6 Must Read Books on Investing Legends
To be a successful investor requires acquiring a never-ending amount of knowledge and research. Fortunately, many of the world’s best investors have put pen to paper and detailed their journey to build wealth in the stock market. Learning from the best investors of our time provides unique insights and investment strategies to improve your returns. There is no time like the present to build your reading list. To get a jump start, we present our list of the five must-read books on investing legends.
Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger
Billionaire investor Charlie Munger leads our list. Poor Charlie’s Almanack is a proverbial encyclopedia of what it takes to be a successful investor and successful in any aspect of your life. At over 500 pages, this book is a monster. But the commitment to read Charlie’s will reveal many takeaways to apply almost immediately. Chock-full of investing tips, charts, and graphs, the book also covers the psychological factors toward the end. In the later chapters, Charlie’s take on our common thinking tendencies and how they result in misjudgment errors provide perhaps the most valuable insight during this marathon of a read.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/944652.Poor_Charlie_s_Almanack
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
This is the oldest and longest book on our list. To be fair, there are other books that leapfrog this gem, and rightfully so. Although dated (hello 1970s), the book could very well become the textbook for university courses on investing. Graham’s classic book delves deep into proven investment philosophies and strategies. The book beautifully details not only why to invest in stocks, but also how and when based upon your personal goals and time horizon. The Intelligent Investor also explains how to emotionally manage the market’s ups and downs while staying the course and remaining profitable.
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Philip Fisher
Philip Fisher was a pioneer in growth investing. He was among the first to take a long-term approach to stock market investing by focusing on selecting stocks from firms with strong, sustainable growth characteristics. In this book, he explains how to read financial statements, analyze management performance, and assess a company’s competition. Philip also explains the basic principles of stock selection and how to pick those having the potential to generate above-average profits. Warren Buffet names this book as one of the top three for investors to add to their library. With its quantitative bent, those who appreciated fundamental investing grounded in hard data will come away full of information to apply to their own portfolio management.
https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Common+Stocks+and+Uncommon+Profits+and+Other+Writings-p-9780471445500
One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch
Peter Lynch is a well-known mutual fund manager and Yale University’s former investment manager. He is also a great writer and storyteller. Described as “an artisan unveiling his secrets,” Peter shares the successful investment techniques he deploys in his own trading. The book explains how to focus on investing basics and what we can do to improve our returns. But as the pages pass, you will find yourself engrossed by his belief in the advantages individual investors hold over the institutions. Through his impressive knowledge base and engaging writing, this will be one of the hardest books to put down.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/762462.One_Up_On_Wall_Street
The Warren Buffett Way by Robert Hagstrom
No list of books about investing would be complete without Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffet. Let’s face it; everyone wants to make money in the market, including fund managers and plan managers. While this book may not be the deep dive into investing many readers may be seeking, it provides a wonderful blueprint to follow for the buy-and-hold investor. This book is for the thinker and the studier, not for those looking for technical tactics to blindly follow along with. Value investors often comment they only thought they were value investing; until they read this book.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/209956.The_Warren_Buffett_Way
Anatomy of the Bear: How to Navigate Bear Markets by Russel Napier
Our list was to comprise only five recommendations. However, seeing as we are in the grips of a bear market as of this writing, Napier’s “Anatomy of the Bear” had to be included. Having reviewed 70,000 articles from the Wall Street Journal regarding the most significant market crashes in history, he’s come to understand how investors react during tumultuous times. The general consensus of the book is that we are likely no smarter than the rest of the market. Understanding this one fact and developing strategies around it become Russel’s main thrust throughout the book.
https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Bear-Lessons-Streets-bottoms/dp/1906659354
Conclusion
Learning and staying informed about current market conditions is crucial in achieving financial success. But we know those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. The above collection of books should be just the tip of your investing spear. If you find yourself salivating to expand your investment library, your financial future will likely be very bright.
