The best books to read if you want to retire with millions in the stock market

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a professional investment advisor for over 50 years and it took me that long to figure out the best way for individuals to retire with a decent size multi-million dollar fortune. The books I recommend speak to this topic from some fascinating and different points of view. But why did it take so long? I don’t know. I suppose the obvious answers aren’t so obvious at first, especially in a business as complex as the securities industry. But I think I finally figured it out and the solution is so elegantly simple. My professional life’s work!


I wrote...

The Pure Equity Plus Plan: Your Path to a Multi-Million Dollar Retirement

By Peter J. Tanous,

Book cover of The Pure Equity Plus Plan: Your Path to a Multi-Million Dollar Retirement

What is my book about?

After working on Wall Street and in the stock market for over 50 years, I finally found the closest thing to a surefire, history-tested way to retire with a fortune in the stock market. And the formula I explain in the book is blessedly simple! I’m not the only one. Warren Buffett has been advocating a similar approach for even more than 50 years, but is anybody listening? Now is the time!

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Where Are the Customers' Yachts? Or a Good Hard Look at Wall Street

Peter J. Tanous Why did I love this book?

This book is over 60 years old but so relevant today! The headline involves a brokerage firm customer looking at all the yachts owned by stockbrokers, hence the question in the title. A well-known writer friend of mine put it another way: “The broker made money, his investment firm made money, and two out of three ain’t bad.” I love this book that zeroes in on the conflict brokers have between their own interests and the interests of their clients.

By Fred Schwed,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Where Are the Customers' Yachts? Or a Good Hard Look at Wall Street as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Once I picked it up I did not put it down until I finished...What Schwed has done is capture fully-in deceptively clean language - the lunacy at the heart of the investment business' - From the Foreword by Michael Lewis, Bestselling author of "Liar's Poker". '...one of the funniest books ever written about Wall Street' - Jane Bryant Quinn, "The Washington Post". 'How great to have a reissue of a hilarious classic that proves the more things change the more they stay the same. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent' - Michael Bloomberg. 'It's amazing how…


Book cover of Money Masters of Our Time

Peter J. Tanous Why did I love this book?

The book features the ideas of some of the most successful investors of all time, including Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, and John Bogle. What was it that made these investors so successful, and why are there so few of them?  Money Masters was one of the first in a series of books about the success of some of Wall Street’s greatest investors and it is still relevant today. These books are especially useful in preserving the thinking of great investors after they pass on. The book adds fuel to the fire of the “Efficient Market Theory” which holds that the market is highly efficient and the only way you can beat it is through luck! Try telling that to some of these great investors!

By John Train,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Money Masters of Our Time as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An expert reviews the experts - new and updated appraisals of the winning investment strategies of the greatest financial wizards. Money Masters of Our Time is a reappraisal and revision of those money masters who have stood the test of time plus a look at new money masters. Train emphasises the parts of their various business careers that illuminate their investment techniques focusing on notable individuals whose decisions to buy and sell have actually made money grow. How do they reason? Where do they get their information? How much do they depend on fact and how much on psychology? What…


Book cover of Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

Peter J. Tanous Why did I love this book?

This is a wonderful history of risk going back to 17th-century mathematicians through present day. Bernstein makes the point that understanding risk is at the heart of most all the decisions we make. As you’ll see from my book recommendations, I am obsessed with risk and its history and have discussed it at length in my own books. Bernstein’s book is one of the classics.

By Peter L. Bernstein,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Against the Gods as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A Business Week, New York Times Business, and USA Today Bestseller "Ambitious and readable ...an engaging introduction to the oddsmakers, whom Bernstein regards as true humanists helping to release mankind from the choke holds of superstition and fatalism." -The New York Times "An extraordinarily entertaining and informative book." -The Wall Street Journal "A lively panoramic book ...Against the Gods sets up an ambitious premise and then delivers on it." -Business Week "Deserves to be, and surely will be, widely read." -The Economist "[A] challenging book, one that may change forever the way people think about the world." -Worth "No one…


Book cover of The Black Swan

Peter J. Tanous Why did I love this book?

This huge bestseller is a trailblazer on many levels. For one, the author has a keen sense of humor and relates his theories to his history growing up in Lebanon. Taleb is in my opinion one of the smartest people on the planet. He breaks new ground in the analysis of risk by explaining and expanding on the concept of fractal geometry and how it relates to what we know and don’t know about risk. I recommend you read this and all of Taleb’s books.

By Nassim Nicholas Taleb,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked The Black Swan as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The most influential book of the past seventy-five years: a groundbreaking exploration of everything we know about what we don’t know, now with a new section called “On Robustness and Fragility.”

A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions…


Book cover of The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns

Peter J. Tanous Why did I love this book?

You probably know that Jack Bogle is the father of the index fund industry and here’s an opportunity to hear why he thinks index funds are the best way to invest in the market. I agree completely and like Bogle, I love to provide evidence that the market is so hard to beat, only a fraction of the active fund and investment managers do it consistently. So why take the chance? Read this and hear it from the master.

By John C. Bogle,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Little Book of Common Sense Investing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The best-selling index investing "bible" offers new information and is updated to reflect the latest market data The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is the classic guide to getting smart about the market. Legendary mutual fund veteran John C. Bogle reveals his key to getting more out of investing: low-cost index funds. Bogle describes the simplest and most effective investment strategy for building wealth over the long term: buy and hold, at very low cost, a mutual fund that tracks the S&P 500 Stock Index. Such an index portfolio is the only investment that guarantees your fair share of…


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I Am Taurus

By Stephen Palmer,

Book cover of I Am Taurus

Stephen Palmer

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Philosopher Scholar Liberal Reader Musician

Stephen's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. This book traces the story of the bull in the sky, a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull.

Each of the sections is written from the perspective of the mythical Taurus, from the beginning at Lascaux to Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, and elsewhere. This is not just a history of the bull but also a view of ourselves through the eyes of the bull, illustrating our pre-literate use of myth, how the advent of writing and the urban revolution changed our view of ourselves, and how even bullfighting in Spain is a variation on the ancient sacrifice of the sacred bull.

I Am Taurus

By Stephen Palmer,

What is this book about?

The constellation we know as Taurus goes all the way back to cave paintings of aurochs at Lascaux. In I Am Taurus, author Stephen Palmer traces the story of the bull in the sky, starting from that point 19,000 years ago - a journey through the history of what has become known as the sacred bull. Each of the eleven sections is written from the perspective of the mythical Taurus, from the beginning at Lascaux to Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Greece, Spain and elsewhere. This is not just a history of the bull but also an attempt to see ourselves through…


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