BKCYBINV.RVW   970408

"Cyber Investing", David L. Brown/Kassandra Bentley, 1995,
0-471-11926-1
%A   David L. Brown
%A   Kassandra Bentley
%C   5353 Dundas Street West, 4th Floor, Etobicoke, ON   M9B 6H8
%D   1995
%G   0-471-11926-1
%I   Wiley
%O   416-236-4433 fax: 416-236-4448 lwhiting@jwiley.com
%P   286
%T   "Cyber Investing: Cracking Wall Street with Your Personal
          Computer"

I am quite willing to grant you that an investment strategy and plan
is better than no plan at all.  I am even willing to grant that the
strategies outlined in the book are prudent.  (I am less willing to be
enthusiastic about a book that counsels you to accept a growth rate of
15% but admits that any monkey with a handful of darts can make 13%.) 
So, why do the first few chapters remind me so strongly of those "get
rich quick" infomercials on late night TV?

The book is long on strategy, and the strategies can be helpful
whether you have a computer or not.  Of course, they are far easier to
use if you have a computer to do the bull work and searching for you,
rather than calculating your way through a bunch of stocks (chosen by
dart?) until one matches the strategy.  Actually, the computer tools
don't get mentioned too often.  And what gets the shortest shrift is
the fact that you need data--lots of data--to make it work.

While sometimes producing excellent titles, Wiley does seem to have
this predilection for overpriced marketing pamphlets.  One of the
authors of this book works for the company that makes the software
that comes on the included disks.  Surprise!  Of course, you do get a
thirty-day free trial.  (Given the recommended complexity of the
search strategies, thirty days full-time work would be a bare minimum
time to get used to the software.)  And buried at the bottom of the
book, you find one (1) mention that the online service behind the
software costs almost a dollar an hour....

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997   BKCYBINV.RVW   970408