will play in the long term by saying absolutely nothing. --Timothy Murphy

Very Useful Material:
I invest extensively in the stock market and had been looking for an economics book which is practical and detailed (but not overally technical like a college textbook). This book was exactly what I needed. This book's focus is on the data and what is is saying about economic conditions. The beginning of the book is historical and general then goes into detailed explainations of the economic data reported in the WSJ (as well business TV shows and on the internet). The data is explained clearly and concisely, and its impact shown with graphs overlaid with recession periods. The book includes data leading up through the stock market bubble of the late 90's ending just before the bubble burst. I would recommend this book to someone who is looking for a practical guide to understanding economic data and what it is saying about the overall economy. The book's emphasis is on the data available to the general public and its implications, not economic theory.

Highly recommended:
This book is an excellent introduction to how the U.S. economy works, what the Federal Reserve system and Alan Greenspan do, and how the economic information published regularly in the Wall St. Journal can be used to follow and forecast business and economic trends. The book is clearly written and easy to follow. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about how the economy works, and/or wants a greater understanding of what they read in the Wall Street Journal.

Good Monetary Primer:
This book is a good introduction to the principles of the macro economy. The author explains the basics of the federal reserve system, monetary policy, the causes and effects of inflation, and various personal investment products such as stocks, mutual funds, commodities, and money market accounts. The basics of each is explained, and the author shows how each is tracked daily in the Wall Street Journal. The purpose is to allow individuals to understand their investments, track their progress, and be able to react to changing market conditions. Its all sounds very axiomatic, but the great thing about this book is that it states basic principles that are often assumed, and thus left unstated. For example, if the following excerpts are helpful to you, then this would be a great book for you: Page 15: "The forces of supply and demand condition every business cycle." Page 25: "Bank lending finances spending, and spending generates inflation. The Fed controls bank lending and can thereby control inflation." Page 33: "Every commodity has a price; the interest rate is the price of money. As with any commodity, the price fluctuates according the the laws of supply and demand." Page 165: "Mutual funds are popular with individual investors because they permit diversification in a wide variety of securities with a very small capital outlay." These are examples of the points covered, and the level at which they are covered. If the above quotes sounded obvious, this book may be below your expertise. But if you finally want to understand the jargon you hear on CNNfn, this book will do the job. This would be a great book to buy as a graduation gift for a high school senior, or anyone without a background in finance.

Everyone's Access to the Wall Street Journal:
Whether you are a mutual fund manager or a private investor, a CEO of a multinational firm or the owner of a small business, a retired millionaire or a young professional just starting out, a new capitalist or an old Marxist, this is the book for you. Whoever you are, this book gives you the tools to intelligently read and use the premier business publication of today--The Wall Street Journal. The writing, the charts, and the statistical analyses are so crystal clear that you can truly use the Wall Street Journal to be your own economist. Complex concepts such as the price earnings (P/E) ratio for the Dow stocks, for example, are fully explained, placed in their historical and contemporary context, and are shown to have important implications for the investor, the business person, and the financial advisor. Statistical reports in the Wall Street Journal are explained as more than isolated pieces of data, but rather as part of the economic matrix of the world economy. The classic business cycle is the economic and literary tool that the author uses to organize his book and to advance the reader's understanding of what is happening in the world economy--and why. In short, the author has done a masterful job in explaining how we can use the Journal to understand the past, the present, and the future of our economic world. Read this book, and your perceptions of that world will never be the same.

Be your own economist:
Financial literacy is one of the basic keys to achieving Financial Independence. Money is seen with the mind, not with the eyes. Those who can read financial numbers and news will eventually control those who cannot. Many people make decisions to buy real estate or stocks, or enter into businesses, based on their emotions and not on any understanding of the financial rationale behind it. That's why 9 out 10 people don't make money. The Wall Street Journal is the best source of all the financial, economics and investment news, figures and data you need to get started on acquiring financial literacy. Having said that, for one who has not studied economics or obtained a finance degree, it can be quite a task trying to understand all that information. This is where The Irwin Guide to Using The Wall Street Journal helps the interested reader to make full use of The Wall Street Journal to become his/her own economist. Not many books like this book come this far. This book is now into its 6th edition, having been first published in 1984. This edition has been updated with more current and post-1996 examples and illustrations. I like how this book takes the various sections found in The Wall Street Journal and explains the significance of the information, figures and data and then relates it to the reader's understanding of finance and economics. This certainly enhances the reader's appreciation of the nuggets of information found in The Wall Street Journal. This book also enlightens the reader as to the various choices of investments out there - from stocks, to commodities and metals, and to money market investments. All in all, I found this to be good book for those who have no prior education in finance and economics but who are willing to take action to learn more. Even those with a basic knowledge of economics will stand to gain from this book. For those who may require a more basic book on understanding economics, I would like to recommend Economic Literacy by Jacob De Rooy or The Wall Street Journal's Guide to Understanding Money & Investing. And for those ready to take on more complex readings, I would recommend R Mark Rogers' Handbook of Key Economic Indicators.