Wiley & Sons, 2007, [Equity Investing] Grade 5
Reading this book in 2007, it had an immense impact on my thinking. The gravitating pull from valuations in a range-bound market – one of the book’s core ideas – nicely interlinked with the identification of great franchises. Active Value Investing also hit home in a few other ways... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
McGraw-Hill, 1984 1st ed, [Equity Investing] Grade 5
Some strands of value investing are relatively quantative in their focus on the replacement cost of balance sheet items etc. A growth investor invests in the unknowable future of a company. In some respects growth investing then is more of an art form where some forms of value investing... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Random House, 2012, [Surrounding Knowledge] Grade 5
“Who is the boss between you and mommy?”
“Who is the boss? You have to ask that? I’m the boss. Mommy is only the decision maker.”
Woody Allen excels at portraying funny, pathetic and often self-delusional characters. These lines from the film Mighty Aphrodite are a case in point... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Vintage Books, 1976 1st ed, [Behavioural Finance] Grade 5
Long before the term behavioural finance there was someone writing about the significance of identity. Long before the witty Buffett-isms, someone wrote those same words as part of his Irregular Rules. And long before Michael Lewis carved out his own position as the... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
John Wiley & Sons, 2010, [Equity Investing] Grade 5
This is an almost epic tale of a clash between a blunt, stubborn-as-a-mule hedge fund manager with a fierce sense of justice called Bill Ackman and MBIA, the largest municipal bond insurer in the United States with a tough CEO named Jay Brown. It’s also a story of lazy... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
John Wiley & Sons, 2009, [Finance] Grade 5
This is very much a book in the Market Wizard-tradition - a knowledgeable person interviews prominent macro hedge fund managers on how they work and what investments they have done. As the author knows many of the interviewees personally the conversation becomes... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Harper Business, 2000, [Equity Investing] Grade 5
Strikingly often successful investors have had other successful investors as their mentors and you often hear them tell the tale of how they came to realize the insights from Ben Graham, George Soros, Jesse Livermore etc. Since very few are privileged enough to work for... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Fireside, 1997, [Equity Investing] Grade 5
With this his first book, superstar investor Joel Greenblatt tried to bring the process that gave him his early success to the general public. Even though the author is broad within his niche - special situations - the area in itself is specialized and also highly labor intensive making the venture doomed... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
John Wiley, 2013, [Equity Investing] Grade 5
This book is a result from John Mihaljevic’s many projects, for example the websites Manual of Ideas and Valueconferences plus his investment firm, Mihaljevic Capital Management LL., and all of these are in their turn the result of his effort to answer a question he put to... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Random House, 2007, [Behavioural Finance] Grade 5
To call this book an investment classic is an understatement. The Black Swan has had a huge impact also beyond the enclosed world of finance. A Black Swan is today a part of everyday vocabulary. Former trader and now author/ philosopher Nassim Taleb wasn’t first to... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Columbia University Press, 2013 2nd ed, [Equity Investing] Grade 5
In the last chapter, the author writes something that perfectly sets the context for this in my mind slightly overlooked investment book (1st ed 2000): “Improving the resource condition of our System 2 thinking – that is to say, deepening and broadening our reserves of relevant information – is the principal reason this book was written”. Writing that in 2000, two years before... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Princeton University Press, 2009, [Economics] Grade 5
Animal Spirits is a book about macroeconomics with an interesting twist. Rest assured this is not another mundane behavioral economics handbook. The book was written in response to the financial crisis and the authors are economics rockstars. Robert Shiller and George Akerlof are... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Broadway Books, 2000, [Finance] Grade 5
During the 1990’s the cheeky Swedish TV-character Gert Fylking, dressed in an awful pink tracksuit had the habit of shouting “Finally!” when the Nobel Prize committee announced another obscure literature prize winner to the waiting possy of pretentious culture journalists. This year I... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Dover Publishing, 1930, [Equity Investing] Grade 5
Every year, every business cycle and every decade has its hero. Few keep the track record over an extended time period so one conclusion is that he or she just happened to be long or short the asset proved right to be long or short at... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Touchstone, 1997, [Equity Investing] Grade 5
When portfolio managers in the US some years ago voted on who they would prefer to manage their own money Warren Buffett only came second. Top ranked was the dean of small cap investing, Ralph Wanger, who was also the first to receive... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Jossey-Bass, 2013, [Business] Grade 5
“Self-made leader and social entrepreneur Morton Mandel is likely the most successful person you have never heard of… until now. No matter where you are on your leadership path, this book will make an enormous difference in your outcomes. Get your copy today”. A cardinal rule of a... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Prentice Hall Financial Times, 2013, [Business] Grade 5
This is a collection of strategy models like Porter’s 5 Forces or the BCG Matrix but it’s more than that. The author has written a strategy handbook on how to use these models as practical tools. Strategy models are a diverse bunch and they relate to anything from how to set up a... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
The University of Michigan Press, 2008, [Surrounding Knowledge] Grade 5
Suppose I told you I had found irrefutable scientific evidence that a CEO’s golf handicap affects his or her company’s stock performance. Better golfers imply higher stock returns, I’d say. As evidence I would produce a huge regression model, covering thousands of companies, where... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Penguin Books, 1994, [Finance] Grade 5
In 1954 the Canadian-born, Keynesian celebrity economist, serial author, academic enfant terrible and producer of timeless quotations - Ken Galbraith published his now classic The Great Crash of 1929. It’s never been out of print since. A Short History of Financial Euphoria is a compendious... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
McGraw-Hill, 2011, [Finance] Grade 5
If you want an accessible way of starting to learn about derivates this is it. Michael Durbin has written an easy going text, free from jargon and without too many equations. The equations needed are still there, if not in the text then at least in the appendixes. The text is basic but still... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
