[.ca] Mutual Funds For Canadians for Dummies (ISBN 0470832517)

Amazon.ca:
Picking mutual funds isn't rocket science, but it is time consuming. In Mutual Funds for Canadians for Dummies, investment writer Andrew Bell takes the mystique out of it with his tongue-in-cheek approach and jargon-free English. "This book contains no magic, just some plain logic and simple facts that you can find out for yourself by fooling around with mutual funds for a few years," he says. "But lots of people don't have the time or inclination to do that." The first thing you need to know is what the different types of mutual funds are. Bell defines them as equity funds, money market funds, bond funds, balanced funds, index funds, segregated funds, clone funds, dividend funds, and labour-sponsored funds. He recommends investing in each, depending on how much risk you are prepared to take, and he suggests sample fund portfolios for all tastes. Once you understand what you want, you need to know whom to buy your funds from--a bank, a broker, a discount broker, a financial adviser, or directly from the fund company. It all depends how much handholding you need. (After reading this book, you probably won't need a lot.) But everyone involved in the fund, from the sellers to the wholesalers to the managers, wants a percentage or a commission. The management expense ratio (MER) rather than the performance is usually the factor that is going to determine how much return you get on a fund. Bell advises finding out what the MER is and keeping those costs and fees down. There are close to 3,000 different mutual funds for sale in Canada. They all pretty much fit into the 10 categories described in this book, plus specialty sector funds and regional funds. A whole cottage industry of mutual fund guidebooks has developed, analyzing the nuances of each one of these. But because these guides concentrate on performance, they need to be updated each year. Mutual Funds For Canadians For Dummies gives you an overview of how to invest in mutual funds yourself without having to wait for the ever-changing annual performance numbers. --Edward Trapunski

Good book for beginners:
This was my first book on investing. Great for beginners. Too much small talk and analogies. Author needs to get more to the point.

Excellent book on investing:
Yes the book does not "get to the point" but that is because investing is a complicated business if you want to chase high returns. It can be simple if your willing to live with low to average returns. But I doubt that is what people buying this book are after. Bell does a really good job of laying out the options that are availiable in different market and personal condidtions. Overall he does a really good job of being evenhanded with different companies and financial instruments but his bias towards Index fund is pretty obvious (he even states it). This is a good thing however, as for 95% of long terms investors Index funds are probably the way to go. I also really liked how he stressed the importance of having an international portfolio. That is by far the most important thing I learned from this book. But then I have years of investing experience already.