Screening the Market

Rating:
Summary: Everything you want to know about Stock Screens
Review: A previous reviewer makes an incorrect statement. All the screens in the book work with the free Multex screener on the Multex web site. The screener is free, powerful,and will probably be my main screener from now on.

As an amateur programmer and someone that's worked on huge databases for a living, I can say I learned quite a few things from this book that I didn't already know.

But,the book goes on way too long. There is a good long chapter on stock screens; all the other chapters are fluff.

If you want to know everything about stock screeners, buy the book and read that one long good chapter, skip the rest of the book. I don't know of any other stock screener books, so I give it 4 stars for being innovative.

Rating:
Summary: The best way to find stocks
Review: I am convinced that doing one's own screening for stocks is the best way for an investor to find great stock picks. Where do many novice investors get their stock buying ideas from? Hot tips from others? Internet message boards? Screening is an infinitely better way for deciding which stocks to invest in.

Mr. Gerstein's book is in a class of it's own. The subject is so useful, I am amazed that there aren't other books like it on the market. This book is highly comprehensive and thorough. Contrary to what a previous reviewer wrote, there is not a word of fluff in the entire book. I read it cover-to-cover and may read it again. It is filled with substance, not only on screening methods, but also on ways to analyze and interpret a wide range of financial data.

Also, contrary to another reviewer, one need not subscribe to the author's premium screener to benefit from this book. There are many free and premium stock screeners on financial web site that investors can use. Having read this book, an investor will be able to make far better educated use of these screeners.

The author leans far more toward fundamental analysis than technical analysis, and more toward buy-and-hold investing than short term trading. And while I wish that there was a bit more information about using screens for technical analysis indicators and oscillators, I most heartily endorse this book. It is one of the best written stock market related books that I have ever read. Investors and traders who studies this book will, no doubt, gain substantial knowledge.

Rating:
Summary: Misleading Title: It's a Primer to Premium Screening Program
Review: Let's say you buy a book called "How To Type", and it turns out that the book describes a method that focuses upon how to type ON A PARTICULAR KIND OF KEYBOARD, produced in affiliation with the author--that is, the book's lessons do not pertain to readily available, much cheaper keyboards. Given the book's generic title, wouldn't that irritate you?

If not, you might appreciate this book because it pertains primarily to Multex's premium screening program, a product costing over a thousand dollars. Given that the book focuses upon one particular and very expensive screening program, might it strike you as disingenuous to give the text a generic title like "Screening the Market"?

To be sure, the book's author does describe screening techniques for readily available free screeners. However, the techniques pertaining to the free screening programs offer nothing so much as a pungent contrast to the book's central focus on the superior power of the premium screener described by the author.

My advise concerning this book is to check it out from the local library before purchasing it, because chances are you'll resent learning that you must use the author's premium screening software to make the best use of the book -an issue that would be moot if there was some indication in the title, or even somewhere on the book's jacket, which alluded to the need for readers to employ an expensive screening program (as promoted by the author's firm) to make optimal use of the book.