Here are 58 books that Capital Ideas fans have personally recommended if you like
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I ended up in financial journalism by happenstance (it was pretty much the only corner of the media world that was still hiring when I graduated in the early 2000s). But I fell in love with it. To understand the world, you have to understand money. Whether you like it or not, it is the hidden wiring that binds us all together. I’ve found that reading history books on finance and economics has helped me better understand what is going on today, so I hope the books on this list will help you do the same.
A history of hedge funds might seem like a weird recommendation by someone who has written a paean to passive investing.
But my favourite books use a subject to tell a much broader story, and Mallaby’s definitive book on the hedge industry manages to show how even the most illustrious investing careers can fizzle out as market regimes ebb and flow.
The first book of its kind: a fascinating and entertaining examination of hedge funds today
Shortlisted for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award
'An enormously satisfying book: a gripping chronicle of the cutting edge of the financial markets and a fascinating perspective on what was going on in these shadowy institutions as the crash hit' Observer
Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge-find managers have emerged as the stars of twenty-first century capitalism. Based on unprecedented access to the industry, More Money Than God provides the first authoritative history of hedge funds. This is the inside story…
When I was growing up, I saw family members and friends, who were otherwise smart people who could master other aspects of their lives, have difficulty with personal finance decisions and investing. When my dad was laid off during a recession, he had some retirement money distributed to him, and I got interested in investing as he researched and tried with difficulty to handle this money himself. In my young adult years, I was a sponge to learn as much as I could about personal finance.
I first read this book as required reading for a college course, and it greatly changed how I thought about investing.
Over the years, I’ve read updated editions, and it never gets stale and always includes new information and insights. But the foundational issues have stood the test of time and remain in the newest edition.
I also love this book because it introduced me at a young age to mutual funds and Vanguard.
Today's stock market is not for the faint hearted. At a time of frightening volatility, the answer is to turn to Burton G. Malkiel's advice in his reassuring, authoritative, gimmick-free and perennially best-selling guide to investing. Long established as the first book to purchase before starting a portfolio, A Random Walk Down Wall Street now features new material on "tax-loss harvesting"; the current bitcoin bubble and automated investment advisers; as well as a brand-new chapter on factor investing and risk parity. And as always, Malkiel's core insights-on stocks and bonds, as well as investment trusts, home ownership and tangible assets…
I’ve been interested in investing for over four decades since I started as a finance PhD student at Wharton. Since then my research has focused on understanding the stock market. Early on, I tried applying my research to my investing. For example, I was convinced that a recently listed stock called Google was way overvalued—was I ever wrong! That got me to reflect on my investment philosophy—what did I truly believe about how markets really behaved? That brought me back to understanding and appreciating the contributors to Modern Portfolio Theory, which led to a fun decade-long book project. Currently I enjoy writing about investing through my blog.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Charley for our book.
He’s a great storyteller. He was probably the first practitioner to advocate for passive index investing. He’s a tennis enthusiast, and his book was inspired by a book he read aimed at amateur tennis players. Ellis learned that to win at tennis, the best strategy is to simply try to not lose, and to not try to act like professional players.
He realized that the same strategy worked for investors as well. That means that investors shouldn’t try to beat the market.
The definitive guide to long-term investing success-fully updated to address the realities of today's markets
Technology, information overload, and increasing market dominance by expert investors and computers make it harder than ever to produce investing results that overcome operating costs and fees. Winning the Loser's Game reveals everything you need to know to reduce costs, fees, and taxes, and focus on long-term policies that are right for you.
Candid, short, and super easy to read, Winning the Loser's Game walks you through the process of developing and implementing a powerful investing strategy that generates solid profits year after year. In…
Early observations of power and privilege came from growing up around my Pulitzer Prize-winning father, Richard Eberhart, and his circle of iconic literary friends. During my long career advising top executives, I came to understand the dynamics of male power and privilege and its fit with individual personality. In their corner suites, I listened to CEOs interpret their pasts and envision their futures while the best of them uncovered their real fears and vulnerabilities. As these (mostly) men confronted their own mythologies and legacies, I, too, got to examine mine—recognizing that the best way to change our companies and our lives is to change ourselves.
