Nobody really teaches us how to plan or invest when we're younger-or when we're older, for that matter. The good news is that it's never too late to start. "The Procrastinator's Bible for Financial and Estate Planning Success: Nine Essential Steps "can get you started by teaching you to:

• Define your real risk tolerance or "financial DNA"
• Record your personal information, estate planning, and investment asset details
• Prepare a detailed budget, cash-flow, and net-worth analysis
• Create a retirement budget
• Implement a system to keep track of your investments and cost basis

Frank J. Eberhart's nine essential follow-up steps can help you understand how investments work, get organized, develop and implement an estate plan, and set concrete, realistic goals. The more you learn, the more you earn-and the more you keep!

The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing

"By resisting both the popular tendency to use gimmicks that oversimplify securities analysis and the academic tendency to use jargon that obfuscates common sense, Pat Dorsey has written a substantial and useful book. His methodology is sound, his examples clear, and his approach timeless."
--Christopher C. Davis Portfolio Manager and Chairman, Davis Advisors

Over the years, people from around the world have turned to Morningstar for strong, independent, and reliable advice. The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing provides the kind of savvy financial guidance only a company like Morningstar could offer. Based on the philosophy that "investing should be fun, but not a game," this comprehensive guide will put even the most cautious investors back on the right track by helping them pick the right stocks, find great companies, and understand the driving forces behind different industries--without paying too much for their investments.

Written by Morningstar's Director of Stock Analysis, Pat Dorsey, The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing includes unparalleled stock research and investment strategies covering a wide range of stock-related topics. Investors will profit from such tips as: How to dig into a financial statement and find hidden gold . . . and deception How to find great companies that will create shareholder wealth How to analyze every corner of the market, from banks to health care

Informative and highly accessible, The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing should be required reading for anyone looking for the right investment opportunities in today's ever-changing market.

In today's ultra-competitive global economy, intangibles are increasingly taking centre stage in firms' business strategies and investors' valuations. Physical and financial assets are becoming commodities, yielding at best a competitive return on investment. In their place, intangible assets such as patents, brands, unique business processes, breakthrough scientific discoveries and strategic alliances are what firms are using to create dominant market positions, control risk, generate abnormal profits, and achieve growth and wealth. The dramatic rise and fall of high-technology company valuations has brought the unusual economic characteristics of intangible assets into the public arena. The concurrent advantages and vulnerabilities of intangible-intensive companies has highlighted the importance of having an in-depth understanding of the economics of intangibles and developing tools to better manage and evaluate them. This reader provides that understanding by bringing together the best research and advocacy on intangibles.

Investment ] Stock Trading

Screen For Winners, Hold Them Longer, Realize Higher Returns

Great Companies, Great Charts

"Great Companies, Great Charts" is a simple and logical approach to stock trading that can help you beat the indexes and achieve great returns.

Andy Dunn teaches you his trend-following, self-disciplined trading style. Dunn uses online stock-screening tools to find fundamentally excellent companies with technically attractive charts. This double-barreled approach identifies stocks that are more likely to grow at a faster rate than the market. "Great Companies, Great Charts" covers the investment process, including how to:

Scan for the best stocks Enter trades with buy stops Exit trades with sell stops Protect equity with trailing stops Adjust for volatility with the trading range Reduce risk with portfolio allocation

Hedge funds are in the news and on the minds of sophisticated investors more than ever. Investors have questions about how the funds are structured, where the assets are allocated, and whether hedge funds can truly act as a hedge against market risk. The answers are all here in "Investing in Hedge Funds."

Until recently, much of what makes hedge funds tick has been closely guarded--the intellectual property of Wall Street's investment elite. In this updated and revised text, Joseph G. Nicholas, founder and chairman of the leading industry information provider Hedge Fund Research, Inc., travels inside the hedge fund marketplace to explain the alternative investment strategies of top fund managers, providing clear descriptions of how to access these funds and where they're headed. It's a complete guide that everyone investing in hedge funds should study closely.

William Gann, a stocks and commodities trader with ample experience, shares advice to those new to trading on the stock market. As an early work of Gann's, the Truth of the Stock Tape advises the reader on how to anticipate and react to various movements in the stock market. The methodology Gann employed in his earlier career is more concerned with the psychology of the market. Gann begins by noting how traders with patience and nerve - backed up by sound evidence that a company is or imminently will perform well - tend to win out versus the impatient, nervous and flighty investors. Later in life, Gann became famous for supplementing his investment strategies with the use of astrology. He believed that the alignments of the planets influenced how investors behaved on a trading day, and created many courses to demonstrate the effectiveness of his strategy and predictive charts. Gann's charting strategy attracted a following which exists to this day, with computer software mimicking his methods.

