Beardstown Ladies Common-Sense Investment Guide: How We Beat the Stock Market-And How You Can Too

Rating:
Summary: A good read despite the controversy.
Review: Despite recent controversy, this is still a great down to earth book that will make you a better investor. One good idea can be worth big money. There are many good ideas and advice within the pages of this book. Especially well suited for those starting an investment club.

Rating:
Summary: It inspired 45 women in my small town to form 3 clubs!
Review: Reading the Beardstown Ladies Common Sense Guide to Investing two years ago excited women in my little town (pop.6500) causing us to use the Beardstown guidelines to form 3 clubs. We have experienced returns from 25.6% to 27% on our respective portfolios - certainly better than money market funds or other methods of saving. The guide is easy to read; easy to understand; although the stock selection guides are not a piece of cake but well worth learning. I reccomend this book to anyone wanting to find a better way to save for their future retirement.As a final note we also have one men's club (they are not as adventurous, maybe!) and we are in the process of forming 2 more 15 member clubs making a total of 5 womens clubs and 1 men's club! All using the Beardstown concept!!!! Many Thanks to the Beardstown ladies!

Rating:
Summary: Easily understood guide to investing success.
Review: The Beardstown Ladies Investment Club has become a legend in investment club lore. Thisbook has inspired thousands of individuals to get into the stock market.It's not for nothing that NAIC's "Official Guide" is emblazoned on the cover "From The People Who Taught the Beardstown Ladies," since the Ladies' success required in large part NAIC's move into a larger headquarters building a year or so ago! The book is an easy read, even before you get to the recipes at the end, and why not? Who said investing was rocket science, anyway? Personally, I would quibble with a few of their guidelines for stock investing -- the Ladies require a stock to have a Value Line Timeliness rating of 1 or 2 before they will consider buying it, but since Timeliness is a short-term measure, I think it's pretty irrelevant for the Ladies' long-term, growth stock investing methods; the Ladies say they won't buy a stock over $25, but odd-lot differential surcharges disappeared a long time ago, making this an old-fashioned notion about the need for buying in round lots (and to their credit, Betty Sinnock, one of the Ladies, now reports that this rule is no longer in force). Still, by following the strategies outlined in this book, an investor would surely find investing success. Like other successful individuals in any field, the Beardstown Ladies have withstood their share of vitriolic attacks from financial professionals and the media, but the well-deserved accolades have most certainly overshadowed the self-serving criticism. The Ladies have obviously enjoyed being a part of their investment club. Returns from fellowship and friendship are much harder to measure than the returns of a stock portfolio, but just as important in the scheme of thing and more easily forgotten -- a lesson not lost on the Ladies of Beardstown.

Rating:
Summary: A good read despite the controversy.
Review: While mutual-fund managers (who manage other people's money) are forced to disclose their actual returns with periodic audits from established accounting firms, "investment advisors" are free to make up numbers to sell their advice. The implicit message behind every investment book (Buffett, Lynch, et al) is the unspoken promise: "If you think about investment as I do, you, too can earn my spectacular returns."

Buffett and Lynch earned the right to toot their own horn -- having beaten the general index over decades. The Beardstown Ladies' dirty little secret is that they "accidently" included their monthly dues into their total returns of their fund. If a mutual fund manager did this with his 12b-1s he'd be in jail. Skip the book and go for Peter Lynch.