Recommended Reading

From Amazon.com:

A NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER

The legendary investor shows how to identify and master the cycles that govern the markets.

We all know markets rise and fall, but when should you pull out, and when should you stay in? The answer is never black or white, but is best reached through a keen understanding of the reasons behind the rhythm of cycles. Confidence about where we are in a cycle comes when you learn the patterns of ups and downs that influence not just economics, markets, and companies, but also human psychology and the investing behaviors that result.

If you study past cycles, understand their origins and remain alert for the next one, you will become keenly attuned to the investment environment as it changes. You’ll be aware and prepared while others get blindsided by unexpected events or fall victim to emotions like fear and greed.

By following Marks’s insights—drawn in part from his iconic memos over the years to Oaktree’s clients—you can master these recurring patterns to have the opportunity to improve your results.

From Amazon.com:

Legendary investor Howard Marks is chairman and co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, which has $100 billion under management. He is sought out by the world's leading value investors and his client memos brim with insightful commentary and a time-tested, fundamental philosophy. Now for the first time, readers can benefit from Mark's wisdom, concentrated into a single lifetime of experience and study, The Most Important Thing explains the keys to successful investment and the pitfalls that can destroy capital or ruin a career.

Utilizing passages from his memos to illustrate his ideas, Marks teaches by example, detailing the development of an investment philosophy that fully acknowledges the complexities of investing and the perils of the financial world. Brilliantly applying insight to today's volatile markets, Marks offers a volume that is part memoir, part creed, with a number of broad takeaways.

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                                When Warren Buffett Speaks. . . people listen.

"If people want to improve their investing skills, it has to help to study how the Master does it. This short book outlines Buffett's philosophy and techniques."
—Peter S. Lynch, Fidelity Investments

"Common sense with a deft irony . . ."
—John C. Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group and author, The Little Book of Common Sense Investing

"It was Warren Buffett's thoughts and philosophy that first captivated investors. Janet Lowe has done us all a great service by collecting and arranging Warren Buffett's wit and wisdom in an easy-to-read and enjoyable book."
—Robert G. Hagstrom, Portfolio Manager, Legg Mason Growth Trust mutual fund, and author, The Warren Buffett Way, Second Edition

"A must-read. Buffett's wit and wisdom is a roadmap for anyone looking to succeed in business, investing, and life."
—Steve Halpern, Editor, thestockadvisors.com

From Amazon.com:

An updated edition of the bestselling collection of timeless wisdom from the world's greatest investor Readers of Warren Buffett's letters to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders have gained an enormously valuable informal education in the art of investing. Broad in scope and long on wisdom, Buffett's letters explain his principles on sound investing, selecting managers, valuing businesses, using financial information profitably, and other vital topics for investors. This newly updated Fourth Edition includes Buffett's latest wisdom on such topics as the financial crisis, the housing bubble, corporate governance, Berkshire Hathaway's acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, the role of oversight in heavily regulated industries, today's best investing opportunities, and the weaknesses of popular option valuation models.

• Features investing advice in plain English from one of the world's most legendary investors
• Includes Buffett's insights on the current financial crisis and recession
• Offers new and potent insight on good corporate governance and other issues vital to executives and managers

From Amazon.com:

"A road map for investing that I have now been following for 57 years."
--From the Foreword by Warren E. Buffett

First published in 1934, Security Analysis is one of the most influential financial books ever written. Selling more than one million copies through five editions, it has provided generations of investors with the timeless value investing philosophy and techniques of Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd.

As relevant today as when they first appeared nearly 75 years ago, the teachings of Benjamin Graham, “the father of value investing,” have withstood the test of time across a wide diversity of market conditions, countries, and asset classes.

This new sixth edition, based on the classic 1940 version, is enhanced with 200 additional pages of commentary from some of today’s leading Wall Street money managers. These masters of value investing explain why the principles and techniques of Graham and Dodd are still highly relevant even in today’s vastly different markets.

Featuring a foreword by Warren E. Buffett (in which he reveals that he has read the 1940 masterwork “at least four times”), this new edition of Security Analysis will reacquaint you with the foundations of value investing―more relevant than ever in the tumultuous 21st century markets.