This book informed my macroeconomic thinking on the way banks and companies have long been twined and the complex decisions that ultimately somebody—whether company boards or government regulators—need to make when they fail.
This was a perfect study for my own research into the near collapse of the early Hormel company and the reason why it still exists today; Sorkin’s chosen title would apply. Companies have an impact, both good and sometimes bad, and our regional and national economies often suffer from their hubris and greed.
Sorkin’s master storytelling kept me riveted and mesmerized all the way through six hundred and forty pages.
They were masters of the financial universe, flying in private jets and raking in billions. They thought they were too big to fail. Yet they would bring the world to its knees.
Andrew Ross Sorkin, the news-breaking New York Times journalist, delivers the first true in-the-room account of the most powerful men and women at the eye of the financial storm - from reviled Lehman Brothers CEO Dick 'the gorilla' Fuld, to banking whiz Jamie Dimon, from bullish Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to AIG's Joseph Cassano, dubbed 'The Man Who Crashed the…
I ended up in financial journalism by happenstance (it was pretty much the only corner of the media world that was still hiring when I graduated in the early 2000s). But I fell in love with it. To understand the world, you have to understand money. Whether you like it or not, it is the hidden wiring that binds us all together. I’ve found that reading history books on finance and economics has helped me better understand what is going on today, so I hope the books on this list will help you do the same.
Sometimes the obvious pick is still the right pick, and anyone interested in the history of financial shenanigans – outright frauds or merely weapons-grade idiocy – has to read Kindleberger.
There’s a reason why it remains a stone-cold classic that bears reading (and re-reading) almost half a century after it was first published.
In the Eighth Edition of this classic text on the financial history of bubbles and crashes, Robert McCauley joins with Robert Aliber in building on Charles Kindleberger's renowned work. McCauley draws on his central banking experience to introduce new chapters on cryptocurrency and the United States as the 21st Century global lender of last resort. He also updates the book's coverage of the recent property bubble in China, as well as providing new perspectives on the US housing bubble of 2003-2006, and the Japanese bubble of the late 1980s. And he gives new attention to the social psychology that leads…
After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1989 with an LAS degree in communications and a knack for artwork, I had no idea what I wanted to do. That was until my brother pulled me from my low-paid art job in Chicago to work as a clerk on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I eventually became a trader on that same floor, as well as an oil and gas dealer in New York. Screaming and yelling in the trading pits while money moved back and forth with a shout and a hand signal I learned more about investing, trading, and human nature through osmosis than I ever could in an MBA course.
Though not a book about trading per se, this chronicle of the craziness surrounding the 1986 leveraged buyout of RJR-Nabisco is certainly worth a read.
It centers around the machinations of RJR-Nabisco’s breezy CEO, F. Ross Johnson, and how, apparently, being the head of one of America’s great companies wasn’t enough. The book really is as much a study of greed and ego as it is about what was, at the time, the most expensive LBO in history.
One gets the feeling the company in play, and its employees wondering what would be the impact on their lives once the negotiations way up in the New York corporate high rises were completed, were ancillary concerns to the players involved—Ross Johnson, American Express CEO and power publicist Jim and Linda Robinson, Shearson-Lehman head Peter Cohen, buyout specialist and anti-junk bond crusader Ted Forstmann, and the coldly menacing Henry Kravis and…
“One of the finest, most compelling accounts of what happened to corporate America and Wall Street in the 1980’s.” —New York Times Book Review
A #1 New York Times bestseller and arguably the best business narrative ever written, Barbarians at the Gate is the classic account of the fall of RJR Nabisco. An enduring masterpiece of investigative journalism by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, it includes a new afterword by the authors that brings this remarkable story of greed and double-dealings up to date twenty years after the famed deal. The Los Angeles Times calls Barbarians at the Gate, “Superlative.”…
When I was growing up, I saw family members and friends, who were otherwise smart people who could master other aspects of their lives, have difficulty with personal finance decisions and investing. When my dad was laid off during a recession, he had some retirement money distributed to him, and I got interested in investing as he researched and tried with difficulty to handle this money himself. In my young adult years, I was a sponge to learn as much as I could about personal finance.
I loved this book because it is well-written and presents 200+ years of stock market history in a clear and compelling fashion.
