The New York Times Dictionary of Money and Investing: The Essential A-to-Z Guide to the Language of the New Market by Gretchen Morgenson, Campbell R. Harvey

Product Details

Synopsis

An indispensible resource for today's independent investors

More Americans than ever are directing their own investments, and thousands of "experts" promise information on the best stocks and bonds to buy. To be successful in the markets, investors need to dig out of the information overload and the unintelligible lingo.

Using examples to help simplify complex financial issues and written in lively, understandable language, Gretchen Morgenson and Campbell R. Harvey explain and cross-reference more than 3,500 investing terms, from the rules surrounding abandonment options to when you should expect to pay interest on zero-coupon bonds. They define the risks and rewards that accompany various investments and help you find meaningful information on a company's or fund's financial statements. Among the terms they decode:

- the markets, the indexes, and how they work, including the NYSE, Nasdaq, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Russell 2000, S&P 500, and Wilshire 5000

- discounted investment opportunities, such as employee stock purchase plans and DRIPs

- tools for estimating company earnings, P/E ratios, quarterly EPS and GPS momentum, and analyst target prices

This is the essential A-to-Z reference for understanding the jargon, the nonsense, and the language of investing.

Library Journal

Having spent years compiling thousands of terms explaining all aspects of Wall Street, Morgenson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, and Duke University business professor Harvey have teamed up to produce a handy new desk-reference tool. While they have made an attempt to be as current and comprehensive as possible, the book does not include everything, some notable exclusions being e-trading, laddering, limited liability company (or LLC), and even privately held company. The straightforward alphabetical arrangement is quite serviceable, with See also's fleshing out acronyms that link them to their complete names; the inclusion of web sites for various organizations (e.g., www.nyse.com) is a nice touch. Proper names are not generally included except when something is named after an individual (e.g. "ponzi scheme"), which then references that person. Not included, however, are the black boxes so pervasive on Wall Street trading desks also called Bloombergs after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg which seems like a glaring omission. One might also quibble over the brevity of some entries or the inclusion of the definitions for various corporate filings required by government regulators (especially the Securities & Exchange Commission). On the whole, however, this work seems well researched, thorough, and reader-friendly. A fine addition for classroom or library use for years to come and highly recommended for all business/financial collections. Richard Drezen, Washington Post News Research/New York City Bureau Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Biography

Gretchen Morgenson is the Market Watch columnist for The New York Times and a leading contributor to The New Rules of Personal Investing (0-8050-6814-7). Before joining the Times, she was senior editor at Forbes magazine. She lives in New York City. Campbell R. Harvey, Ph.D., is J. Paul Sticht Professor of International Business at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.