Etfs for the Long Run Lib/E: What They Are, How They Work, and Simple Strategies for Successful Long-Term Investing

by Lawrence Carrel

A well-known figure in the world of ETFs outlines everything investors need to know about this important investment vehicle

Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, are one of the hottest investment products around and a staple in many portfolios. In ETFs for the Long Run, Lawrence Carrel takes readers through the ins and outs of ETFs, including the history of ETFs, the tax benefits and minimal charges associated with ETFs, and an easy-to-read breakdown of the fundamental differences between ETFs and other investments. He also provides readers with the tools for trading and including ETFs in portfolios.

Lawrence Carrel (New York, NY) is a well-known ETF expert. He created and wrote SmartMoney.com's "ETF Focus" column, a weekly look at the ETF industry from the individual investor's point of view. Carrel was also a founding member of The Wall Street Journal Online, where he covered the stock market, edited breaking news and was one of the writers of the Cyber Investing column.

Genres: Finance

Audio CD

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather stale and boring, it introduces you to the history, mechanisms and usefulness of ETF's in your portfolio; the informational value of this particular book is rather limited and the whole text could have been condensed into a primer about one-third the size of the original.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to give this four stars because of its informational value but the amount of repetitions severely detracts from the reading.

On the one hand this book gives you a awesomely good picture of what an ETF is (Extraded Traded Fund) - especially compared to what a Mutual Fund. You get to know what makes them special, what makes mutual funds special, how they work, what their assets are etc. This is all very detailed - and maybe a little too detailed for the average household investor. The author goes through alot of different ETFs and their relatives like ETNs, CEV, Master Partnerships, ETF holding commodities like gold and oil etc.

The author also gives an excellent historic overview of the birth of the ETFs and the political and business skirmishes fought between the various exchanges (NYSE, ARCA, NASDAQ, AMEX etc.) For those wanting only to know about ETF this is probably lengthy and too drawn out.

The thing that detracts the most however are the many repetitions of explanations of definitions on certain terms, e.g. what a "specialist" is or what "shorting" is - so far the worst and most confusing explanation I have yet to read on what it means to go "short". The book is also heavy on the summaries of each chapter which is always nice but many of chapters have a small preceding summary before the actual summary making very repetitive to read the actual summary.

Ending the book is a selection of various portfolios you can construct by using ETFs - they should provide a good starting point, although most other ETF portfolio examples I have read use much fewer ETFs.