The Small Investor

Acclaim for Joel Greenblatt's New York Times bestseller THE LITTLE BOOK THAT BEATS THE MARKET "One of the best, clearest guides to value investing out there." —Wall Street Journal "Simply perfect. One of the most important investment books of the last fifty years!" —Michael Price "A landmark book-a stunningly simple and low-risk way to significantly beat the market!" —Michael Steinhardt, the dean of Wall Street hedge-fund managers "The best book on the subject in years." —Financial Times "The best thing about this book-from which I intend to steal liberally for the next edition of The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need-is that most people won't believe it. . . . That's good, because the more people who know about a good thing, the more expensive that thing ordinarily becomes. . . ." —Andrew Tobias, author of The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need "This book is the finest simple distillation of modern value investing principles ever written. It should be mandatory reading for all serious investors from the fourth grade on up." —Professor Bruce Greenwald, director of the Heilbrunn Center for Graham and Dodd Investing, Columbia Business School

With simple, easy-to-read and authoritative advice for anyone who has a little extra money, The Small Investor gives ordinary folks everything they need to know about choosing stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. These useful, hands-on hints may not make you a millionaire overnight, but they will keep you from falling for common errors, rip-offs, and market pitfalls. Illustrations.

Small-cap stocks, those publicly traded companies with market capitalizations less than $2 billion, can yield significant gains that are impossible to find in larger stocks. They've also proven to be among the most attractive investments after a financial downturn. Unfortunately, information about how to successfully invest in these smaller companies has been hard to find—until now. Author Ian Wyatt is dedicated to helping investors find great companies at bargain prices before Wall Street or Main Street catches on. As the Chief Investment Strategist of SmallCapInvestor.com, he's guided countless individuals in their quest to capture small-cap investing success. Now, with The Small-Cap Investor, Wyatt will help you do the same. Throughout the book, Wyatt clearly outlines his proven investment process and the systems that are involved—detailing eight straightforward steps you need to take to find, research, and analyze small-cap stocks that could put big gains in your portfolio. Page by page, he takes the time to explain the essential criteria involved in picking the right stocks and timing your buy/sell decisions. Topics touched upon include: Identifying growth trends and market sectors positioned for rapid growth in the years to come Secrets for finding undiscovered small caps before they are embraced by the financial media and institutional investors Understanding the fundamentals of a potential investment, including products, services, and management's ability to run the business Along the way, Wyatt not only shows you how to find winners, but also addresses how to avoid losers. This is particularly important for investors who have experienced losses in their portfolios, and are looking to grow their portfolios in the coming years. Many of today's top large-cap companies—from Microsoft to Wal-Mart—all started out small and grew to become dominant forces in their respective industries. Investors who bought these great companies early on profited handsomely. By following Wyatt's guidance, and understanding his strategies for finding winners, you'll have a huge edge over other investors and be in a better position to profit from the exponential growth of the right small-cap companies.

Market mistakes to avoid: “Written for investors at all levels…[a] practical, no-nonsense guide.”—Publishers Weekly One of Money Week’s Five Best Books of the Year Investors are tempted daily by misleading or incomplete information. They may make a lucky bet, realize a sizable profit, and find themselves full of confidence. Their next high-stakes gamble might backfire, not only hitting them in the balance sheet but also taking a mental and emotional toll. Even veteran investors can be caught off guard: a news item may suddenly cause havoc for an industry they’ve invested in; crowd mentality among fellow investors may skew the market; a CEO may turn out to be unprepared to effectively guide a company. How can one stay focused in such a volatile world? If you can’t trust your past successes to plan and predict, how can you avoid risky situations in the future? Patience and methodical planning will pay far greater dividends than flashy investments. In Big Money Thinks Small, veteran fund manager Joel Tillinghast shows investors how to avoid making these mistakes. He offers a set of simple but crucial steps to successful investing, including: · Know yourself, how you arrive at decisions, and how you might be susceptible to self-deception · Make decisions based on your own expertise, and do not invest in what you don’t understand · Select only trustworthy and capable colleagues and collaborators · Learn how to identify and avoid investments with inherent flaws · Always search for bargains, and never forget that the first responsibility of an investor is to identify mispriced stocks

Whether readers are seasoned individual investors or total rookies, Carlson, a chartered financial analyst, suggests a battle plan to research, build, and grow a portfolio of mutual funds and stocks. "Puts all investors on a level playing field with the pros."--"BookPage."

The must-read summary of Joel Breenblatt's book: "The Big Secret for the Small Investor: A New Route to Long-Term Investment Success". This complete summary of the ideas from Joel Breenblatt's book "The Big Secret for the Small Investor" shows that investing in the stock market will generate the biggest long-term returns. In his book, the author reveals the different approaches to investing and why you should choose "The Big Secret Investment Strategy", which is extremely simple, yet is guaranteed to generate superior long-term returns. This summary is a must-read for any investor who wants to learn the secret to investment success. Added-value of this summary: • Save time • Understand key concepts • Expand your investment knowledge To learn more, read "The Big Secret for the Small Investor" and discover how you can guarantee long-term returns from every investment you make.

The author of Pioneering Portfolio Management shows individuals how to avoid the for-profit mutual fund industry and get better returns on their money. In Unconventional Success, investment legend and bestselling author David F. Swensen offers incontrovertible evidence that the for-profit mutual fund industry consistently fails the average investor. From excessive management fees to the frequent “churning” of portfolios, the relentless pursuit of profits by mutual fund management companies harms individual clients. Perhaps most destructive of all are the hidden schemes that limit investor choice and reduce returns, including pay-to-play product-placement fees, stale-price trading scams, soft-dollar kickbacks, and 12b-1 distribution charges. Even if investors manage to emerge unscathed from an encounter with the profit-seeking mutual fund industry, individuals face the likelihood of self-inflicted pain. The common practice of selling losers and buying winners (and doing both too often) damages portfolio returns and increases tax liabilities, delivering a one-two punch to investor aspirations. In short: Nearly insurmountable hurdles confront ordinary investors. Swensen’s solution: A contrarian investment alternative that promotes well-diversified, equity-oriented, market-mimicking portfolios that reward investors who exhibit the courage to stay the course. Swensen suggests implementing his nonconformist proposal with investor-friendly, not-for-profit investment companies such as Vanguard and TIAA-CREF. By avoiding actively managed funds and employing client-oriented mutual fund managers, investors create the preconditions for investment success. Bottom line? Unconventional Success provides the guidance and financial know-how for improving the personal investor’s financial future. “Reveals why the mutual fund industry as a whole does a disservice to the individual investor.” —Booklist “What he has to say is worth listening to.” —The New York Times