r/investing • u/greytoc • Jul 01 '21
Updating Favorite Book Reading List
The reading list on the sidebar hasn't been updated in a few years. So we are sourcing new ideas for books which have been published in the last 4 - 5 years to be considered in the categories below.
The list of books below were collated about 4 years ago by u/MasterCookSwag
I personally enjoy lighter reading about Wall Street stories and history so I've enjoyed books like:
- Market Wizards (Interviews with Top Traders) - 1989 - Schwager
- New Market Wizards (Conversations with America's Top Traders) - 1992 - Schwager
- The Super Traders - 1992 - Rubenfeld
If you recommend a book, it must be a book that you have read. And please provide the author and date of first publication. We'll update the list in the wiki so that it's more convenient to be found.
Thanks.
[edit] - I noticed that we don't have a lot of suggestions about fixed income investing or about the debt market.
General Beginner Books:
- Little book of common sense investing by John bogle
- A Random walk down wall street by burton malkiel
- The boglehead guide to investing by Larimore, Lindauer, LeBoeuf
- Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein - beginner, general
General Intermediate:
- Intelligent Asset Allocator by William Bernstein - intermediate, asset allocation
- A History of Interest Rates
- The Myth of the Rational Market
- How Markets Fail - Cassidy
- Alchemy of finance
- One up on wall street - peter lynch
- Against the gods - Peter Bernstein
- F Wall Street by Joe Ponzio
General Advanced:
- Hedge Fund Market Wizards
- Manual of Ideas
Corporate Fundamentals:
- How to Read Financial Statements - Ittelson (Fundamental/Beginner)
- How to Read a Financial Report - Tracey (Fundamental/beginner)
Fundamental analysis:
Intermediate
- The intelligent investor by Ben Graham
- Expectations Investing
- What works on wall street by James O'Shaughnessey
- Accounting for Value
- Value Investing from Graham to Buffett and Beyond
- Investment Banking - Rosenbaum
- What's Behind the Numbers
- It's Earnings that Count
- Common stocks and uncommon profits - Philip Fisher
- Contrarian Investment Strategies
Advanced
- Financial Statement Analysis and Security Valuation
Quantitative strategies:
Intermediate
- Your Complete Guide to Factor Investing
- Quantitative Strategies for Achieving Alpha
- Quantitative Value
- Quantitative Momentum
- Derivatives Essentials - Gottesman
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u/Dangerous_Drummer769 Jul 01 '21
You need to add Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. I do not know what category you want to put it in, but its worth reading if you like playing the market.
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u/SirGlass Jul 01 '21 edited Jul 01 '21
I will start this thread off and piss off a whole lot of people and think we should create a category for "historically significant but not longer all that relevant " and move the intelligent investor into that category .
Graham by the 1970s also admitted the book was dated, and its dry and boring to read not that investing books pull you in but even by investing standards its boring.
.
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u/Spcymeatball Jul 01 '21
I disagree on Intelligent Investor being COMPLETELY outdated.
I do agree the book is dry and many examples and ideas are obsolete today, such as "net nets". Maybe there should be a warning about that.
However, this book continues to be the most important investing book I have read. Among the many unmemorable pages were a few nuggets of gold that have been crucial from a philosophical point of view. Thinking of stocks as businesses. Margin of Safety.
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u/SirGlass Jul 02 '21
Yea I pretty much agree. There are some great stuff in there about the philosophy of investing. I guess my point is its the good stuff is about 20 - 30 pages out of a 500 page book.
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u/-Chip-the-Rip- Jul 01 '21
Agreed. Also very glad not to see “rich dad, poor dad.”
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u/SirGlass Jul 01 '21
Yea that book tells you to try to get insider info to get a leg up on stocks, then also commit tax fraud.
I don't think we should be promoting books that tell you to break the law
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u/MadtownGeek Jul 01 '21
I had a friend recommend that book to me probably 15 years ago. Read it and was really not impressed at all. Had a "hustle to make money any way you can" sort of vibe if I recall. Was disappointed in my friend a bit, haha.
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u/DocHerb87 Jul 01 '21
The updated version of intelligent investor has a commentary section after each chapter that is more up to date. I actually just read those commentary sections, had a lot of useful information.
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u/greytoc Jul 01 '21
Yes - agreed. There's quite a few books that I think could fall into that category.
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u/LiqCourage Jul 02 '21
I have to agree, unfortunately. Fell asleep reading it in 1990 when I still had youthful vigor.
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u/homeless_alchemist Jul 01 '21
This is a great list so far. I'll add a few recs.
When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein (2001)- It's the story of Long-Term Capital and how a Hedge Fund with Nobel Prize Winners and quant focused investors almost caused a systemic collapse due to over-confidence and excessive leverage in the mid 90s. Casual read.
Quality Investing by Lawrence Cunningham (2016) goes into how to identify high quality companies based on their business models and moats. Highly recommend it. Great beginner to intermediate book.
100-baggers by Chris Mayer (2015) is a qualitative analysis of companies that 100x'd. Great for people who are targeting high growth and entertaining. Great beginner book.
Geopolitical Alpha by Marko Papic (2020). This is about how to read politics based on constraints in order to improve returns. The book is pitched for macro investors. But I think it's great for any time you are investing in things that are at the mercy of politicians like infrastructure, healthcare, and recreational drug legalization.
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u/MadtownGeek Jul 01 '21
Roger Lowenstein wrote a really great book. I enjoyed it so much I read it again a couple years later. Let's see, be weary of leverage and fat tails!
