Here are 50 books that The Star Principle fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve been an independent investor for nearly 25 years. In my previous life as an employee, I was a research actuary for a firm of pension consultants, and then a university lecturer. I left my last academic job at the age of 35 because I had made enough money to survive, and freedom was worth more to me than a salary. FIRE (Financial Independence – Retire Early) is what it’s called these days, but with two differences. First, I’m not retired: I spend most of my time on investing, but entirely on my own terms. Second, and relatedly, I’m an active investor, albeit a cheap one, nearly as cheap as an index fund.
This book comprises an edited compendium of investment reports from Marathon Investment Management, with three broad themes.
First, stock markets are about capitalism, not macroeconomics.
Second, successful investment requires an understanding of the relative size and composition of supply, demand, production, and consumption. You need to compare heterogeneity, fragmentation, and growth (positive or negative) on both sides of a company’s market.
Third, pay attention to the capital cycle. Seek out sectors from which investors’ capital and attention are being withdrawn, and be wary of sectors which are attracting increasing capital and attention.
We live in an age of serial asset bubbles and spectacular busts. Economists, policymakers, central bankers and most people in the financial world have been blindsided by these busts, while investors have lost trillions. Economists argue that bubbles can only be spotted after they burst and that market moves are unpredictable. Yet Marathon Asset Management, a London-based investment firm managing over $50 billion of assets has developed a relatively simple method for identifying and potentially avoiding them: follow the money, or rather the trail of investment. Bubbles whether they affect a whole economy or merely a single industry, tend to…
I’ve been an independent investor for nearly 25 years. In my previous life as an employee, I was a research actuary for a firm of pension consultants, and then a university lecturer. I left my last academic job at the age of 35 because I had made enough money to survive, and freedom was worth more to me than a salary. FIRE (Financial Independence – Retire Early) is what it’s called these days, but with two differences. First, I’m not retired: I spend most of my time on investing, but entirely on my own terms. Second, and relatedly, I’m an active investor, albeit a cheap one, nearly as cheap as an index fund.
This is the best book I know on the nitty-gritty detail of investment research. Some of the techniques and resources mentioned may not be accessible to the typical private investor, but I would pick out three general points.
First, the importance of managing your own time (see the whole of chapter 3). Second, the need to pick out, for each company the handful of variables that have the biggest influence on the stock price, and concentrate on researching those. Third, the need for any investment view to be backed by non-consensus data or insights – because without these, you only have only a hunch, and a hunch is not worth very much.
A real-world guide to becoming a top-performing equity analyst
Praise for Best Practices for Equity Research Analysts:
"Jim Valentine has taken his decades of experience as a highly successful security analyst and written an effective and comprehensive guide to doing the job right. Ionly wish I had this book by my side throughout my career." -- Byron R. Wien, Vice Chairman, Blackstone Advisory Partners LP
"Given the fast pace and high-pressure nature of the markets, analysts don't have the luxury to make mistakes. James J. Valentine's Best Practices for Equity ResearchAnalysts should be required reading for all new and experienced…
I’ve been an independent investor for nearly 25 years. In my previous life as an employee, I was a research actuary for a firm of pension consultants, and then a university lecturer. I left my last academic job at the age of 35 because I had made enough money to survive, and freedom was worth more to me than a salary. FIRE (Financial Independence – Retire Early) is what it’s called these days, but with two differences. First, I’m not retired: I spend most of my time on investing, but entirely on my own terms. Second, and relatedly, I’m an active investor, albeit a cheap one, nearly as cheap as an index fund.
All investing is risk-taking, and this is the best book on risk-taking that I know. Not just risk-taking as mathematics or games (although both of those are important), but risk-taking as a philosophy of life.
I would pick out two main insights. First, risk is intrinsically neither good nor bad, it is just a dial you can turn up or down. Second, your aim should be neither to minimise nor maximise risk, but rather to take the right amount of risk, and so achieve what this book calls “risk ignition”.
One contextual caveat: the value I see here is a deep understanding of risk, not specific recipes.
