Here are some excellent books on investing. I have compiled this list from various sources such as professional investors, other blogs and some that I have read myself.
The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition)
This is one book that every investor should read. It was written by Ben Graham who is considered the founder of the field of Security analysis. It is an excellent read and can be understood by anyone with an interest in investing. You do not need an MBA to understand the concepts of this book. Graham refers to two kinds of investors. The defensive investor is one who lacks the time, interest and ability to select individual investments. The active investor is one who has the time, interest and ability to do more research and pick individual investments.
Excellent and short book with simple concepts on investing. The main idea is to suceed in investing you should buy good companies at cheap prices. Cheap is defined by earnings yield and good is defined by return on capital. I have written about this book in this post.
An excellent and simple book that introduces value investing principles. It is the 2nd one in the “Little Book” series. I read it on a weekend and really enjoyed it. Some of the key take aways from this book are
Buy stocks as you would buy other things…when they are on sale, know the value of the underlying business, have a margin of safety in your investments, kinds of companies to avoid, things to watch when considering international investing, what to analyse in a balance sheet and income statement, 16 points to check in a potential investment idea, why day trading can never succeed, how to select a money manager.
This is an advanced book and is considered the bible for the field of Security Analysis by Ben Graham and Dodd.
These are two excellent books even for non-professional investors. Written by Peter Lynch who was one of the most successful mutual fund managers of his time. He had outstanding results over 15 years where he beat the market by about 10% annually.
This book by Philip Fisher is another classic. The book impressed Warren Buffett a lot and he has said that he learnt a lot from Fisher’s style of investing.
