Book Review: 7 Commandments of Stock Investing
08. May, 2009 
5 Comments
Gene Marcial’s 7 Commandments of Stock Investing features many of Gene’s successful investing concepts he’s developed over the last 27 years of experience. This book is tailored for you long-term investors looking to successfully invest in a stock over the long haul.
Author: Gene Marcial
Gene Marcial has been around for quite some time. He is best known for his editorials from “Inside Wall Street” on BusinessWeek. He has been in this business for more than 27 years now, and investors do follow his stock columns closely. On the other hand, his education background is pretty unique in that he graduated with a journalism degree for undergrad, a law degree from New York Law, and then a political science masters from NYU. Pretty interesting combo.
While he has had his days making great stock picks, he has seen worse days. Notably, he made several bullish calls in the past few years that went south rather quickly. Of the many, one of them was Dryships (DRYS) which he indicated as a buy last year before the stock tanked all the way down to $2.72. It’s hard to believe how battered this stock became given it once used to be over $100 a share.
He also said Citigroup (C) was a great buy when it was sitting at $27.55 in January 2008. We all know the rest from there. The stock is currently sitting at less than $5 per share as of May 2009. He quotes:
The bottom line: With its depressed valuation and bright prospects for further worldwide growth-in spite of the industry’s subprime woes–Citigroup stands out as a bargain selling at a firesale price.
Sorry you don’t get a credit for that Gene.
Content: The content is pretty solid with very a nicely organized index. He basically states the 7 key commandments of stock investing and cites several stocks in each section. The sections, or commandments include: Buy Panic, Concentrate, Buy the Losers, Forget Timing, Follow the Insider, Don’t Fear the Unknown, Always Invest Long-Term. In these sections, he mentions stocks like Citigroup, Bank of America, General Motors, Genentech, and many others.
Pros: It is a very easy read with good concepts on investing. He’s certainly had the experience to know the ups and downs of the stock market and helps translate that in his own words to the readers. If you’re one of the long-term investors, this book is a good read.
Cons: He is a very long-term focused investor. Gene’s book focuses on concepts appropriate for long-term trading and not many short-term. Therefore, if you are one of the short-term traders like me, you might not get much out of his book. He certainly won’t talk about stock technical analysis and swing trading.
Speaking of investing, check out the new Mint feature they started on investing.
Keep up the good work.
It sounds like an interesting read, even for new investors wanting to learn some rule of thumb investing tips. I know I could sure use it. After reading an article on Breast Cancer Investing, about a company called Mentor Capital (MNTR.PK) that has a major interest in a biotech company in the process of beginning FDA clinical trials for an amazing new breast cancer treatment that singles out breast cancer cells so the immune system can fight the disease directly. Buying stock in Mentor Capital now, could pay off in stock price gains once the treatment makes it to the market.
Personally some of the stocks he chose ended up getting crashed (especially GM lol), but he had some good bio-tech companies listed there.
He does have a good point about bio-techs though. These things really could explode. Just look at VVUS from this past week as an example.
It sounds like an interesting read, even for new investors wanting to learn some rule of thumb investing tips. I know I could sure use it. After reading an article on Breast Cancer Investing, about a company called Mentor Capital (MNTR.PK) that has a major interest in a biotech company in the process of beginning FDA clinical trials for an amazing new breast cancer treatment that singles out breast cancer cells so the immune system can fight the disease directly. Buying stock in Mentor Capital now, could pay off in stock price gains once the treatment makes it to the market.
Personally some of the stocks he chose ended up getting crashed (especially GM lol), but he had some good bio-tech companies listed there.
He does have a good point about bio-techs though. These things really could explode. Just look at VVUS from this past week as an example.