An innovative guide that identifies what distinguishes the best financial risk takers from the rest
From 1987 to 1992, a small group of Wall Street quants invented an entirely new way of managing risk to maximize success: risk management for risk-takers. This is the secret that lets tiny quantitative edges create hedge fund billionaires, and defines the powerful modern global derivatives economy. The same practical techniques are still used today by risk-takers in finance as well as many other fields. Red-Blooded Risk examines this approach and offers valuable advice for the calculated risk-takers who need precise quantitative guidance that will…
I’ve been an independent investor for nearly 25 years. In my previous life as an employee, I was a research actuary for a firm of pension consultants, and then a university lecturer. I left my last academic job at the age of 35 because I had made enough money to survive, and freedom was worth more to me than a salary. FIRE (Financial Independence – Retire Early) is what it’s called these days, but with two differences. First, I’m not retired: I spend most of my time on investing, but entirely on my own terms. Second, and relatedly, I’m an active investor, albeit a cheap one, nearly as cheap as an index fund.
This could be better written (too many page-length paragraphs), but it earns its place on this list because the topic is important and I don’t know of any better treatment.
Many investment pundits advocate rigid self-control: they say you should try to suppress all emotion in investment decision-making – which is probably infeasible, and in any case undesirable. This book suggests a higher aspiration: aim to have the right emotions, those which are accurately calibrated to the contours of truth.
The Emotionally Intelligent Investor challenges several long-held assumptions and beliefs, by asserting that a good investment approach starts with introspection. Too many investment gurus tell you to emulate their techniques despite the fact that you may have very different personality traits, motivations and biases. Would Shaquille O’Neal tell a short basketball player to play like him? This book provides a unique template for self-reflection and a framework for developing an investment approach that works best with who you are.Whereas the consensus opinion is that investing success comes from blocking out emotions and making purely rational decisions, the best money managers…
I am Rubén Villahermosa, independent trader and author. My logical and rational mind led me to question the why of market movements, which allowed me to learn the principles of the Wyckoff method. I have deepened in the study of the interaction between supply and demand through high-level Technical Analysis tools such as Wyckoff, VSA, Price Action, Volume Profile, and Order Flow; knowledge that I share through my books from principles of honesty, transparency, and responsibility.
In financial markets, knowing what the large trader is doing is vital. In his book, Tom Williams, who was a syndicated trader, taught us the main signs that allow us to identify the participation of the large traders on the chart, which allows us to make judicious analyses about where the price is most likely to go.
My entire career has been spent in finance. From life insurance to central banks, from stock exchanges to post-trade clearing and settlement, this is all I’ve ever done. My college degrees include BSBA in Business/Marketing, MBA in Management, and PhD in Economics. In addition to knowing what a lot of people know about finance, I also worked inside the “black box” of the Federal Reserve System and depository trust and clearing corporations (in 4 cities, on 2 continents). Therefore, I know more about the plumbing of stock market infrastructure than most people who have careers (and education) as long as mine.
At New York University, I attended the Austrian Colloquium every week. I learned more about economics listening to Dr. Kirzner talk for 5 minutes than I did in any 2-hour class. Austrian economics is about human action – not unlike what you’ll find in The Economic Way of Thinking. The US stock market today seems to be drifting further and further away from Kirzner’s definition of a market: “Disequilibrium prices generate direct disappointment of plans… Such disappointment can be expected to alert entrepreneurs to the true temper of the market” and result in price discovery. Market makers and short sellers disrupt this process by altering the appearance of supply and demand for the shares of companies. This reason alone should call into question the stock exchange as a “marketplace.”
In the last hundred years or so, the neo-classical school has come to dominate microeconomic thinking. Economists concerned with competition have taken refuge in increasingly complex models which emphasize the end-state of competitive equilibrium. This paper presents, in non-technical terms, an 'Austrian' view of how a market economy works. The writer of this book follows in the Austrian tradition as he tries to crystallize the theory of entrepreneurial discovery and of its implications for economic understanding and policy.
I am the author of The Neatest Little Guide to Stock Market Investing and The 3% Signal, among other financial books, and editor of The Kelly Letter. Despite having been ranked by CXO Advisory as one of the best stock-market forecasters, I gave up the practice in favor of price reaction. I realized that nobody knows where stocks are headed, myself included, and set out to find ways to beat the market without forecasting—and succeeded. My readers and I are now much happier and wealthier.
