Book Reviews · Uncategorized

Book Review: The Total Money Makeover

Total Money MakeoverDave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover is not a perfect system, nor is this a perfect book, but it is the reality check that tens of thousands of American consumers need. After one filters out the unhelpful testimonials and the plugs for his radio show, this book a lot of good common sense about finances.

Ramsey rightly compares personal finance to personal health. Most of it is common sense, but as he says, it is 20% knowledge and 80% behavior. Ramsey’s system is all about correcting behavior. There are some methods that are more efficient than Ramsey’s but that offer too many temptations that many people can’t handle. While Ramsey encourages you to follow his system strictly, he is forthcoming about the arguments against everything he says. This is an important reason why I recommend this book.

Some people need this system and need to follow it strictly to fix their finances. Some people are already doing okay and can keep doing what they are doing. I would say that this program is not for everyone, but everyone should read it to make sure. It could be the difference between becoming a millionaire and going bankrupt. Even if you don’t use it all, there is plenty of good information and some solid reality checks in here for everyone, even those who already know a lot about finance and are financially successful.

Investing

What Is a Stop Loss Order? Why Use It? And Why Not?

pexels-photo-159888.jpegYou may have noticed that your online broker offers a few order options when purchasing a stock or other security. I wrote in my review of the Robinhood app that many reviewers on the App Store blamed Robinhood for paying too much for a trade when the real problem was that they did not understand and properly utilize Robinhood’s limit order option.

If you simply post the default market order, your order will go through at whatever price your broker and another trader agree upon a few seconds or minutes later, which might not be the same market price you see on your screen. That could be frustrating if the price goes up in that short period of time, which is not unusual.

A limit order makes sure that your trade won’t go through any higher than a certain price. If the price of the security goes up between the click of the order button and when the trade actually happens, the broker won’t buy it for more than the customer wants to pay for it. It will wait for a cheaper trade to be available or the order to expire.

There are tons of order types being used in today’s technology-driven trading environment, most of which the average investor does not even know about. Commercial investment brokers like the popular online ones usually only offer a few order types, and it is probably for the best, as we are about to see how complicated they can be.

A novice might notice that his broker offers the option for a stop loss order and wonder what that means. He could hit the ‘help’ button or Google the term to see what it is, and at first glance it may look like an interesting idea. Let’s dig deeper into what it is and what the broader implications of it are before we use it to make a major financial decision. Continue reading “What Is a Stop Loss Order? Why Use It? And Why Not?” →

Book Reviews

Book Review: Sons of Wichita

sons of wichitaThe Koch family has tried for decades to keep itself out of the spotlight while building the 2nd largest private company in America. However, as this biography explains, they haven’t done the best job of it. Daniel Schulman details the Koch brothers’ lifetime of conflict with business competitors, political opponents, their companies’ shareholders and employees, and each other. It feels a bit like if someone wrote a novelization one of those epic long-running soap opera TV shows, except this all actually happened. Continue reading “Book Review: Sons of Wichita” →