Books

Below are some book recommendations for anyone looking to learn.  I have read many investing books and cannot remember most.  Few stick out and those are listed here.  At the time of reading I learned something from them all, though many weren't much more than a reinforcement of some prior held belief.  Over time they grew together into an idealogy.

I will skip the Graham and Buffett recommendations because you're heard them before.  

Before moving into my books I suggest you check out Jae Jun's recommended reading over at oldschoolvalue.  He's great and of course his list is great.  I have read some, but not all.  

I'll group the books as they fit in my head:

General Value Investing:
To give you an idea of strategies out there and how things work.  Start here if you're new.
  • Joe Ponzio: F Wall Street
    • This will always be my first love of books and I recommend this to people who ask me how to invest or what stocks are.  The first book I read that laid out an equation with buy and sell points.  He relies on a DCF valuation which I don't do anymore but the book does a great job of just showing you that you can do it.  
  • Joel Greenblatt: The Little Book that Beats the Market
    • Great quick read showing how a simple formula can beat the averages.  Excellent book for beginners.  Block out the noise.  Focus on the numbers.  Just a simple price ratio and some patience will do you well.  
  • Joel Greenblatt: You can be a Stock Market Genius
    • This famous book is also excellent.  A must read.  Greenblatt pounds into you the idea of looking for inflection points.  Change creates opportunity.  Search for disruption and non-linearities.  

Charting:
Many in the value investing world shun charting.  Humans have this need to pick a side, form teams, and boo the opposition.  Technical analysis is the study of crowd behavior, it's human emotion and decision making, it's the belief in history repeating itself.  Give charting it's due respect and you might learn something beneficial.  There are super intense charting books out there with all sorts of crazy formations and too much for me to remember.  I stick to support, resistance, and trends.  
  • Ted Warren: How to Make the Stock Market Make Money for You
    • One of the only books I've read more than once.  It just fits so well.  I love the explanations, style, and long term view.  If you read this you will see Ted in my posts.  He uses very long 10-20-30 year charts to make decisions.  Everything is based on his belief there are manipulators behind the stocks and he is riding their wave.  When to buy and when to sell.  
  • Richard Evans: Finding Winners Among Depressed and Low-Price Stocks
    • Great book that shows you charting applied to low priced stocks.  Many of my decisions are mirrored here.  Simple charting: support, resistance, trends, accumulation, distribution.  There's not much talk on buying and selling with more focus on chart explanations.  

What style should you adopt:
These books back up the style I have: go small and illiquid and hated and forgotten. Fish in the right pond.
  • Tweedy Browne: What has Worked in Investing
    • You can get this free as a pdf online.  It's a summary of many studies showing what returns come from different investment styles.  My takeaway is you should go as small and illiquid as you can.  Buying stocks that are cheap versus the numbers works.  Price/Book, Price/Earnings, Price/Revenue.  This was one of those things that pushed me further into the style I have now: don't spend too much time on decisions if the numbers show it's cheap.  Don't make things more complicated than they have to be.  
  • Richard Evans: Finding Winners Among Depressed and Low-Price Stocks
    • The first couple chapters go through reasons for investing in the depressed and low-priced area.  Past losers consistently outperform past winners.  Lower absolute priced stocks perform better than higher.  This book reinforces my buying of the ugly, out of favor stocks left in the gutter to die.  

Motivation:
Something to keep you going.
  • Guy Thomas: Free Capital
    • Love this book so much and it really got me fired up to get to work.  It's the story of "how 12 private investors made millions in the stock market."  Maybe similar to the Market Wizards series but this book features people I identify more with because they seem like just regular old Joes that have done incredibly well on their own, rather than professionals who have been schooled and trained with Wall St jobs.  Relatable interviews and stories of these people who have been able to support themself and their family without a traditional job.  It's what I aspire to.  

--Dan
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5 comments:

  1. Thank you for the great books that you have recommended :) F Wall street makes a lot of sense who doesn't have any accounting background.

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  2. Hi Don. I started trading in the fall of 2018. I am from Canada and wanted to get in on the legalization of marijuana. When I first started all I bought were penny and micro stocks. I still buy penny stocks and I am still holding most of them. Most of them were recommended from my paid services. My philosophy is if they are still in business, there's a chance they'll take-off, merge or get bought out. Like you said, I'm now waiting for events. I really enjoyed the podcast on the Stansberry Investor Hour and now will follow your blog. Thanks

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  3. The One Thing by Gary keller. One of the best books I’ve read in decades. Provides an entirely new prospective on work, personal life and the steps to achieve success in these arenas. This book has changed my thinking!

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  4. Declassified article from the CIA’s internal journal:
    https://www.ialeia.org/docs/Psychology_of_Intelligence_Analysis.pdf
    Do You Really need More Information? (see Chapter 5) Interesting article with applications for improving investment decisions.

    ReplyDelete