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u/johnnytifosi Jul 01 '21 edited Jul 01 '21
Nice list. In the beginners' books, while I liked Bernstein's Four pillars of investing, I would replace it with The Investor's Manifesto, which is the same content but a bit shorter, better written and driving the reader to the point more easily.
For the intermediate camp, I really liked The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor . It does not recycle the same stuff as most investing books do (there's only too much stuff you can write about buying and holding index funds), but it really teaches a way of thinking and explains some concepts in depth. For example, Marks' definition of risk, a thing that most investors think they know about, is downright excellent. Highly recommended book.
Overall, I've read a lot of books, and if one wanted to read only one do-it-all book, it definitely should be A Random Walk down Wall Street, and it should be highlighted as such in the list. It's a complete work with the history and theory of investing, a complete guide to building your portfolio, and is written in Malkiel's unique humorous but authoritative style.
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u/ekdakimasta Jul 01 '21
I noticed you don't have any of Nasim Taleb's work: Black Swan, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, etc. I think he should be included in any list
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u/-Chip-the-Rip- Jul 01 '21
“Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class” by Hacker & Pierson, 2011.
Good insight on the last 40 years of fiscal and monetary policy that has created an enormous wealth gap in the US.
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Jul 02 '21
How is it relevant to investing?
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u/-Chip-the-Rip- Jul 02 '21
Well, the book provides a strong reinforcement on why one should invest in themselves and can’t rely on government social welfare in the future.
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u/rahddit Jul 01 '21
Any recommendations for books/articles on asset allocation?
It's a very important topic but I haven't found much reading material of value.
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u/DefendAgainstDarkArt Jul 01 '21
Andrew Lo who’s a professor at MIT has a book set to be released in august titled “In pursuit of the perfect portfolio”. You can look up his work on asset classes.
There is a lot that’s going to change on asset allocation going forward and I doubt Lo would cover it, but he’ll be the best by far.
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u/kiwimancy Jul 01 '21
I've read Asset Management by Andrew Ang and Expected Returns on Major Asset Classes which were pretty good. Asset Management is written partly from the point of view of sovereign wealth funds and partly from retail investors which was interesting.
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u/Kumpelamil Jul 01 '21
Even that it's not exactly book about investment I did enjoy Shoe Dog by Phil Knight really readable memoir by the Creator of Nike, now reading Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science ... bit basic but good
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u/luciform44 Jul 02 '21
A Man for All Markets isn't a a how to guide, but it's a great read on risk management and finding information advantages. Plus it's just a great read and super entertaining.
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u/nailek Jul 02 '21
Intro Quant:
Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives - Hull (The bible)
Wilmott Introduces Quantitative Finance - Wilmott
Principles of Financial Engineering - Neftci
Advanced Quant:
Paul Wilmott on Quantitative Finance 3 Volume - Wilmott
Arbitrage Theory in Continuous Time - Björk
Portfolio:
Quantitative Equity Portfolio Management - Chincarini
Quantitative Equity Investing - Fabozzi
MicroStructure:
Trading and exchanges - Harris
Trades, Quotes and Prices - Bouchaud
Options:
Option Trading - Sinclair
Option volatility and pricing - Natenberg
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u/greytoc Jul 18 '21
Thanks for the list. Much appreciated and I'll be adding it to the reading list.
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u/gtani Dec 23 '21 edited Dec 26 '21
i recommend reading as many as you can from public library. Every year Wiley spews out a bunch of trading books that are not really edited, so there's good info but you have to spend hours looking for it, not in the index/table contents.
I bought these after reading in library and/or because stockcharts recommended them or amazon reviews seemed credible, well edited/no filler, good for deciding what to trade, how to filter universe of stocks, risk/reward scoring, weekly/daily schedules.
- Steenbarger Trading Psychology 2.0
- Alex Elder New Trading for a Living, latest ed 2014
- Roze/Roze Tensile Trading
- Bensdorp 30 mninute trader
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u/KyivComrade Jul 01 '21
"The Richest Man in Babylon" by George S. Clason is my suggestion for a good beginners book.
Ita short and easy to read since it's written as a story. It can be read by adults and youths alike. It's old but not dated since the it's truths are pretty universal...
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u/luciform44 Jul 02 '21
I think right now is when I want to learn a lot more about bond investing.
Any bond investing books I can start with or progress through?
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u/greytoc Jul 02 '21
Yes - we do seem to be very equity market focus. I don't have any suggestions but hopefully other people will have them.
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u/WePrezidentNow Jul 02 '21
I just finished reading The Wealthy Renter. Actually a very insightful book written by a real estate analyst who’s worked with pension funds and wealthy clients. It discusses the actual investing logic behind owning your home and ponders whether or not it is a suboptimal way to maximize wealth. It’s written for Canadians but the logic is universal and the metrics could very well be found for most developed local markets so you can do your own analysis. It was the first time I’ve ever read someone truly break down housing as an investment, I learned a lot from it
Spoiler alert: the answer is it depends
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u/cbus20122 Jul 02 '21
Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: See book here
This is not by any means an investing staple, but if you want to understand Buffett style value investing, there is no better way than reading this. It also provides most of his important letters in here, and then provides outside analysis on what Buffett did.
In my opinion, it's a great read for understanding modern value investing as well as old school value investing.
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u/Trisolaran_arbitrage Jul 02 '21
"Non-Consensus Investing - Being right when everyone else is wrong" by Rupal Bhansali
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u/LiqCourage Jul 02 '21
Ken Fisher should be required reading for any macro stock market investor. A good one is "The Only Three Questions That (Still) Count" ... would put it in intermediate.
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u/[deleted] Jul 01 '21
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