It is inordinately tricky not only for the beginners but sometimes for the seasoned investors to choose from tons of available sources, whether they are websites or books (more than 7 lakh) available on the stock market. We have come up with this article to help you out by enhancing fundamental knowledge on the stock market with some must-read books. Do you know about Warren Buffet? He is one billionaire who is one of the most successful investors in the world, not only this he is also a business magnate and philanthropist. He ranks among the top 5 wealthiest people in the world at present. Were you aware that he used to devote more than 70% of his time in reading? Obviously, seeing today’s busy scenario and chaotic work schedule, we cannot expect you to spend that much time. However, at least you can read particular books which can immensely help you to invest in the stock market. Not to lose your hard-earned and precious money, it is essential to intensely know the basics of stocks before entering into the market and start investing. Starting to invest without sufficient knowledge and experience can lead to enormous financial losses, which can tear apart your pocketbook as well as the morale. One should always keep in mind that before they invest in any of the shares, bonds, or dividends, it is significant to be competent enough to read the market as well as crowd behaviors. It is essential to focus on being efficient to gauge sentiments rather than just investing techniques popularised by modern-day technical analysts. Unfortunately, these days many investors are focusing on market behavior.
20 Must-Read Books For Stock Market Investors
Books brought a revolution not only in the stock market but all across the world. Hence, they must be acknowledged as borrowing knowledge is always useful. Listed below are the top-rated books in every aspect for all those people who want to invest in stocks-
1) The Intelligent Investor
The Intelligent Investor is a magnificent book which is known as the bible of the stock market. It is written by one of the renowned personalities ‘Benjamin Graham’ who is also idle of the greatest investor of all time ‘Warren Buffet.’ This book was written back in 1934 and is known to be the most excellent book for investing in the stock market. Primarily, this book led ample investors to overcome their fear of investing in stocks. It helped them to focus on long term goals and health of the company rather than chasing short term gains. It also demonstrated how to limit your risk and build a long-term wealth strategy. This book explains all the fundamentals of the stock market meticulously. Also, it tells about the investor’s viewpoint. This book is divided into three parts, which illustrate three different concepts. The first concept enlightens the investing approach taken by combative investors and defensive investors. The second and third one tells us about how to study and gauge the market behavior and the tactics of knowing risk management. Mr. Graham has named the latter concept as Mr. Market and the third one as the Margin of Safety. Also Read: 12 Best Stock Market Trading Apps In India
2) One Up On Wall Street
The author of one of the best books on the stock market is Peter Lynch. If you do not know about him, let’s give you a short and firm overview of him. He was the most successful fund managers having an annual return of 30% for more than 12 years. This book has helped many beginners before they start investing in the gigantic market of stocks. This book covers all the aspects related to the long term investment approach and makes you competent to answer specific crucial questions inducing how, when, and why to have a long term investment approach. It also briefs you about plentiful stocks available in the market and provides you the details of each of them. This book will immensely help you to invest only in those stocks which are implying to be beneficial for the long term.
3) The Warren Buffett Way
Robert G. Hagstrom was the writer of this book magnificent book that provides you with deep insights on the investment strategy of Warren Buffet. Hagstrom used an uncomplicated and straightforward language in this book, which makes it easy to understand and suitable for all types of readers who are willing to learn value investors. Just like Buffet paved his path to achieve the utmost success, you can similarly apply the same strategies to your own portfolio, leading you to be a successful investor. This book is a boon for all the investors who can get to learn the strategies actually used by Buffet in his real life. This book also reveals to always think like an owner, not like an investor, and also recommends never to get allured by seeing and considering the market efficiency; it can lead to substantial financial losses. Always talk in figures or numbers, not get seduced based on reputation or high amount of faith.
4) The Making of an American Capitalist
It is another book written on Warren Buffets’ achievements and success in how he started his journey, invested into the businesses strategically, lived modestly, and built a tremendous fortune. The author of this book is Roger Lowenstein, who illustrated so nicely that what made Buffet a multi-millionaire and describes his mellowness personality. This book enlightens you briefly about his peculiar investment choices, and methods he used that yielded fruitful rewards. Often, books do not provide us with the notion of executing those wealth-building strategies in our work life in order to achieve the desired long term goal. However, this book is different and tells you comprehensively about implementing the blueprints of success in your own life.
5) Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits
Philip Fisher has written this book, which was published in 1956. This book briefs about the growth stock investment approach. Philip Fisher was the famous and influential investors of all time. When the investors used to focus more on value, even at that time, Philip’s philosophy was to prosper growth. Even Warren Buffet stated that this book helps one to make intelligent investment decisions and commitment. This book helps investors to explore and evaluate the investment criteria of how to find growth stocks that lead to huge gains if held for the long term. This book also covers various segments, including what to buy, where to buy, and when to sell? Fisher has also explained about the 15 points that are of significant value to look for in common stock and is an excellent tread for growth stock investors.
