The Beardstown Ladies' Common-Sense Investment Guide: How We Beat the Stock Market

Sixteen ladies who have, for the last ten years, consistently beaten the stock market from their dining room tables in Beardstown, Illinois, share their down-to-earth, common sense strategies for successful investments and consistent financial gain.

The "Ladies" here are 16 women, average age 55, of an Illinois river town whose investment club, since 1980, has scored an average 23.4% annual return (59.5% in 1991) on a portfolio of 20 carefully selected stocks-twice the rate of the bellwether S&P 500 index. Opening monthly meetings with a prayer and closing with a recipe, the Ladies pay no heed to current market trends, preferring to buy shares after researching companies that have sustained moneymaking growth. Dividends are reinvested. The book is chock-full of family-finance anecdotes, firsthand reports on regional industry, case histories of stocks bought and sold, recommended research tools and the actual minutes (with portfolio changes) of meetings during that banner year of 1991. This well-organized, down-to-earth investment guide will make many readers feel they have never experienced such pleasant instruction. Freelancer Whitaker is a former Time magazine reporter. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Over the past ten years, the Beardstown Ladies Investment Club has produced an impressive average annual return of 23 percent. The key to its investment success is summarized in a single page in the book: members depend heavily on Value Line rankings and apply some fundamental analysis to their stock selections. The 16 women club members, who include a secretary, a school principal, and a hog farmer and who range in age from 41 to 82, also discuss management practices that contribute to running a successful investment club. Since many clubs fail, their practical advice might be useful to others considering such a venture, though guidance is available from other sources. The one-page biographies of the club members together with their favorite recipes adds little to the minimal value of this book.
Joseph Barth, U.S. Military Acad. Lib., West Point, N.Y.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.