Favorite Investing Books

Here they are.  Read ’em and profit:

1. The Black Swan. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (NNT).  Random House.
2. Fooled by Randomness. NNT.  Texere.
3. The Intelligent Investor (Revised Edition). Benjamin Graham (w/ Jason Zweig).  Collins.
4. When Genius Failed. Roger Lowenstein.  Random House.
5. Your Money & Your Brain. Jason Zweig.  Simon & Schuster.
6. The Ascent of Money. Niall Ferguson.  The Penguin Press.
7. All About Index Funds. Richard Ferri.  McGraw-Hill.
8. Investments. (Textbook)  Bodie, Kane, Marcus.  McGraw-Hill.

The first three are must reads in my opinion (though #2 overlaps with The Black Swan.)  I can’t say enough about the first two, though I try.   The Intelligent Investor is the book on value investing, period.

If you want to understand today’s financial crisis, read #4, in addition to #1.  These books provide the blueprints and some solutions.  If only Greenspan, Paulson, Bernanke, etc, had listened.

#5 provides a much needed perspective into the reality of financial decisions and the emotions behind them.  This book confirms the wisdom of having a play money (Crazy Ivan) fund to give emotion an outlet and aid in maximizing overall portfolio objectivity.

#6 is an excellent history of money and how we got to where we are today in the financial universe.   #7 is the best read I’ve found about the ins and outs of index funds and ETFs.  Finally #8 is a surprisingly readable text and reference for those who want to know how the financial world thinks (Read it to understand, not slavishly believe).

Read (and re-read) these books and you’ll be light-years ahead of 90% of the financial advisors out there.