How the Economy Works: An Investor′s Guide to Trac Tracking the Economy (How Wall Street Works) - Softcover

Mennis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0134010353 ISBN 13: 9780134010359

Publisher: Jossey Bass, 1991

Synopsis

A practical investment guide designed to help individual investors make more informed investment decisions. Based on the premise that understanding how the economy works is invaluable for the average investor, the book explains basic economic decisions.

About this title

From the Author

Understand the economy and its relationship to investments
The origin of this book was a response to a plea from my son, a graduate engineer who was studying for his MBA, who found he was expected to have an understanding of the economy and its workings but never had taken courses in economics in his undergraduate work. Each chapter was reviewed by my son and my wife (a speech pathologist by profession) and rewritten until they told me they understood the contents - and what a lot of economic jargon fell by the wayside in that process!

This book is written for those who want to know how to make sense out of the flood of economic data available each month and to understand the relationship of these data to the financial markets. The best framework for examining the economy is to use the monthly data available on the demand by the users of GDP (the total output of goods and services in the U.S.): personal consumption, business capital expenditures and inventories, government investment and consumption, and net exports. Critical economic measures for each of these areas are described and charted for a period of years to provide perspective. Interest rates and monetary policy are covered, as well as the federal budget, Social Security and Medicare. Business cycles are reviewed, together with long-term growth trends of the economy. A new chapter for the second edition was written by my son, Liam Mennis, which is devoted to sources of economic information on the Internet. Pitfalls in economic analysis are outlined, as well as a chapter relating the economy to profits. Finally, long-term investment returns for various types of investments are described and charted, and investment goal setting, investment risk and diversification are discussed. The book is not aimed at the professional economist but at the non-economist who is interested in how the economy, profits and the finacial markets operate and relate to each other.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey Bass
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0134010353
• ISBN 13: 9780134010359
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 304