The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, Rule Makers The Foolish Guide to Picking Stocks

Online and off, David and Tom Gardner have demonstrated that Fools and their money are not soon parted . . . that if you use the brothers' investment principles you can beat the market and have lots of fun doing it! They have taught millions how to get started investing Foolishly, which means doing it yourself, free of the fees and worries that Wall Street's Wise Men have been imposing on people for the better part of the past century.

The Gardners' revolution is a multimedia explosion, coming at you through their Web site (www.fool.com), their syndicated newspaper column, and their national radio show. But it has its foundation in their books, all three of which have been national bestsellers. Wherever you find them, though, they're running a revolution where YOU are the winner, and the only losers are the once-vaunted Wall Street suits.

The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, Rule Makers contains two wholly original investment approaches. They are the very approaches that David and Tom use with their own money, in their own market-crushing portfolios that they manage in front of their online customers. David's approach, investing in Rule Breakers, focuses on upstart businesses that take their industries by storm, breaking all the conventions of their industries and changing the rules of the game. Recent Rule-Breaking examples are companies such as America Online or Amazon.com, David's two best investments, but they also include Wal-Mart at its outset, Starbucks, and the biotech giant, Amgen. These are high-risk, high-return companies that have defied traditional valuation on their way to astronomical investment returns. Here, David lays out the six attributes that all Rule Breakers shareas he helps investors prepare to harpoon the next big fish.

As a Rule Breaker matures, it enters a middle stage, becoming what the Gardners call a Tweener. Tweeners have one of two mutually exclusive destinies. The best achieve sufficient speed, size, efficiency, and scope to begin making the rules for their industry. These are the Rule Makers, which are like legalized monopolies. Those that fail at this will eventually vanish from the business landscape, and the treatment they receive from the stock market is rough if not deadly.

After teaching you how to avoid these, Tom's section lays out the four principles shared by all Rule Makers, stocks that offer the opportunity to reap royal returns over long periods of time. Historically, Rule Makers such as Coca-Cola, General Electric, Microsoft, Intel, and the Gap have whomped on the stock market averages for years and years. These stocks lay the foundation for a lifetime of profitable investing, and Tom puts his mouth where his money is, guiding you toward finding and understanding Rule Makers.

Thus, this latest Motley Fool book is a stock-picking guide that teaches you how to locate the best investments available in today's public markets: the Rule Breakers and the Rule Makers. You can make a lot of money investing in either, but those who buy Rule Breakers and hold them all the way through Rule Maker status will make the most money of all. This book is practical, rewarding, very funny, and, above all, revolutionary. The goal of The Motley Fool and the Gardners has always been to "educate, amuse, and enrich" and this book will succeed at all three. Good: This book is missing the dust jacket. The book has some minor marks on the cover. otherwise in very good condition.