From Amazon.com:

 William Green is the author of RICHER, WISER, HAPPIER: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life (Scribner/Simon & Schuster, April 2021).
Green has interviewed many of the world’s most successful investors, exploring in depth the question of what principles, processes, insights, habits, and traits enable them to achieve spectacular success—and how we can profit by reverse engineering and replicating their winning ways.
Green has written for many publications, including The New Yorker, Time, Fortune, Forbes, Barron’s, Fast Company, Bloomberg Markets, and The Economist. He also edited the European, Middle Eastern, African, and Asian editions of Time.

Green has collaborated on several books as a ghostwriter, co-author, or editor. He worked closely with renowned hedge fund manager Guy Spier on his much-praised memoir, The Education of a Value Investor. Green also wrote and edited The Great Minds of Investing, which features short profiles of 33 renowned investors.

Born and raised in London, Green studied English literature at Oxford University, and received a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in New York with his wife and children.

From Amazon.com:

What happens when a young hedge fund manager spends a small fortune to have lunch with Warren Buffett? He becomes a true value investor.

This book traces the arc of a transformation. Author Guy Spier started his career as a Gordon Gekko wannabe -- brash, short-sighted and entirely out for himself. Then, a series of transformations and self-realizations led him from an investment banking job with a third-rate firm to managing his own fund, which has generated tremendous returns for his investors. His journey began with the discovery of Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor, then took him on a path to a life-changing meeting with the renowned investor Mohnish Pabrai, followed by his famous lunch with Warren Buffett. That $650,100 meal proved to be a bargain, teaching Spier some of the most valuable lessons of his life. 

Along the way, he has gained many powerful insights about investing and business, including: why the right mentors and role models are the key to long-term success as an investor; how a top-notch education can get in your way; why self-knowledge is so critical to becoming a great investor; and how Buffett taught him that the ultimate goal in life is to be true to yourself.

This book is an extraordinarily candid memoir that takes the reader into some of the darkest corners of Wall Street. It's also a remarkably smart and practical guide to what it takes to become a successful investor. Most important, Guy Spier provides those who want to take a different path with the insight, guidance and inspiration they need to succeed on their own terms.

From Amazon.com:

A comprehensive value investing framework for the individual investor

In a straightforward and accessible manner, The Dhandho Investor lays out the powerful framework of value investing. Written with the intelligent individual investor in mind, this comprehensive guide distills the Dhandho capital allocation framework of the business savvy Patels from India and presents how they can be applied successfully to the stock market. The Dhandho method expands on the groundbreaking principles of value investing expounded by Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger. Readers will be introduced to important value investing concepts such as "Heads, I win! Tails, I don't lose that much!," "Few Bets, Big Bets, Infrequent Bets," Abhimanyu's dilemma, and a detailed treatise on using the Kelly Formula to invest in undervalued stocks. Using a light, entertaining style, Pabrai lays out the Dhandho framework in an easy-to-use format. Any investor who adopts the framework is bound to improve on results and soundly beat the markets and most professionals.

From Amazon.com
Fooled by Randomness is the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about business and the world. Nassim Nicholas Taleb–veteran trader, renowned risk expert, polymathic scholar, erudite raconteur, and New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan–has written a modern classic that turns on its head what we believe about luck and skill.

This book is about luck–or more precisely, about how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill–the world of trading–Fooled by Randomness provides captivating insight into one of the least understood factors in all our lives. Writing in an entertaining narrative style, the author tackles major intellectual issues related to the underestimation of the influence of happenstance on our lives.

The book is populated with an array of characters, some of whom have grasped, in their own way, the significance of chance: the baseball legend Yogi Berra; the philosopher of knowledge Karl Popper; the ancient world’s wisest man, Solon; the modern financier George Soros; and the Greek voyager Odysseus. We also meet the fictional Nero, who seems to understand the role of randomness in his professional life but falls victim to his own superstitious foolishness.

However, the most recognizable character of all remains unnamed–the lucky fool who happens to be in the right place at the right time–he embodies the “survival of the least fit.” Such individuals attract devoted followers who believe in their guru’s insights and methods. But no one can replicate what is obtained by chance.

Are we capable of distinguishing the fortunate charlatan from the genuine visionary? Must we always try to uncover nonexistent messages in random events? It may be impossible to guard ourselves against the vagaries of the goddess Fortuna, but after reading Fooled by Randomness we can be a little better prepared.

Named by Fortune One of the Smartest Books of All Time

A Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year