Teach Yourself Investing Online (Teach Yourself (IDG))

At one time or another, everyone is a newcomer to the world of personal investing. Teach Yourself Investing Online, by financial journalists Thomas S. Gray and Claire Mencke, is an easy-to-follow primer for those now ready to boot up their speculative bags of tricks in cyberspace. Covering both basic Web skills and hints for employing them at popular financial sites, it presents the fundamentals of organizing, researching, planning, and trading in a way that even absolute beginners can readily grasp and immediately initiate. The approach here is to present highly visual two-page spreads devoted to "Finding the Investment Style That Fits," "Opening an Online Account," "Calling Up Company Reports," "Tracking Upgrades and Downgrades," and dozens of similar topics. Each includes elementary instruction with pointers to one or more Web sites that perform the function or explain it in greater depth, a series of screen shots from those sites illustrating this narrative, and a sidebar with related information. Anyone at least moderately familiar with investment practices and principles may discover little new here, but those looking to get started will find plenty of helpful direction and advice. --Howard Rothman