| COMMUNITY |
| Message Boards Chat Feedback |
| SITE SOURCES |
| Contents Help! Search CNN Networks |
| SPECIALS |
| Quick News Almanac Video Vault News Quiz |
 |
The Unemotional Investor: Simple Systems for Beating the Market
Robert Sheard
Simon & Schuster, $25
Review by Jay Malarcher
Web posted on: Monday, May 11, 1998 5:45:03 PM EDT
(CNN) -- A few months ago, news reports told us that the employment picture was so good, even liberal arts majors were getting good job offers. Robert Sheard, himself a doctoral candidate in English literature, jumped from the ivory tower to an investment group called The Motley Fool, experts in all areas of money management known mostly for their site on America Online.
"The Unemotional Investor", the first book to be issued under the imprint of The Motley Fool, is Sheard's current work. For those out there, like me, who know next to nothing about investing -- let alone about the stock market -- the opportunity to read it is irresistible.
Sheard invites readers to stop reading the book at the end of each major section. While an unusual request, (would that authors of lesser books would extend such invitations!) between the lines Sheard knows that no one interested enough to buy the book would dare stop when there's more money to be made in the coming pages. The first section offers an automatic formula (hence no need for emotions on the part of the investor) for investing in blue chip stocks (huge warhorses like Coca-Cola that have almost no chance of going belly-up). The return is decent if compounding over 25 years or more is your goal.
The later sections present greater risk/greater return formulas. All retain the automatic character of the first, and Sheard does not shy away from presenting the reader with the thought processes that provide the final, unemotional scheme. I have to confess, however, that I was tempted to skip to the end of each chapter once I realized that's where the "right" answer was. The Motley Fool's party line, however, argues for decision making from individual investors themselves, so most will want to follow each tweak of the system.
Sheard makes sense, and while I wouldn't sink my entire retirement nest egg into the stock market, the market today (and thus this book) seems a compelling option even for liberal arts majors with retirement capital to invest.
Jay Malarcher is a writer/dramaturge who teaches theater at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. You can contact him at jmalarcher@aol.com
M O R E R E V I E W S
© 1998 Cable News Network, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.Terms under which this service is provided to you.