This monthly approach uses three-month momentum to select two funds from a pool of four stock funds and two bond funds. The stock indexes are the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400, Russell 2000, and Nasdaq, i.e. US large caps, mid caps, small caps, and tech. It’s not a revolutionary idea but provides a good introduction to major asset class switching, which runs circles around pundit guessing games. If you do nothing but swear off gut-guessing in favor of price reaction, you’ll beat almost everybody—including the supposed pros.
First step: don't trade stocks. In a radical departure from most investment books, a former day trader demonstrates how a simple asset allocation strategy that 'adapts' to changing market conditions has delivered a 12% average annual return over the past 10 years.
What does 12% mean?
If you're familiar with investing basics, you'll know that figure comes close to doubling the average return of the benchmark S&P 500. It also outperforms 99% of all mutual funds.
But what's outperformance without protection? When the S&P 500 crashed in 2008 and lost 37% of its value,…
I have produced twenty books/DVDs and three academic papers on finance and social-mood theory. I also write a monthly publication on markets titled The Elliott Wave Theorist. For a bio, visit robertprechter.com. My recommended titles convey financial markets’ nonrational nature in a visceral way. If you understand that feature, if you feel it, you will have a fighting chance to succeed at investing.
This is one of my favorite books because rather than observing the follies of others, this author details his own. Reading it is like watching a tragedy when you already know the well-meaning protagonist is going to die.
The author chose to remain anonymous for obvious reasons: He thought he was a rare fool. But getting wiped out happens all the time, to many people. If you want to experience vicariously a dangerous thrill ride that you may or may not already have taken, this is your ticket. The book is out of print and hard to find.
This is the totally galvanizing confession of an amateur investor who at first made money in the stock market and then tried to make money faster.... With a directness that startles, with specific references to specific stock transactions, with an abundance of detail unique in investment literature, the author takes the reader on a devastating roller-coaster ride through the market. From the "hot" tip and the impulsive phone-order to buy or sell, to the verdict in next morning's financial pages; from the chase after people who "know their way around," to the frantic switching of brokers and systems; from the…
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.
Of all the books about trading written over the decades, perhaps none is still so beloved, revered, and followed as this 1923 classic by journalist Edwin Lefèvre. Although technically a work of fiction, the book really is about the life and trading style of one of the greatest speculators of all time, Jesse Livermore (told under the guise of “Larry Livingston”).
What makes this book such a treasure is not just its fun prose, and interesting glimpse into what the process of investing in old exchanges and “bucket shops” was over a century ago, when ticker-tape and board boys with chalk and ladders were one’s only information about market prices, but also how the mind of one of the world’s greatest traders worked.
This book offers many gems of knowledge about trading—based upon the general principle that, although methods and technologies change, human nature does not and therefore “there is…
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is a fictionalized story based on the trading career of Jesse Livermore. It follows his journey from the age of 15 when he made his first $1,000 to becoming a Wall Street legend.
My entire career has been spent in finance. From life insurance to central banks, from stock exchanges to post-trade clearing and settlement, this is all I’ve ever done. My college degrees include BSBA in Business/Marketing, MBA in Management, and PhD in Economics. In addition to knowing what a lot of people know about finance, I also worked inside the “black box” of the Federal Reserve System and depository trust and clearing corporations (in 4 cities, on 2 continents). Therefore, I know more about the plumbing of stock market infrastructure than most people who have careers (and education) as long as mine.
This was required reading in my MBA program at Golden Gate University. In fact, the economics teacher, Joe Fuhrig, inspired me to go on for my PhD in Economics at New York University. The book explains how economics isn’t just about mathematical models: it is about how people think and behave. Once you learn to think like an economist, you will find investing (and even grocery shopping!) a completely different experience.
Intended primarily for one semester survey courses in general economics, this text also provides practical content to current and aspiring industry professionals.
Learn how to think like an economist.
The Economic Way of Thinking goes beyond explaining the basic principles of micro- and macroeconomic analysis by showing readers a method of reasoning that teaches them how to apply these principles as tools. The authors expose readers to a method of reasoning that makes them think like an economist through example and application and also shows them how not to think, by exposing errors in popular economic reasoning.
