[.ca] Lessons from the Legends of Wall Street (ISBN 0793137152)

Worthless:
This book is worthless. The true 'lessons' make up only a few pages of the book and these lessons are not detailed enough to make financially sound decisions. For example, a lesson such as "What is the PE Ratio?" is similar to what you would find in the book. OK, the PE ratio is 3. Is that good? Is that bad? How about 40? What is high? What is low? Do current interest rates effect PE ratio levels? What is an acceptable PE ratio for a growth stock? What is an acceptable PE ratio for a cyclical stock? You'll get no answers from this book. The best "lessons" section (though still unacceptable) came from John Templeton. But these were a direct quote from an interview Templeton gave the Christian Science Monitor. The author must have spent a few weeks writing this book. Most of the book is babble, reproduction of articles/reports, duplication of previous sections, and educational definitions for the newbie. My lesson to you is to take the money you were going spend on this book and go buy a U.S. Savings bond. You will be richer and wiser in the end.

Not all its cracked up to be...:
...- I bought the book BUT Nikki Ross gives a basic three-step approach to investing, that is repeated throughout the book. 1. Collect info, 2. Analyse info, 3. Make a decision. And that's about as complex as the book gets. Don't waste your money, unless you're after a very simplistic overview of investing. ALL OF THE FIVE STAR REVIEWS OVERRATE THIS BOOK - 1 Star (at best). ... If you're after real value on practical management implementation tools that link strategy & financial numbers then YOU HAVE TO INVEST IN "Performance Measurement & Control Systems for Implementing Strategy" by Robert Simons.

Just read the "Evaluation" part:
This book discusses on the techniques Warren Buffet (value/growth), Benjamin Graham (value), Phil Fisher (growth), T. Rowe Price (growth), and John Templeton (growth use or have used to make their fortunes. The book is divided into 6 parts on one each of these legends and another on how to combine the knowledge of these experts. The sections are organized in an interesting way first off you learn what some of the stocks the well known investor has bought and why they met their purchasing criteria. There is also a nice 3 steps to how you can use their methods in your investments, this in turn is organized by: 1. Gathering information (this part it almost worthless in my opinion since it is very similar for each of the investors) 2. Evaluate (this is the best part of each of the areas in the book, you learn the questions these masters would ask a company and themselves. It's very good.) 3. Making decisions discusses how the masters decide when to buy and sell the stock. This book and "The Money Masters" by John Train are interesting reads if you enjoy learning about the careers and wisdom these masters are willing to share. I believe this book wouldn't be very useful for strict CAN SLIM investors or day traders but good for the buy and hold or long term growth and value investors it definitely shows you some of the possibilities. Reed Floren

A Must Read for Investors:
This book has a refreshingly commonsense approach to investing. It contains a great deal of worthwhile advice and wisdom from some of the world's best investors. I am not an experienced investor, however I found it to be understandable and learned useful information from it. I would highly recommend it.

A Classic "Must Read" Investment Book:
Nikki Ross has documented principal strategies and investing advice from the great Wall Street legends of our time. I have found the underlying principals of Buffet and his mentors as well as Price and Templeton to be very helpful. It is an easy to read enjoyable book. It may not be for day traders in general, but they could benefit from the list of questions asked by the masters before investing. I believe that had many investors read and applied this book prior to and during the recent crash, they might have saved a lot of money. Blake Conant