6) How to Avoid Loss and Earn Consistently in the Stock Market
The author of this renowned book Prasenjit Paul defines a perfect investment is the one that helps you get the constant returns from the market. The book highlights a 2 min strategy to know the stock’s anticipated value in the future to any comprehensive analysis. It illustrates investment strategies in a very unambiguous manner. To ensure that you are using appropriate strategies and you are going to steal the show, one has to ensure consistent returns, especially from the mutable stock market. The book also covers the trading careers of the philosophy, interviewees, and many trading anecdotes.
7) Beating the Street
It is one of the most famous books whose author is Peter Lynch, working as the fund manager at Fidelity Investments. This book is immensely beneficial for individual investors and works like an excellent solution to boost the possibility of providing long term value investment opportunities. It explains all the essentials of the stock market that you need to know before diving in for investing in this massive field of business. It has proven out to be a practical reference when you start investing on your own. This book will also dwell you into the psychology of a stock trader. So when you complete the reading of this amazing book, it will provide you the practical experience in this dynamic approach to the market analysis.
8) The Little Book of Common Sense Investing
The founder of the Vanguard Group, named Jack Bogle is the author of this book. The Vanguard Group is widely known for providing the lowest cost funds in the various sectors. Its 10th-anniversary edition was published three years back in 2017. The primary objective of this book is straightforward, as it illustrates how to keep the costs low and invest in market indexes in the long run. Also, it enlightens the efficient investment strategies that work in employer-sponsored retirement accounts. Not only this there are other aspects that the author emphasized on including
A comprehensive description of the index fund. Significance of investing in an index fund. The reason to avoid short term market investments and exchange-traded funds. The elaborated description between individual stocks, index funds, and other various types of funds. How short term investment and management fees affect the possibility of getting higher returns.
9) A Random Walk Down Wall Street
This famous book was written in 1973 by Burton Malkiel. It is one of the most recommended books that one could give a thorough read, be it a beginner or a proficient investor. The language used in this book is simple and makes it easy to understand for all types of readers. This book is an excellent read, especially for the ones who are about to or recently established their stock market investment portfolio. Numerous core subjects that are imperative for all stock investors to understand are pronounced within this book, including Indexing, bubbles, diversification, trends, the value of patience coupled within time, fundamental and technical analysis of stocks. This book provides you with impeccable investment techniques. The author of this book has done extensive research on all the companies in which you are going to invest and yield massive returns.
10) How to Make Money in Stocks
It is a must-read book for stock market investors. As the name suggests, this book provides you with multiple ways through which you can increase the output of your returns on your investments. The author of this book William O’Neil emphasized primarily on the CANSIL system to determine future winners in the stock market and the appropriate timing of entries and exits. It has proven out to be one of the best books for beginners or new investors and is the fusion of technical and fundamental analysis. This book also guides the investors about various available charts graphics and research tools, which will help them make the smart investment. William O’Neil has also focused on letting investors know about reading charts for stock selection at alluring valuations and also help them to choose the best possible industry under this huge market. Like this book, it will help the investors pick up their ideal stock as per their personal requirements and suitability. It also illuminates the path that enables you to reduce loss and bizarre mistakes. Also Read: 10 Best Long Term Investment Options in India
11) Market Wizards
The author of Market Wizards is Jack Schwager divided this book into four parts. All the parts cover interviews with seasoned traders/investors in the wide-ranging market. Moreover, these interviews enlighten the readers about important facts about the investor’s career and several anecdotes that one should know before anyone invest their money into the extensive stock market. This book is entirely different from many other books that are available in the market as it helps you gain practical experience by getting to learn more from the past experiences of accomplished traders or investors. Their experiences will inspire, motivate, and become the reason for exhibiting your true spirit and draw countless lessons from their stories. It not only contains ample interviews with exorbitant money makers across distinctive financial markets but also helps you to understand the reason what those successful investors have done differently from those unsuccessful ones. In a nutshell, once you go through this book, it will provide you with the short and crisp success mantra which you can execute in your real life.
12) The Little Book that Beats the Market
Do you want a magic formula for the specific stocks? If yes, then this book is the perfect pick for you. The author Joel Greenblatt demonstrated a magnificent method that is readily applicable to yield handsome returns. It enables you to explore multiple principals of investing in the stock market and consists of 2 key factors- Earnings Yield and Return on Capital. According to him, these 2 are the most significant factors that ought to be considered to surpass the market by investing in leading companies at cost-efficient prices. This book also helps you evaluate earning results such as EPS and dividend yield to analyze individual stocks. These factors are thoroughly gauged, and then the companies need to be picked to extract better returns. The only thing you need to ratify is to hold your nerves and be patient, as the above factors may not be renowned but are very useful.
13) Stocks to Riches
Parag Parikh illustrated the entire reality of the stock market exquisitely. One of the best aspects of this book is its language, which makes it easy to understand and follow. Even a 4th-grade student will understand the message of the author and learn from this marvelous book. Mr. Parikh also avoided using any complicated jargon to brief you about the stock market. It is a must-read for beginners as it highlights the mistakes often repeated by novice investors. It gives you an upper-hand as you get to learn from someone else’s experience as learning from your own mistakes could eventuate to leave you in huge debts. Parag Parikh emphasized the crucial parameters, not only for beginners but also for skilled and professional investors to survive in this dynamic market:
The apt strategy of investment in various financial sectors. Describing the stock market bubble and explains the reason why it bursts. Testified guidelines to make ample money for retail investors.
