Resource Centre

More books on... New Reviews Mutual Funds Stocks & Bonds Personal Finance Heroes & Scoundrels Resources Getting Started The Wise Investor Online Investing Glossary Book Centre Globefund.com Alert

Books selected and reviewed by Andrew Allentuck. The Art of Asset Allocation: Asset Allocation Principles and Investment Strategies for Any Market by David M. Darst The advantage of asset allocation is that it provides a framework for rebalancing assets as they rise or fall in value. I think that is what makes study of this field of portfolio managment worthwhile. To that end, in the context of private client services, this is quite a good book. Read the full review Make Yourself a Millionaire: How to Sleep Well and Stay Sane on the Road to Wealth by Charles C. Zhang and Lynn L. Chen-Zhang The dustjacket of this US-centric guide to financial planning says that author Charles C. Zhang "was the #1 rated financial advisor in 2002 out of American Express Financial Advisors' more than 9,000 financial advisors nationwide." Pity Amex clients, for if Mr. Zhang is the best they can do, they are in trouble. Read the full review The Facts of Life: How to Build Wealth and Protect Your Assets with Life Insurance by Paul Grimes with Susan Goldberg It's an old saying that life insurance isn't bought, it's sold. In that vein, Paul Grimes, a life insurance sales executive, leads what he presumes is a reader innocent of knowledge of life coverage through the intricacies of permanent life, term life, universal life, and the use of life insurance to fund trusts. Read the full review Investing in Fixer-Uppers by Jay P. DeCima In the end, this is a good book for the novice house renovator who wants to develop a rental business. Most of the advice is applicable to Canada. Read the full review The Smart Money Guide to Real Estate Investing by Gerri Willis Gerri Willis, a senior writer for Smart Money Magazine, a U.S. publication, has assembled a catalogue of good reasons to buy real estate. The foundation for long term real estate investing is the 8 per cent income that it has provided. She adds discussions of how to buy and where to buy, financing, researching properties and more. Her work is lucid, her instructions brief and intelligent. With all that said, the best case she can make is for real estate as a long term, fairly secure investment. That's not bad in hard times, but she can't turn apartments and houses into silk purses. In the world of finance, they remain pigs' ears. Read the full review Wealth Logic: Wisdom for Improving Your Personal Finances by Moshe Milevsky Wealth Logic is a collection of forty columns written for the National Post's magazine. The book begins with a compelling story of the death of his father, the chief rabbi of Mexico, and moves on to discuss the rates of return on art (it's low, he says) , portfolio management judged by gender (women do more buy and hold than men), the issue of whether professional management can improve performance (yes, he says) and whether professional management is worth fees charged (nope). Prof. Milevsky also discusses portfolio diversification when human capital is considered as part of the portfolio (depends on whether you have a steady job), option strategies for the hoi polloi (worth a look if you can handle straddles), and the value of commodity and hedge funds in portfolios (commodity funds have higher returns in bearish stock markets and are more appropriate than hedge funds under these conditions). Read the full review Investment Performance Attribution: A Guide to What It Is, How to Calculate It, and How to Use It by David Spaulding David Spaulding, a scholarly analyst with a gift for injecting humour into measurement procedures, is the publisher of the Journal of Performance Measurement His procedure in this book is basically to determine total return, subtract the return from an appropriate index, and to call the result the performance that the fund manager has added. That keeps the math simple, but it conceals the different levels of risk that a manager may take on in comparison to what risks the index holds. This leads to a philosophical problem when risks are explicit. Read the full review Gordon Pape's 2003 Buyer's Guide to RRSPs by Gordon Pape and David Tafler Veteran mutual fund author Gordon Pape teams up with David Tafler, publisher and editor of 50Plus magazine, to produce yet another update of his useful RRSP guides.Discussions of RRSP management and conversion to annuities or Registered Retirement Income Funds is usually sleep-inducing. It's to the credit of the authors that put some life and readability into the subject. Read the full review How I Stopped Worrying About Retirement (without Alcohol, Nicotine, Caffeine or other Artificial Stimulants) by Bruce McDougall Bruce McDougall, a very bright guy, has written How I Stopped Worrying for the middle aged man or woman who might, a decade ago, have been seduced by The Wealthy Barber. Written in the same style of edifying dialogue, it covers the basics of savings, diversification, home ownership, insurance, divorce and estate planning. Read the full review Winning the Tax Game, 2002; A Year-Round Tax and Investment Guide for Canadians by Tim Cestnick Winning the Tax Game 2002 is easy to read and is by far the best of the Canadian tax guides. It's aimed at taxpayers above the lunch bucket level. Some tips are brilliant, such as the tax averaging and postponement possible with use of prescribed annuities. Other ideas are routine, e.g., claiming a spouse's dividends in order to increase the spousal tax credit. . Tax advice may not be bedside reading, but when it comes packaged with the intelligence and clarity Mr. Cestnick invests in it, almost anyone should be able to save money. Read the full review The Money Book: A Survival Strategy for Canadians Under 35 by Kevin Cork Here's a slim book from financial writer Kevin Cork that offers a modest investment strategy. It delivers three pages on stocks, a page on bonds, three pages on mutual funds, a few pages on credit reports, a small section on life insurance and eight pages of websites referenced to chapters. The writing is cute or clever, depending on one's taste. For the first time investor or for the person who, for the first time, has a job and a bank account and who gets queasy at the thought of financial planning, this book is a tonic. It's thin, but it's easy to swallow. And it could do some good. Read the full review The Ultimate Safe Money Guide: How Everyone 50 & Over