The market abounds with books on investing by several different authors, each with a unique perspective. And making the right choice from the pack can be a huge challenge especially if you’re a newbie or you have only one or a few options to pick.
Thankfully, you can get helpful insights from Reddit users who have read books on investing and have left brutally honest reviews on relevant threads. But there’s a challenge: checking through several threads and posts just to figure out the best investing book to go for can be cumbersome and time-consuming.
So, we’ve done that hard work for you. We spent hours digging up Reddit threads and discussions on the best books on investing. Then we selected the most active threads and carefully went through all the posts in each of them in a bid to figure out the most commonly recommended books. And here are the top picks among Reddit users — ranked in order of the number of “votes”.
1. The Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham
[su_quote cite=”Sarah-rah-rah”]If you’re a complete noob, start with chapters 8 and 20 in the Intelligent Investor, and chaper 11 in The Signal and the Noise.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”MarquessR”]Plus one for the Intelligent investor, if you want to invest rather than trade. Very sensible, not overly dry or complicated to read.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”epoooop”]Intelligent investor by ben graham is great, check out the four pillars of investing by bernstein too[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”SlothorpIncadenza”]A classic with valuable information, but can be dry at times. Try to stick with it knowing it will give you a great base of the fundamentals of value investing, and how not to get caught up in fads that tend to cost the average retail investor.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”thejer222″]I find that it gives an excellent base of the philosophy and train of thought required to be a successful investor. The version I have has been updated in 2012 to give commentary and a modern perspective on each chapter. Ive enjoyed the book and would for sure recommend it.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”CanYouPleaseChill”]This is by far the best book for developing a sound investing foundation.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”SACRED-GEOMETRY”]The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is recommended a lot, but this definitely shouldn’t be the first book you read. Maybe the 5th. It’s a great book, but some of it is dated.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”CanYouPleaseChill”]Start with The Intelligent Investor. It’ll teach you the right way to think about investing. Ignore those who say it’s dated. The principles of margin of safety, Mr. Market, and asset allocation are just as important today as they were 50 years ago.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”gopher33j”]“The Intelligent Investor” – By Benjamin Graham is
A classic – but a good one.[/su_quote]
2. One Up On Wall Street
[su_quote cite=”zcarlile”]Hands down the best book, but it is long term oriented. Honestly, if you have only been investing for a few month, you should focus on long-term investments. You need to truly understand how to value a company before you focus on short term. Remember, none of the great investors made their money overnight.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”SACRED-GEOMETRY”]One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch is a great book as well. For some background, Lynch ran the “Magellan Fund” at Fidelity Investments between 1977 and 1990, where he consistently achieved high returns.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”lagerbaer”]For what it’s worth, I think it’s a fantastic book. Peter Lynch had a great track record and I really like his philosophy. He gives great advice.
Certainly there are some caveats. He talks about certain companies having been great investments. They aren’t necessarily great investments any more.
And maybe these days with retail being in a slump, his advice on doing investment research by going to the mall might not be quite as feasible.
So I’d stick with the general principles that he uses to talk about what makes a good stock versus a bad stock, and maybe also his advice for how to think differently about stalwarts, slow growers, fast growers, cyclicals, turnarounds, asset plays.
Much of his advice (stop chasing the top performers of last year, now hyped by analysts, use your small-investor edge where you can, keep up with the story) still applies.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”MoMerry”]Peter Lynch’s One up on Wall Street. Great for beginners and has some good reminders for the more experienced.[/su_quote]
3. A Random Walk Down Wall Street
[su_quote cite=”A deleted user”]This was my first book on investing. Worth the read.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”SACRED-GEOMETRY”]A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel is an amazing book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It is easy to read and very entertaining. I learned a tremendous amount from this book.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”howtoreadspaghetti”]Most of the parts of the book are outdated and don’t stand to the academic scrutiny surrounding the efficient market hypothesis. But I’ll still suggest this book to starting investors. It’s an easy read, it gives language to a lot of investing factors, and then tries to argue that it’s so complex that you may as well not concern yourself with it and just buy index funds (which I find fu**ing insulting but your mileage may vary with that). I say read it.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”_Freshly_Snipes”]A Random Walk Down Wallstreet does a pretty good job of giving a comprehensive overview of investing. It gets a bit hairy at certain points if you don’t have a background in finance or portfolio theory, but overall a solid pick. I would also be weary of The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis as those picks are pretty academic (I generally only use them as references) and some of the stuff covered is a outdated.[/su_quote]
4. The Bogleheads Guide to Investing and Common Sense
[su_quote cite=”SimplicityIsKing”]I really got allot out of The Bogleheads Guide to Investing and Common Sense on Mutual Funds by John Bogle.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”SACRED-GEOMETRY”]The Boglehead’s Guide to Investing by Taylor Larimore was my second book, and it’s probably a better choice. It’s based on the investing principles of John C. Bogle, the founder & CEO of Vanguard. Bogle basically invented index funds, and, while this book covers a lot of investing territory, the main theme is how to get a diversified portfolio through index funds.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”Indefinitely_not”]I would recommend the Boglehead’s Guide only to those who simply want a simple approach to investing. It’s very good at that, but just that.[/su_quote]
5. Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits
[su_quote cite=”TheEntertain”]Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits is a gold mine. Great for thinking about what makes great businesses great. I learned a lot from his section on “When to Sell”. I haven’t sold my AMZN or NVDA even though they’ve gained more than 2.5x because I believe they’re still great companies.[/su_quote]
[su_quote cite=”randomusergamma”]I recommend Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Philip Fisher. – Its talks about how to Identify and Invest in Growth Companies – Growth Investing[/su_quote]
6. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
[su_quote cite=”A deleted user”]There are more technically sound books, but Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is one that I’ll always remember. It’s a story of how Jesse Livermore made and lost a fortune three times over in the early 1900s… and a reminder that market cycles always recur, so this time is never really that different.[/su_quote]
7. Stocks for the Long Run
[su_quote cite=”PM-ME-SMILES-PLZ”]I can’t believe nobody has mentioned “Stocks for the Long Run, 5th edition” by Jeremy Siegel. He’s a professor at Wharton, writes for WSJ, Kiplinger, and FT usually. He’s one of the founders/owners at Wisdom Tree. It’s 375 pages, but it reads easily, plus many of those pages are filled with graphs and tables.[/su_quote]
8. Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing by Pat Dorsey
[su_quote cite=”GatorGuy5″]It covers literally everything you will need and does it in an easy to read manner. If I could do it over I would start with it instead of The Intelligent Investor.[/su_quote]
