Best books to continue learning about investing?

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TopHatFox
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Best books to continue learning about investing?

Post by TopHatFox »

I've already read these books: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/2 ... shelf=read

What books did you find helped you understand the fundamentals of investing? (definitions of asset classes, investing terminology, portfolio ratios, etc.)

IlliniDave
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Re: Best books to continue learning about investing?

Post by IlliniDave »

I could list 6-8, but a couple that are good introductions to facets of the topic are:

The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need, by Andrew Tobias. It's a pretty good broad-based introduction to the subject. Although mutual fund-centric, the second talks a lot about asset allocation, All About Asset Allocation, by Rick Ferri.

Neither will tell you much about stock picking, quantitative analysis, charting, and the like. They're geared towards the dull, finish the marathon approach.

henrik
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Re: Best books to continue learning about investing?

Post by henrik »

The Intelligent Investor, Benjamin Graham. It only took about my whole life of everyone recommending it until I recently picked it up and it really is a very good explanation of all the important basics. I have a 2006 edition with added commentary (mostly comparisons to the dotcom boom period) from Jason Zweig.

Chad
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Re: Best books to continue learning about investing?

Post by Chad »


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Sclass
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Re: Best books to continue learning about investing?

Post by Sclass »

Recent favorites are

Get Rich Carefully by Cramer.

Street Smarts by Jim Rogers.

Oddly, this online series at Morningstar is excellent for the basics. I just stumbled across it trying to look up accounting definitions.

http://news.morningstar.com/classroom2/ ... &CN=sample

wizards
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Re: Best books to continue learning about investing?

Post by wizards »

JL Collins's stock series are definately worth a read:

http://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/

anna14
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Re: Best books to continue learning about investing?

Post by anna14 »

Are you looking for books that are written by (or for) portfolio managers and professional investors?

Or should you prefer motivational books written for everyone? These books are dangerous, because you got the impression, that investing is simple and everyone can do it. The opposite is true.

Take most popular amazon bestseller - Intelligent investor. Compare it with Security analysis, a book of much greater value, but nowhere to be found in amazon bestseller lists.

If you are serious about investing, then I would recommend:

Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management (by Reilly, Brown)
Financial Reporting, Financial Statement Analysis and Valuation (by Wahlen, Baginski, Bradshaw)


They aren't cheap, but also not printed in thousands like bestselling paperbacks.

There is also middle choice. This book is less vague and still can be understood eveny by highschool graduate:

Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements

TopHatFox
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Re: Best books to continue learning about investing?

Post by TopHatFox »

anna14 wrote:Are you looking for books that are written by (or for) portfolio managers and professional investors?

Or should you prefer motivational books written for everyone? These books are dangerous, because you got the impression, that investing is simple and everyone can do it. The opposite is true.

Take most popular amazon bestseller - Intelligent investor. Compare it with Security analysis, a book of much greater value, but nowhere to be found in amazon bestseller lists.

If you are serious about investing, then I would recommend:

Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management (by Reilly, Brown)
Financial Reporting, Financial Statement Analysis and Valuation (by Wahlen, Baginski, Bradshaw)


They aren't cheap, but also not printed in thousands like bestselling paperbacks.

There is also middle choice. This book is less vague and still can be understood eveny by highschool graduate:

Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements
I think at this point in my life I'm interested in the "dull, finish the marathon approach" mentioned above.

I might begin reading more analytic books in the future, though. I haven't decided whether I'd like investing to take up a significant part of my time or if I'd just like to know the fundamentals well enough for investing to provide a steady retirement income.

In other words, I haven't decided whether I'd like to be the investor that stock picks, uses charts, and quantitative analysis or the one that puts their savings in a domestic/international index fund.

Which of the two types of investors above do you all prefer to be, and why?

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GandK
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Re: Best books to continue learning about investing?

Post by GandK »

My husband is the former, and I am sort of the latter.

We invest his way at this point. This is for many reasons, but mostly because I'm retired and he isn't yet, and having control of the investments helps him feel like his retirement is down to him. That's extremely important to him.

Dancing in and out of the market scares me, though, I admit. I believe that as we get older we will employ more index investing, since the larger our pot gets, the more anxiety he displays about potential losses. I think there will be a critical point when he decides to put some of it on what to him would be auto pilot.

If I were single I would go the dividend growth investing route. I've learned over time by asking the questions you're asking now that buy and hold, with a steady income stream from dividends, would be the best fit for my more hands-off investing "personality".

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: Best books to continue learning about investing?

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

The little book on common sense investing
Common sense on mutual funds
by John Bogle

A random walk down wall street by Burton Malkiel

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