Peter LynchLearn to Earn: A Beginner's Guide to the Basics of Investing and Business

If you know nothing about investing and business, this is the book for you. I will be giving copies of this book to my children when they're 12 or so. It will make a great gift to any young person or teenager.If you know a little about investing and business, this is the book for you. You'll love the entertaining history lessons about our capital markets and how they have worked over the years. You'll also gain insights into how businesses work, and what differentiates the ones that are successful from those that are not.If you're an advanced investor with millions of dollars and lots of degrees, this is the book for you. You will be reminded of how we got to where we are today, how important investing is for our economy and future, and benefit from a refresher on the most basic, yet important, fundamentals of business and investing. You'll also learn great techniques for teaching those whom you mentor.If this book were read in middle schools and high schools, what a difference it would make.

Wonderful read. Lynch gives a terrific history of capitalism to set the groundwork. Then dives in to the fundamentals of investing. Well written, easy read.

I bought this book because I wanted to learn how to invest. My parents, grandparents or anyone in my family for that matter have NEVER invested. Therefore I am starting at square one. I wanted to learn investing at a basic starter level. All I can say is this book was EXACTLY what I was looking for. Although it is a bit outdated (1995), it taught me all the basics I needed to know. It was a great book to gain knowledge on investing. Now I feel comfortable knowing all the different ways to invest. I just purchased "One Up On Wall Street" can't wait to gain more knowledge!

a friend recommended to me because I m interested in the market, but this book is great and gives information on buying stock for the long term

This is a great book to understand the basics of investments.Unlike a TV set where you could buy it and least care how it works as long as you know how to work on with the remote control. Stock investing is a different venture, the fundamentals of economics need to be there. One must know what does P/E mean, net cash flow, P/S ratio, forward eps estimate.Why the penultimate year before the elections for bull market. Without fundamentals its hard to succeed in investing. Good foundation of terminlogies along with discipline and evaluating one own traits in stock investment makes one confident and a sure winner in the long run. Wall street is the same has been 100 years back there has been bulls and bear session, usually bear sessions have outpaced the bull session. But if one has picked the right stock and waits through the bear session when the bull session is around he is likely to make the maximum return. If one makes 10% return on a year to year basis one is a successful investor. All the eye catchers in newspapers and magazines with >100% return are seldom reptative. If inflation is around 3% and one makes 7% profit per year, with compounding affects anyone can become a wealthy person in the long run. Ofcourse, the real joy is to do your own research and invest and trade wisely. And with time one only excels.

This book is clearly geared towards young readers, not adults who are looking at investing seriously for the first time.If your teenaged child is open to it, why not do precisely what this book suggests -- the two of you could join an investment club and learn about investing together. You could buy stock as custodian for your child each time the club meets. If you attend the meetings together it will rapidly teach your child the wisdom of saving and investing.This book is marginally useful for adults. I bought 2 copies with the intention of giving one to my elder daughter and learning a bit about investing myself from the second. My 401K plan is doing so well I would like to start investing on my own.There is too much history for adults looking to start investing. It ought to be replaced with more how-to advice -- such as how to read a balance sheet. There is an appendix chapter on this, but it could be greatly expanded.The book could use updating on internet resources of use to investors. For example, I'd like to find software that will help me manage and track stock picks as I begin the training part which is so important to successful investing. Andrew Tobias' Managing Your Money used to have an excellent stock portfolio manager. I'd love to see something like this again which can automatically update portfolios with closing prices. I'm sure there is software out there -- but the book doesn't point out good software titles!In short, this 5-year old book is a useful introduction geared for young readers. Adults already interested in investing can check it for useful advice. It badly needs updating to reflect investing now in the last year of the decade. Perhaps revisions could be posted to the web in addition to selling a revised print version.

O.k., o.k. so maybe it's not all that simple but I actually meant that in a good way -- I'm the type of guy that would rather understand and retain 100% of a simple book than only 10-50% of a more byzantine treatise. And that's what this book allowed me to do. I am a smart guy who reads and knows a lot about entrepreneurship, building companies, and real estate investing, but I never bothered to learn about the basics of the stock market... it always seemed so... foreign to me. This book got me over that hump... Peter Lynch did a phenomenal job of starting from the basics of yesteryear and building up to the stock market of today -- or sort of today... I think the book was written in the pre-intenet era so some of the info is a bit out-dated.Excellent book for a beginner who wants to build a strong foundation of understanding of the stock market. It would make a great gift for a child, teenager, or young person who's intelligent and curious but for whatever reason uninformed about how the stock market works and how they can benefit from its existence.