This article originally appeared on Quora: Finance: Which is the best way to learn about stocks?
I wanted to learn about stocks because I lost $15,000,000. I lost everything.
And I wanted to maybe learn what I did wrong so I could start thinking how to make it back.
I was a gambler at heart. I went from playing poker every day to playing the stock market every day. That’s mistake #1. I had to end that habit. I hope I did. 17 years later I still hope every day that I ended that addiction.
But I did learn. Although I wish I had been smarter about learning. I wish I had read all of these books I’m about to recommend.
Now I’ve read them. Some of them are inspirational. Some are educational. Some are about famous investors. Some are by famous investors sharing what they’ve learned.
Anyone who reads all of these books will understand the stock market and investing at a very deep level.
Warren Buffett has his famous two rules about investing. But I would say for myself the biggest thing I learned were these ideas:
- When you own a stock, you own part of a company. So study what makes a good company.
- Risk management is everything. Which means keep your positions very small.
- The unexpected always happens.
- I had to model myself after the greatest investors in history.
- Politics is short-term, economics is medium term, innovation is long-term.
I’ve since run a successful hedge fund, fund of hedge funds, I’ve done many successful angel investments, and I’ve written about stocks and investing for 17 years in books, in the Wall Street Journal, in the Financial Times, and with regular appearances on CNBC.
Here’s the books I recommend to get started (note: this is the start).
Essays of Warren Buffett by Lawrence Cunningham
Reminiscences of a Stock Market Operator by Edwin LeFevre
Famous First Bubbles by Peter Garber
The Money Game by Adam Smith
Confessions of a Street Addict by Jim Cramer
Market Wizards by Jack Schwager
Hedge Fund Market Wizards by Jack Schwager
You Too Can Be a Stock Market Genius“by Joel Greenblatt
The Little Book of Value Investing
Warren Buffet by Roger Lowenstein
When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein
Flash Boys by Michael Lewis
The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis
The Coffee Trader by David Liss (fiction)
Billion Dollar Sure Thing by Paul E. Erdman (or any of his financial thrillers from the 70s)
My Own Story by Bernard Baruch
Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger
Damn Right! (biography of Charlie Munger) by Janet Lowe
Education of a Value Investor by Guy Spier
Abundance by Peter Diamandis
Joel Greenblatt’s The Little Book That Still Beats the Market
Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big to Fail
Dhando Investor by Mohnish Pabrai
The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb
Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb
A Man for All Markets by Ed Thorp
Read these and your life will change.
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James Altucher is a hedge fund manager, entrepreneur and best-selling author. Subscribe to his email by clicking here. Or visit his website to read free blog content.
