By  Pam Robinson
Any editor who feels less than prepared to handle business copy will find this book useful as an introduction to the basics.

    This is not a book written for day traders or those who want to retire by age 30. Rather, it’s a step-by-step introduction to how the markets work and how to read financial newspages and reports to understand what’s going on.  It cuts through the mountain of financial information and disinformation and tells us what we, as editors and perhaps neophytes to the market, need to know.

     If you’re about to start editing business copy for the first time, or just want to broaden your knowledge, check out this book. It starts with the basics, defining the word stock, and goes up through commodities training. The choice of language is clear and direct, the charts and graphics  packed with information.

   Along the way, it provides little tidbits of information—how Wall Street Journal editors determine which stocks make up the Dow Jones Average, for example—and shows us how to read stock tables,  and even gives us a chart telling us the meaning of various hand signals used on the trading floor.

   This book is part of the AccessPress series, sells for about $15, and is available at most bookstores and numerous online sites.
 

 Pam Robinson  is based at Newsday as a news editor with the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service,  and is co-founder of the American Copy Editors Society.