100 books like The Alchemy of Finance

There have been newer books on Warren Buffett since this 1995 gem, but this one goes the deepest into the mechanisms that have brought Buffett a $124 billion fortune. Plus it’s the best on Buffett’s quirky personality. I’ve known Roger from our days at The Wall Street Journal together, and it was exciting seeing him research this project over a three-year span – even if Buffett never officially helped him. The finished book made me feel I “knew” Buffett as if he were a long-time neighbor. 

This is a 1951 Indian novel, but don’t let that deter you. Narayan’s central character is a dreamy village banker who ends up running a bit of a hustle on all of the townspeople. I was braced for this to have an ugly, Bernie Madoff style ending. But that’s not exactly where it goes! I read this on a long flight from San Francisco to Bangalore – and this journey into a culture that was both familiar and surprising made the miles go by very fast. 

This is a beautifully written story about bankers who rise, and fall spectacularly – into crime, in this case insider trading, with the loss of money, status, and prestige that followed.

What’s particularly fascinating is the historical, ethnic, and sociological backdrop. The book begins with a scene in which Indian-born Rajat Gupta, having come to the US and ascended to the highest echelons of the US business world, was attending a White House dinner for India’s Prime Minister.

The book ends as some people who had been on top are dealing with the aftermath of trials that went very badly for them. The word “Shakespearean” has been used to describe this book, and aptly so.

Who’s the hero in the story? Who’s the villain? I like this book a lot because it’s about a very powerful U.S. institution – mortgage kingpin Fannie Mae – that’s been both. Bob explains how the New Deal era of the 1930s produced a mighty organization that was supposed to make it easier for ordinary people to get mortgages. And then Fannie Mae’s mission drifted, until it became a spectacular part of the 2008 financial meltdown. It’s almost a financial version of Dorian Gray, where virtue turns into sin, and no one notices until it’s too late.

William O’Neil’s How To Make Money In Stocks is great for anyone looking to learn how to trade stocks part-time.

It gives you a framework of what actually causes stocks to make the big moves of 300%, 500%, 1,000% or more over the span of a few months to a few years along with a historical perspective of why they move the way they move and a strategy of how to take advantage of it that doesn’t require tuning into the news or being glued to a PC all day.

One of the big things you’ll learn in O’Neil’s book is that modeling success is key. The book starts out with over 100 pages of annotated charts of the biggest winning stocks in history. What you’ll quickly notice is that history repeats itself, over and over again.

I first encountered Gary Antonacci’s strategy in his paper “Risk Premia Harvesting Through Dual Momentum,” in which he called momentum “the premier market anomaly.” He found that combining absolute and relative momentum delivered optimal results. In this book, he shows how to boost performance with monthly switching among three asset classes in the following decision tree: Did the S&P 500 beat US bonds over the past 12 months? If no, own US bonds. If yes, did the S&P 500 beat global stocks over the past 12 months? If no, own global stocks. If yes, own the S&P 500. Just three funds could power this system: SPY (S&P 500), AGG (US bonds), VEU (global stocks ex US).

Warren Buffett, considered the greatest investor of all time, manages a portfolio worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

However, Swedroe's teachings show that his core investment strategies can be replicated by any investor. In his book, Swedroe offers insights into Buffett's philosophy and practical guidance on building a diversified portfolio, managing risk, and making sound investment decisions.

The book is written in a clear and concise manner, with complex topics simplified, making it a great recommendation for novice investors.

Some people love to make successful investing seem more complicated than it really is. In this anthology of essays and letters written between 2010–20, Terry Smith makes the case for simply buying the best companies in the world. These are businesses that generate large amounts of cash and know what to do with it in the form of sound capital allocation. The result is a powerful compounding of returns for the long term.

This book serves as a good reiteration of the thinking and principles underpinning Smith’s investing approach, including his three-step investment mantra: “Buy good companies. Don’t overpay. Do nothing.” It also highlights the nuances of the process, including why Smith favors return on capital employed (ROCE) and free cash flow (FCF) yield as metrics for assessing companies and why Smith is less enamored of measures such as earnings per share (EPS).

This is my second favorite book on the mental game of trading.  

It’s written in an easy-to-read manner and the connections McCall makes to the ancient samurai code of “Bushido” are still very relevant to today’s active trader.

If you start with building an unshakeable mindset, all your work of system development or edge optimization will be fully rewarded… Because you won’t be cutting trades or making emotionally impulsive choices that are the “unforced errors” that leak your profits back into the market.

Fail in this mental quest and the markets are nothing more than a gambling vehicle.

Practicing good behavior is the most important ingredient of successful investing.

And understanding the ingrained biases and heuristics that negatively impact our behavior is essential to good investment behavior.

I’ve read dozens of books on behavioral biases, and I think this book is among the best and a perfect introduction to the topic. Written in a light and humorous manner, Montier explains common cognitive biases, how they lead to irrational investment decisions, strategies for overcoming them, and how to practice better investment behavior.