Best Investment books to read…
http://www.subramoney.com/book-written-by-me/
Here is a complete and full list of books that I like my students to read. Extremely long, and randomly written i hope to write reviews on all these books and it should be available soon. Some of these book reviews have already appeared in the In house magazine of BSE called Sensex. Some of the reviews may also be available online – in the personal finance section of myiris.com. The ones in Bold can be for starters…
Books have been listed completely at random – and I have intended it to look like an index. Keep coming back to this page – will add short summaries or comments on each book from time to time as well as full reviews. One of the links on the blogroll is a quaint friendly neighborhood book shop – twistntales. The other place where I have bought most of these books is Bookzone based in Mumbai. This is a random list, not alphabetically arranged, not logically arranged, not arranged that is all.
A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel.
Jeremy Siegel’s Stocks for the Long Run
Finance Sense – Dr. Prasanna Chandra – get the basics of finance and accounts from here so that you understand concepts like P&L, B/ Sheet, write offs, taxation, etc.
Analysis for Financial Management by Robert Higgins.
Accounting Shenanigans – do not remember the author’s name.
Why Smart People Make Dumb Money Mistakes by Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich.
Parag Parikhs’ book on Behaviourial finance has brought some Indianness to this science! The book is called Stock to Riches.
Roger Lowenstein’s Making of an American Capitalist.
Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor is a must-read. But it can be kind of painful for today’s kids who do not like to read such big books or those who do not understand bond valuation. However, if you realize that bond valuation is the basis from which equity valuation evolves, you will appreciate this book better!
Phil Fisher – Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits
Speaking of Phil Fisher leads us to Ken Fisher – and his latest book “The Only 3 questions you need to know” is also an excellent book to read, and as useful as his father’s book. It clears a lot of cobwebs – turning the PE ratio is a useful example! Updating – he has written a book on “Smelling a rat” – and it is kind of a warning about what to look for in an investment proposal.
Peter Lynch’s Beating the Street is the journal of a successful money manager, who is also a good communicator. CIOs should do their job well and also be able to communicate their skills and strategies. The Indian examples of course are Mr. Nilesh Shah of Icici Prudential and Mr. Nagnath of DSP blackrock.
You Can Be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt –it’s relatively short, full of case studies, and engagingly written.
John Train’s Money Masters of Our Time and The New Money Masters. The ‘The New Money Masters’ is not easily available, so you will have to search.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator – Edwin Lefevre. Reads like a pot boiler!
Seth Klarman’s Margin of Safety.
Marty Whitman’s The Aggressive Conservative Investor- I personally found this a difficult and not engaging enough to read!
David Dreman’s Contrarian Investment Strategies.
Munger’s biography–Damn Right! by Janet Lowe.
John Kenneth Galbraith’s A Short History of Financial Euphoria.
Devil Take the Hindmost by Edward Chancellor is a fantastic and in-depth history of manias through the ages.
Ron Chernow’s The House of Morgan
Peter Bernstein’s 2 books – Capital Ideas & Against the Gods
The Money Game – Adam Smith
Michael Lewis’s 2 books: Liar’s Poker and Moneyball. His note on the financial markets which appeared in WSJ is also a good read – runs to about 9 pages and is well written.
Roger Lowenstein’s When Genius Failed, which chronicles the rise and fall of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund in the late 1990s.
Bethany McLean’s The Smartest Guys in the Room,
Kurt Eichenwald’s Conspiracy of Fools
Robert Cialdini’s ‘Influence’ and ‘Fooled by Randomness’, by Nassim Taleb, is more directly about finance, and is thought-provoking. Taleb explores how easily we confuse luck with skill, and the importance of knowing which is which. He has followed this with Black Swan. Frankly if you are planning to read, or have read Black Swan, his earlier book Fooled by Randomness becomes unnecessary.
Bruce Greenwald’s Value Investing
Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy.
The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk – by William J Bernstein
Asset Allocation: Balancing Financial Risk by Roger C Gibson
Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyasaki
Market Wizards and its sequel – Jack D Schwager is a brilliantly written book on the top traders in the world.
A similar book is ‘Investment strategies ’ by Mercer. This is a well written book and not easily available or recommended.
The Warren Buffet Portfolio – Robert Hagstorm
Future for Investors – Jeremy Siegel
Common Sense on Mutual Funds – John Bogle
New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor – John Bogle
Enough – John Bogle, but I did not like this book as much as I liked his earlier 2 books which I have re-read many times.
