Financial Times Guide to Investing, The: The Definitive Companion to Investment and the Financial Markets (The FT Guides)

The first investment book I ever read made me feel like a child clinging to a parent. It was full of warnings — don’t do this, avoid that — but offered very little explanation beyond the author’s own traumatic experiences. It left me more anxious than informed. Glen Arnold’s book is completely different. Instead of scaring you away from mistakes, he focuses on explaining the mechanics of investing, helping you understand how things work so you can make your own decisions. His personal preferences appear occasionally, but never in a way that feels overwhelming or scaremongering. The tone is calm, rational, and grounded. The book assumes no prior knowledge, which I appreciated as a beginner. I found it easy to follow, and Arnold goes into detail only when it genuinely adds value. It isn’t heavy on theory or mathematics, and it’s far from boring. If you’re a complete beginner like me, you may find that chatting with AI or doing quick web searches alongside the book helps deepen your understanding of concepts like business durability or management quality. One of the book’s strengths is how much it reveals about what happens behind the scenes in the financial world — enough to educate you, but never so much that it becomes overwhelming. That said, don’t expect to become an experienced investor just by reading this edition. Think of it as the GCSE level of investing knowledge — a solid foundation that prepares you for the A‑level material you’ll explore later. While I learned a great deal, topics like practical investment techniques, strategic and tactical planning, and alternative assets are only lightly touched on, if at all. This book is about building understanding, not handing you a ready‑made strategy. Overall, it’s an excellent starting point for anyone who wants to understand investing properly, without fear, hype, or unnecessary.

Excellent overview of investing

Despite the book being very up to date, it lost some relevance straight away for me as the CV19 economic collapse happened the week after I bought it. But despite this, it gives a very good explanation of the ins and outs of investing, how the financial system works and nice detail of all the different financial instruments along with worked examples. One of my favorite parts were the FT article snippets from recent years giving real world examples of different financial events. My least favorite part is that it only went into detail on how the London Stock Exchange and AIM works. I would have liked to have read about other exchanges such as NYSE, Xetra, Tokyo SE among others. Also the author regularly plugs a certain website that he contributes to, which is fair enough, but I want to learn about investing not about opinion piece websites. It's a really good introduction to investing and also serves as a reference material to have within arms reach for when needed. I'm currently considering getting another book from the author "Lessons on Investing From Master Traders" - seems like a good next step in the learning process.

This book comes at the subject of investing from every angle, products, tools, terminology etc etc. Some topics would need a separate book to do them justice i.e. share valuation/options trading but the foundations are presented, at the very least in each case. Can't believe he packed so much diverse subject matter into one easy to read book!! I have read as far as IPO's (and glanced at the remaining chapters). If constructive criticism can be given, I would like to see a little more portfolio management/allocation, possibly extra discussion of financial ratios i.e. WACC. Definitely worth the money.

Very much enjoyed this book. Whilst I'm not a beginner at investing, I'm no expert. It's well laid out with plenty of detail a beginner or expert would find useful. This is one of those books you'll be going back to time and again.

The book has excellent reviews. It is long because it is detailed - which I wanted. I have read bits & am impressed. As somebody said it is basically a reference book - which again suits me. I am glad that I knew quite a bit before getting it - it's not a beginners guide.

Detailed introduction and guide into the world of investing including investment tools, research strategies, benchmarks and all the other lovely bits..worth the investment ... pun definitely intended.

If you can get this book at a good discount then it's probably a good purchase, however wouldn't generally recommend it. Quite a lot of theory, a bit boring in my personal opinion. Overall it's ok