Can Protect, Save and Grow Their Money by Martin D. Weiss The content is US-centric, but the discussions are excellent. A section that compares the merits of deferred annuities in comparison with immediate annuities is superb. Discussions of how to tell if a firm is manipulating its earnings are clear and exact. Advice on the pitfalls of published rating by raters paid to rate is right on. Read the full review How Much is Enough? by Pamela York Klainer If inspiration is the way to fortune, then this guide should be the way to the grail of finance. The author, who specializes in crossover human interest-finance themes, starts with the introspective question of what money means to the reader and then moves on to give advice on money and relationships, money and one's role in the home, money and marriage, money and financial planning and, of course, money and the inner mind. Read the full review CNBC Guide to Money & Markets: Everything You Need to Know about Your Finances and Investments by CNBC with Jeff Wuorio The CNBC Guide to Money & Markets is so sharp, so concise, and so wise that even professionals can pick up pointers on securities markets they seldom touch. From discussions of finanical goals to asset types, and even risk aversion plans like insurance, it's a virtual emergency kit for investors. It's really a must-have. Read the full review Houserich: Your Home as Your Best Investment By Howard Tuck Real estate lawyer Howard Turk has written a great book true to its title. His case is simply put: Buying a house is a bet on rising population and, at the moment, favourable interest rates. There are deals today that can't be beat. This book is one of them. Read the full review To Have and to Hold: The Smart Woman's Guide to Money and Marriage by Kathleen Aldridge and Nancy Jane Bullis This is a good book with a focus on financial affairs of Canadian families. A diligent financial plan for the family can be constructed if one can find other information on selecting assets for investment. Regardless of gender, To Have and To Hold makes good reading in the field of family finance. Read the full review Everything You Need to Know about Estate Planning by Kevin Wark General and introductory, Everything You Need to Know is a good book at a reasonable price. Read the full review 6 Steps to $1 Million: How to Achieve Your Financial Dreams by Gordon Pape For a beginner, Mr. Pape offers value. For anyone who has experience trading stocks and bonds and has made some money at it, it's doubtful there's much to be gained. In spite of dust jacket blather that this is holy writ from the infallible, 6 Steps to $1 Million is conventional advice for the financially inexperienced. Read the full review How to Buy a House with No (or Little) Money Down by Martin M. Shenkman and Warren Boroson For the first time home buyer, How to Buy a House with No (or Little) Money Down is great read and a bargain too.Read the full review The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buying and Selling a Home in Canada By Bruce McDougall and Shelley O'Hara This Complete Idiot's Guide offers a wealth of good advice. For first-time buyers or sellers, it's a must read. For those who have been through the process, it's a reference. Either way, it's a well-written, intelligently assembled guide to the basics. Read the full review The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance for Canadians By Lori M. Bamber For a first guide to personal finance, this is swift, readable, not complex and a step to participation. For a reader who has been put off in the past by books more dense than graceful, it's a friendly way to get into the field of personal finance. Read the full review The Bond Book: Everything Investors Need to Know about Treasuries, Municipals, GNMAs, Corporates, Zeros, Bond Funds, Money Market Funds, and More By Annette Thau For a person with a bond portfolio that is anything more than Canada Savings Bonds, or who has units in a bond mutual fund, this book is an essential reference. Read the full review Money Logic: Financial Planning For the Smart Investor By Moshe Milevsky with Michael Posner Money Logic is a small book destined to become a classic. Moshe Milevsky, Professor of Finance at York University, converts the mathematical models of academic publications into plain speech to answer several vital questions. He writes with clarity, humour and much insight.For investors, coming to terms with Prof. Milevsky can be an immensely profitable experience. Read the full review The 10 Biggest Investment Mistakes Canadians Make and How to Avoid Them By Ted Cadsby With clarity, wisdom and charm, Mr. Cadsby has established himself as an author who must be read. Indeed, without understanding the differences between risk and risk perception, few investors will be able to become proficient investors. Read the full review Sudden Money: Managing a Financial Windfall By Susan Bradley with Mary Martin For those who do wind up with a pile of unexpected money, a useful but elementary guide. Read the full review How to Make Money in Commercial Real Estate for the Small Investor By Nicholas Masters This book is valuable as a basic, first course in real estate investment. The content is oriented to the U.S. investor, particularly in tax discussions, yet the principles of real estate investing have no borders. Read the full review The Enduring Principles of Investing By John Neff Provocative, insightful and instructive, John Neff On Investing can be of value to anyone who participates in capital markets as direct investor or mutual fund unitholder. Read the full review The Millionaire's Club: How to Start and Run Your Own Investment Club - and Make Your Money Grow! By Carolyn M. Brown For novice investors who want to work together to develop their portfolios, The Millionaire's Club offers valuable guidance. Read the full review RRSPs & RRIFs for Dummies By John Lawrence Reynolds with Charm Darby For a fine balance of data and opinion, one can hardly do better than to put RRSPs and RRIFs for Dummies on one's shelf of investment books. Read the full review The Financial Planner for 50+: The Complete Guide for Every Canadian Over 50 By Andrew Dagys This book is a brief introduction to the investment needs of people over 50. Read the full review The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance in Your 20s and 30s By Tracey Longo In this book's panoramic sweep of earning, living and spending, there's information and advice anyone can use.Read the full review