The Art of Short Selling – Kathryn F Staley
Barbarians at the Gate – Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
Beating the Dow – Michael O’Higgins and John Downes
Buffet – the Making of an American Capitalist – Roger Lowenstein
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds – Charles Mackay
45 years in Wall street – WD Gann
Great crash of 1929 – J K Galbraith
How to lie with statistics – Darrell Huff (not available anywhere)
John Maynard Keynes (Volumes 1 and 2): Robert Skidelsky
Soros on Soros – George Soros with Byron Wien and Krisztina Koenen
Technical Analysis of Stock Trends – Robert D Edwards and John Magee
Think like a Tycoon – W G Hill (difficult to find)
Where are the Customer’s Yachts – Fred Schwed Jr.
‘Freakonomics’ and ‘Superfreakonomics’ – especially for the way they have approached the dismal science.
‘Your Brain and your Money’ – do not remember the author. Recently re read the book.
this post is actually available in my older blog also…but just re-posting an updated version of the same thing..plus a few additions!
Srikanth
Subra,
Any books that specifically deal with the Indian equity markets? With numbers from the last 20 years?
How about that book on the two scandals by Sucheta Dalal? A more recent book on Value investing in Indian market context by, I think, a Parikh?
thanks,
Srikanth
Bharti Amin
Hello sir,
When you say Commonsense of Finance – Dr. Prasanna Chandra. Do you mean “FINANCE SENSE: Finance For Non- Finance Executives” by Dr. Prasanna Chandra?
Thanks,
Bharti Amin
subra
yes Bharti i meant that. However it reads like a MBA class text book and you should buy it only if you are serious about investing. However, on the other hand if you are serious about investing, you must invest in that book!
subra
No Indian equity market books unless you write one :). Scandals – there are many aspects to it. One is what happened, one is a journalists version, one is a bankers version, one is a brokers version – and then there is the bitter truth! Was in Mumbai during both the big scams – to me there is only one fall guy – nobody has the guts to name ‘that’. Have not read any book on the scandal.
Parag Parikh is a ‘Value’ guy – he manages well, writes well and speaks well – so pick up all his books, all are worth reading. Personally I have not yet read his latest book – the loss is all mine. Hope to read it though.
SAM
Nice list and nice to know that I have read 4 books out of it. Thanks for the same.
Mahesh
I am a new subscriber of your blog. Love the way you write.
This is an extensive list! is there anyway you could suggest “here are 5 books you must read” before you start in the investing world?
Sachin
Hi Subra,
My question is same as Mahesh (above post). I’d like to start investing and as a first step have started reading blogs and getting to know basics. So an initial list of books would be very helpful.
thanks
– Sachin
Jagbir
Excellent!! I am very interested in reading investment books and was searching for a list of good books which I found here.
as above readers suggests, if you can post name of 2-3 books which beginners must read, It’ll be very helpful.
–
Jagbir
subra
Oh My Gawd..forgot to add “Retire Rich: Invest Rs. 40 a day” – by the author of subramoney.com !!
should be in the markets in the first / second week of February…must read…:)
deepa
Pls recommend ‘what your financial agent will tell you and why you shouldnt listen’ 😀
Janaki
thanks for recommending our bookstore.
“Accounting Shenanigans” by any chance referring to “Financial Shenanigans” ?
rohit
Your Brain and your Money’ is by Jason Zweig the same guy who now writes commentary on the Intelligent Investor
Regards
natarajan t.g.
Subra
What about Traders, Guns and Money by Satyajit Das
and
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin LeFevre.
Both classics, in case you need, i have the softversions!
subra
have read both surprised to have left them out…agree with you..
rohit
Hi Natarajan
Can you please share the same -What about Traders, Guns and Money by Satyajit Das soft copy to me at cc090987@zapak.com
Thanks for the support
Arica Pisarski
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Ritu Kant
Greaaaaaattt post Subra…..!!! Thanks for this list…
Have already bought some of them. Very useful post.
Ajay
Hi Natarajan,
Can you please share the same – What about Traders, Guns and Money by Satyajit Das & Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin LeFevre soft copy to me at ajaypote2000@yahoo.co.in.
Thanks
Jan
My favorite stock trading books are:
• The small stock trader by Mika
• “Lessons from the greatest stock traders of all time” and “How legendary traders made millions” both by John Boik
• “Reminiscences of a stock operator” and “How to trade in stocks” both by Jesse Livermore
• How I made $2,000,000 in the stock market by Nicolas Darvas
• How to make money in stocks by Willien O’Neil