For undergraduate courses in derivatives, options and futures, financial engineering, financial mathematics, and risk management. A reader-friendly book with an abundance of numerical and real-life examples. Based on Hull's Options, Futures and Other Derivatives, Fundamentals of Futures and Options Markets presents an accessible and student-friendly overview of the topic without the use of calculus. Packed with numerical examples and accounts of real-life situations, this text effectively guides students through the material while helping them prepare for the working world.

Despite all the securities laws enacted to prevent fraud, Let the buyer beware still reigns in the new issue market. Everyone who has ever jumped at a get-rich-quick scheme with a public offering touted as a financial bonanza, only to find later that they have been burnt, will profit from The ABCs of IPOs. Formerly an engineering manager and risk-seeker, Mr. Chechile combines his experiences as a long-time investor with knowledge as a stockbroker to reveal how to avoid money traps, not only with IPOs, the crown jewel of new issues, but also with a wide range of popular new issue securities, including limited partnerships, convertible securities, and more. The ABCs of IPOs explains the rules of the game, the roles of all the players, the arenas in which securities traders do battle, how to financially evaluate business organizations, and the not-so-obvious signals identifying which new issues have the potential to succeed, and which will likely be turkeys. Mr. broke while pursuing new issue investments, and makes recommendations for tactical maneuvers investors must make once their new issue, especially an initial public offering, starts trading in the marketplace.

Although economic theory has increased our understanding of some economic problems, it has rendered others, including the problem of capital accumulation, growth, and development, more difficult to understand. Focusing on capitalist economic systems, this book develops a theoretical approach to the study of aggregate capital dynamics. The theory is developed within the Keynesian framework of aggregate thinking and builds on the work of such Cambridge economists as Robinson, Kaldor, and Pasinetti. The approach helps to resolve some theoretical difficulties within the Keynesian framework for studying aggregate investment behavior. Dompere also provides a criticism of the neoclassical investment theory and the general neoclassical theoretical framework for studying aggregate capital accumulation, investment, and growth. Reexamining some questions on investment that earlier theorists have tried to answer, this study develops some of the basic ideas of Keynes, Robinson, Kaldor, and Pasinetti into a general theoretical system that allows an optimal aggregate capital and investment to be determined for a given information set.

The Repo Handbook, Second Edition presents an overview of repo vehicles and markets with sufficient depth for those seeking detailed explanations. In three parts it demonstrates how these secured loans fit into global capital markets and why they account for up to 50% of daily settlement activity in non-US government bonds worldwide. This new edition replaces old examples and introduces new developments, such as structured finance repo and associated topics such as Basel II regulatory rules. In addition, 12 of 18 chapters feature new sections and 4 have been substantially rewritten. The UK gilt and US Treasury repo markets are explored through worked examples, and there are new sections on funding arbitrage trades, risk exposures, and regulatory capital. It also places repo in context within bank asset-liability management and trading techniques, illustrating repo use across a wide range of applications in the global money markets. Rarely mentioned in the financial press because of the simple, straightforward nature of the instrument, repo was often the only funding source available to banks during the last quarter of 2008 and the first in 2009. This book, written by a trader, will draw new attention to this valuable and efficient funding and investment product.

This book tells two stories: Irwin's personal story of his career at Commodities Corporation and the company's great success after its initial setbacks. For much of his twelve-year career at Commodities Corporation, the stories were interrelated.Irwin experienced the classic syndrome known as "The Peter Principle" where he rose to the point where the job became too complex to handle. Commodities Corporation went through a similar experience where it ran into trouble following its uncontrolled expansion. We get an insider view of what is needed to succeed as a futures trader and share in the personal experience of an up-and-down career.

Rental properties can be among the easiest and most profitable of investments, year after year. And contrary to popular opinion, the real estate rental business doesn't require inordinate amounts of money, time, stress, and legal expertise. Here, seasoned investors and landlords Greg Dayton and Gordon Weidle, who own millions of dollars in real estate, deliver their tried-and-true system for making real estate work for you.

Dayton and Weidle's complete, practical resource demystifies the entire process of renting-including buying, preparing, screening tenants, handling turnover, refinancing, selling units, and much more. Under their guidance, you will avoid common pitfalls and steer clear of the cost and worry of high vacancy rates, collection issues, and eviction problems.

Filled with candid stories and real-life tips and solutions, "Prosper through Real Estate" includes expanded sections on legal and accounting issues; real estate history, retirement trends, and life plan strategies; sample forms and convenient checklists; and even a glossary of real estate terms.

Whether you are a novice or experienced real estate investor, this book will give you all the tools and know-how you need to make your dream of financial independence, security, and prosperity a reality.