14) Alchemy of Finance
The author George Soros explains his theory of investment by describing the utmost importance of reflexivity and its relevance to the stock market. Once you go through this book, it will enhance your knowledge and understanding of the grounds based on which the whole financial market function and operate. This book might not portray you the direct system of trading or investment as it is significantly thoughtful, and you will be left with no other option but just to finish it once you begin with the readers of this book. George Soros emphasized on the following crucial points, and exhaustively explained with the help of useful examples that will make the whole concept easy to understand:
Why floating currencies are unstable. How to calculate the elementary value of stocks all across the world. How to find the commodities of significant value. Exhibiting the concept of reflexivity and enabling to achieve the sum of more than $ 20 Billion.
15) Japanese Candlestick Charting Technique
Japanese Candlestick Charting Technique is a book that is liked by many novices and highly experienced investors. The author of this book Steve Nison has covered an extensive range of phenomena on which investment decisions are made within the stock market. Primarily, he has helped to make people aware by introducing candlestick charting that usually proves out to be useful for traders. It also helps them by making charts more visual, that too assertively. Steve Nison has also focused on other aspects that are imperative to understand before investing your hard-earned money into this oscillating market, such as:
Providing a detailed description over trading- How to start, and manage it. Various types of chart structure. Calculating the Resistance, support, and minimizing loss while trading.
The author has explained in easy to understand language and also written this book after doing comprehensive research that will cater to the needs of all types of investors.
16) Learn to Earn
It’s a classic guide that will give you a deep insight into the economy, market, and capitalization. It is one of the must-read books for stock market investors. This beginner’s guide is written by Peter Lynch and John Rothchild to let the people know about the basics of investing and business. Even if a reader is not from a commerce background, this book is not hard to understand and makes it a great read, especially if you are starting your career journey as an investor into this colossal market. The authors have also revealed certain areas before one invest their money in any stock or dividend, such as:
Meticulously analyzing the companies annual growth report before making an investment. Importance of multinational companies and why to invest in them including Pizza Hut, Adidas, PepsiCo, etc. Significance of paying comprehensive heed to the stock market and investing accordingly.
18) Fooled By Randomness
It is known to be one of the smartest books of all time. Nasim Nicholas Taleb; the author exhaustively demonstrated the role of randomness not only while we are investing our money into the stock market but also in our daily lives. The author conveys the message through this book that how randomness has affected our lives adversely and what we step we can take to control it. This book tells you more about the risks that many times investors are ignorant about, or sometimes they may experience a massive risk that what was anticipated. This book teaches you the doctrine of the financial world not to judge the financial means based on their prestige and market reputation. Several other factors ought to be gauged before making such crucial decisions to invest. This book also deals with the fallibility of human knowledge. As it demonstrates that humans can be fooled by unpredictability, as sometimes they tend to explain predictable outcomes as unpredictable. All these randomnesses are the enemy of all the investors, and one has to be extremely cautious. According to him, all the investors should have far-beyond extraordinary outlook.
19) Security Analysis
Ben Graham and David Dodd were the writers of this book, which acts akin to the road map for investing. However, the language used by the authors in this book makes it a tough read; however, if you read this book diligently, this is nothing but your huckleberry. It was published in 1934 and has launched its sixth edition a few years ago. This book has served an array of investors with the timeless value investing strategies, guidelines, and tactics in order to be a successful game player in this unreliable market. This book can be summarized in the points mentioned below:
The difference between speculation and investment, market value and intrinsic value Finding the fair and future value of any stock or company Security analysis by making use of qualitative factors such as market ranking, company’s type, and nature, management, etc Security analysis by using Quantitative analysis such as dividend payment, capital structure, earnings, operational efficiency, etc
20) Irrational Exuberance
Robert Shiller; the author of this book, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2013 and is one of the most admired and respected economists. He has impeccable experience in studying and scrutinizing market movements. This book talks about how trends turn into a boom and conclusively turn into a bubble that burst. He emphasized on the bubbles and market cycles ideology which help you formulate the effective investment strategies that can further prevent you from making huge blunders of the boom and bust cycle. The author states through this book that being elusive, is an inherent characteristic of all asset markets, including the stock market. The updated edition of this book, which was launched recently, deals in facilitating the investors spotting the next bubble and preparing them before it bursts. It is one of the most relevant books that are available in the market, even for proficient investors. Summing It Up Now, you do not need to narrow down the best investing books as we have made it pretty convenient for you. Go through any of these books assiduously, execute those ideas while making an investment in the stock market, and you will see the exceptional results. Recommended: Best & Worst Weekdays For Trading In Stocks We will be happy to receive your recommendation below if we have missed any book that can be equally useful for all the investors out there! Thanks for reading the “20 Must-Read Books For Stock Market Investors” guide, and we hope that this article has proven out to be beneficial to the readers.