This book helped me to understand the value of buying and holding stocks for the long term. I appreciated the thoroughness and objectivity that the professor who wrote this book brings to the table.
The stock-investing classic--UPDATED TO HELP YOU WIN IN TODAY'S CHAOTIC GLOBAL ECONOMY
Much has changed since the last edition of Stocks for the Long Run. The financial crisis, the deepest bear market since the Great Depression, and the continued growth of the emerging markets are just some of the contingencies directly affecting every portfolio inthe world.
To help you navigate markets and make the best investment decisions, Jeremy Siegel has updated his bestselling guide to stock market investing.
This new edition of Stocks for the Long Run answers all the important questions of today: How did the crisis alter the…
I’ve been interested in investing for over four decades since I started as a finance PhD student at Wharton. Since then my research has focused on understanding the stock market. Early on, I tried applying my research to my investing. For example, I was convinced that a recently listed stock called Google was way overvalued—was I ever wrong! That got me to reflect on my investment philosophy—what did I truly believe about how markets really behaved? That brought me back to understanding and appreciating the contributors to Modern Portfolio Theory, which led to a fun decade-long book project. Currently I enjoy writing about investing through my blog.
I also first met Andrew when I was a PhD student in the first course he taught at Wharton. I was fortunate to be his co-author decades later.
I can’t think of anyone else who is both so incredibly bright but also articulate and an engaging storyteller in so many areas. Lo’s book challenges the fundamental theory of market efficiency which suggests that security prices reflect all relevant information—in other words, that securities are always fairly priced.
Drawing on psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, he comes up with a convincing a new model, that he calls the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis.
A new, evolutionary explanation of markets and investor behavior
Half of all Americans have money in the stock market, yet economists can't agree on whether investors and markets are rational and efficient, as modern financial theory assumes, or irrational and inefficient, as behavioral economists believe. The debate is one of the biggest in economics, and the value or futility of investment management and financial regulation hangs on the answer. In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Lo transforms the debate with a powerful new framework in which rationality and irrationality coexist-the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis. Drawing on psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence,…
I am a writer and reporter who has spent two decades covering complicated topics for a wide audience. This started when I covered Wall Street for Bloomberg News, where I spent 17 years as a reporter, and continues to this day with my own crypto media company, DeCential Media. My love of distilling new technologies to their essence is what informs the best of my writing and comes with the added bonus of being able to interview and learn from some of the smartest people in tech and finance.
This is my favorite book about the financial crisis of 2008. Richard had unparalleled access to Bill Ackman, one of the savviest investors around, and tells this story with amazing detail and insight. Everyone knows The Big Short, but Confidence Game is the book to read to really understand what created the credit crisis of 2008.
An expose on the delusion, greed, and arrogance that led to America's credit crisis The collapse of America's credit markets in 2008 is quite possibly the biggest financial disaster in U.S. history. Confidence Game: How a Hedge Fund Manager Called Wall Street's Bluff is the story of Bill Ackman's six-year campaign to warn that the $2.5 trillion bond insurance business was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Branded a fraud by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, and investigated by Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ackman later made his investors more than $1 billion when bond…
Kees van der Pijl was lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex in the UK. He retired in 2012. At Sussex he was head of department and director of the Centre for Global Political Economy. Besides democracy and anti-war activism he continues to write on transnational classes and policy networks, including the role of “deep politics”.
The author has devoted an entire oeuvre to the notion of Deep Politics.
The concept enlarges the visible, legitimate political structures in Western society by shadow structures that are less or not visible, but often have the decisive say in matters of life and death.
This book focuses on these shadow structures in the United States and documents in great detail how they emerged and which role they continue to play in blocking democratic development whilst enriching capitalist interests.
This provocative book makes a compelling case for a hidden "deep state" that influences and often opposes official U.S. policies. Prominent political analyst Peter Dale Scott begins by tracing America's increasing militarization, restrictions on constitutional rights, and income disparity since the Vietnam War. He argues that a significant role in this historic reversal was the intervention of a series of structural deep events, ranging from the assassination of President Kennedy to 9/11. He does not attempt to resolve the controversies surrounding these events, but he shows their significant points in common, ranging from overlapping personnel and modes of operation to…
