As we've been developing the screening & analysis tools for Stockopedia Premium over the last 18 months, we've been doing a VAST amount of reading and careful re-reading of all kinds of investment books - from the old classics to the latest books, research papers & articles hot off the press... With the summer holidays approaching, we've been reflecting on the very best of those books, the true classics that stand out above the rest. The test we've been applying for this is: we're looking for investment books that are accessible and actionable. They must have a very high density of ideas but not just be abstract academic tomes - can you also "smell the money"?
After much debate at Stockopedia Central, here is a list, in two parts, of the 12 books that we think are so jam-packed full of interesting, important or damn-right cool investment ideas that anyone who calls them a serious investing ninja really ought to be familiar with them. If you've got some time away from the kids to read and chill by the pool this summer, you could do a lot worse than devour some of these books from cover to cover....
Got your thumbs and Kindles ready? Ok, let's go.
1. The Little Book That Beats the Market (Joel Greenblatt - 176 pages): A New York Times bestseller, this is Joel Greenblatt's attempt to write an investing book that everyone, including his children, could read and learn from. A widely respected hedge-fund manager, Joel Greenblatt started as a value purist but was influenced by Warren Buffett's views about growth being part of the value equation. He founded Gotham Capital, a fund which returned over 40% annualized from 1985 to 2005. In the "Little Book", Greenblatt espouses as a do-it-yourself version of his investing approach, which he calls the Magic Formula.
You might be put off by that phrase and frankly the book title but, whether you buy into the idea of Formula investing or not, this book is well worth the (very) limited time it takes to work through. It's a testament to clear thinking and will make you re-evaluate your own investment process. At just £9.30 on the Kindle, it's also a snip and frankly belongs on every investor's bookshelf.
