LearningWhatWorks, 2016, [Finance] Grade 4
Most finance and investing books are easy to review. This one was not. Most books keep within a sub-genre where they recycle and mix the usual concepts within the area. This book forced me to think about the philosophy of the firm in ways I hadn’t before. The first sentence of the preface... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
The Idea Farm, 2015, [Finance] Grade 3
Meb Faber has written a short and accessible study over some of the more prevailing strategic asset allocation (SAA) strategies used by institutional investors. SAA is the method for setting long-term target allocations for various assets that is included in an investment portfolio. Mr... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Harriman House, 2016, [Equity Investing] Grade 4
The author of this text on stock selection is touted as the Warren Buffett of the UK. This is a bit unfair since, to me, Keith Ashworth-Lord displays a distinct investment personality of his own. He’s not simply a Buffett clone. The author has more than 30 years’ experience from sell-side... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Palgrave, 2016, [Equity Investing] Grade 5
This is the even more brilliant sequel to the already superb 2004 book Capital Account. Edward Chancellor, the author of the classic Devil Takes the Hindmost, picks and chooses among the 2002 to 2015 Global Investment Reviews written by money manager Marathon Asset Management... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
TEXERE, 2004, [Equity Investing] Grade 5
There lies a danger in rereading books after a long time – it’s not always they age gracefully. The subtitle of Capital Account is A Money Manager’s Reports on a Turbulent Decade, 1993-2002. The time period corresponds roughly to the first half of my time in the equity market so far and I... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Caxton Press, 2007 (first ed. 1954), [Behavioural Finance] Grade 3
This is one of the few general books on contrary thinking that exists. More specifically, there are gazillion publications on value investing but only a handful on contrarian investing. This book is built on a pamphlet and a collection of essays from the 1940s and 1950s. Humphrey Neill was a... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
John Wiley & Sons, 2010, [Economics] Grade 4
This is an unusual book - it’s part comic book, part short novel. How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes is something as rare as a basic primer on Austrian economics in fictional form. Irwin Schiff was an Austrian economist during the heydays of Keynesianism and later a tax protester... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
mises.at, 2015, [Finance] Grade 3
Macroeconomic equilibrium models – be they classical or Keynesian – often feel unnatural for investors who have to cope with a world that rarely shows any signs of stable equilibriums. Because of this the Austrian School of Economics has long attracted certain types of investors.... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
EndlessRiseInvestor.com, 2015, [Equity Investing] Grade 4
In Value Investing the author, an investment advisor and former hedge fund manager, shares his framework for investing in stocks. The stated aim is to provide a process for investment success. The emphasis is on process as investors without one are prone to let psychology determine... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
John Wiley & Sons, 2015, [Finance] Grade 4
Financial markets are immensely complex. They are not rocket science, they are much more complex than that since they incorporate feedback loops of people’s ever changing and often irrational emotions. It’s easy to think that to succeed in such an environment the strategy to... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Harriman House, 2016, [Equity Investing] Grade 4
This is something as unusual as a practical book on behavioral finance. Where the discipline for too long has focused on disproving the so-called Modern Portfolio Theory and listing psychological quirks among investors, Daniel Crosby takes things one well needed step further... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
MIT Press, 2014, [Equity Investing] Grade 4
When someone writes a book on a subject and at the same time runs a company offering a software solution to the issues discussed this generally throws up warning flags. In the case of Managing Equity Portfolios this is unjustified. The author is clearly passionate about solving the... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
The Cunningham Group & Harriman House, 2016, [Equity Investing] Grade 4
If you’ve ever watched Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger answering questions at a Berkshire Hathaway AGM, one thing that is striking is the combination of breadth and depth. That is, the breadth in the number of topics covered and the depth of the insight. The George Washington... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
My Cents Worth Publishing, 2010, [Equity Investing] Grade 4
A few years ago I attended a class at Columbia Business School and seated next to me was this very nice Australian. When I at one point asked about his favorite investment book he pointed to Value.able by Roger Montgomery. Later on when I read the book my expectations were perhaps... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Grand Central Publishing, 2016, [Surrounding Knowledge] Grade 4
Buying and reading this book is an excessive exercise in confirmation bias on my part. This is very much what I believe and if I would only rate the book with regards to its importance it has five-star qualities. The hypothesis of Carl Newport, an assistant professor in computer science at... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Columbia University Press, 2015 [Equity Investing] Grade 4
This might very well be the best over-hyped book I have ever read. Already a year before actual publication rumors began to swirl around the book - fully understandable given the intriguing combo of our time’s most mythical investor and a hugely successful writer with an ardent... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
John Wiley & Sons, 2012, [Equity Investing] Grade 3
With this book the author provides the basis of an understanding of how to invest in the finance sector. The author is an analyst at Fisher Investments covering the financial sector and macro strategy and with this book Ken Fisher’s investment firm completed the book series going... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
McGraw-Hill, 2015, [Finance] Grade 4
This is not a text on stock picking strategies as I mistakenly assumed; it’s a book on asset allocation using momentum strategies. Gary Antonacci with a background in as diverse areas as the US Military, Harvard Business School and touring as a comedy magician, is a pioneer in... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
Guardian Books, 2015, [Finance] Grade 4
“How can these people live with themselves?” Joris Luyendijk is a Dutch journalist with a degree in anthropology and with a prior post in the Middle East. Luyendijk, without any prior knowledge, was assigned by the Guardian to try to understand the people that populate the City. After... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
John Wiley & Sons, 2011, [Equity Investing] Grade 3
This is a book with the dual purpose of on the one hand teaching aspiring small-cap portfolio managers how to set up shop and on the other hand giving institutional investors a better feel of what to look for when performing due diligence of small-cap managers. In respect to this aim... Further reading... Link to Amazon...
