Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Book Review: Stay Mad for Life

Stay Mad for Life (2007) by Jim Cramer

The author of this book is a well-known TV personality who hosts the stock market show Mad Money, which I sometimes enjoy watching mainly for its entertainment value. This book is all about retirement planning and was written for the layperson, which might explain the long-winded and redundant writing. However, it does offer decent advice about basic money management and retirement planning. The author provides good introductory-level explanations of U.S. retirement plans (401k and IRA) and investment choices such as mutual funds (highlighting their advantages and disadvantages) and bonds (including the various types of bonds). I found that information to be particularly useful. He then presents 20 rules for investing and discusses 10 things the pros do right but amateurs get wrong – these are all okay but they are helpful mainly for complete beginners. Near the end of the book is a discussion of 5 markets that he expects will perform well in the future (aerospace and defense; agriculture; oil and oil service; minerals and mining; infrastructure) and his list of 20 stock picks for long-term investments, only 6 of which I would ever consider investing in. Thus, as with the stock picks on his TV show, it's probably best to ignore the majority of them.

Note: I read this book in September 2011.

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