Same as Ever
Finance & Investing books
Essential reading on investing, valuation and how financial markets work, for executives and finance-curious professionals. Core texts include The Intelligent Investor, Security Analysis and A Random Walk Down Wall Street, with accessible entry points such as The Psychology of Money and Financial Intelligence.
29 books2 foundation / essential1 recentFor executives, investors and finance-curious professionals
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Featured picks in Finance & Investing: good first reads.
The Intelligent Investor
The Intelligent Investor
Finance & InvestingThe Psychology of Money
The Psychology of Money
Finance & InvestingAll 29 Finance & Investing books
Alphabetical by title, each with a short description. Open the details for related reads and courses, or go straight to Amazon.
A Random Walk Down Wall Street
This survey of how markets price assets covers the efficient-market idea, technical and fundamental analysis and a history of speculative bubbles. Burton Malkiel argues that prices are hard to predict, so low-cost index funds are a sensible default for most investors.
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Barbarians at the Gate
This account of the contest to take over RJR Nabisco in the late 1980s follows the rival bidders, bankers and executives caught up in a high-stakes leveraged buyout. Burrough and Helyar show how deal-making, ego and financing shaped the outcome.
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Beating the Street
Lynch explains how he researches and chooses shares, working through the reasoning behind particular investments. He also offers practical advice on funds and on the habits that help individual investors, for readers who want a hands-on look at stock picking.
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Big Debt Crises
A study of debt crises across history, including the Great Depression and the global financial crisis, in which Ray Dalio argues that they follow a recurring pattern in the build-up and unwinding of credit. It suits readers wanting a framework for understanding how such crises unfold.
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Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits
Philip Fisher presents a growth-investing approach built on researching a company in depth, including talking to customers, suppliers and competitors, and holding outstanding businesses for the long term. He sets out points for judging management, products and prospects.
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Financial Intelligence
A manager's guide to reading financial statements, explaining the income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement and how to interpret key ratios. Karen Berman and Joe Knight show how numbers rest on judgement, helping non-financial managers speak with confidence about finance.
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Flash Boys
Following Brad Katsuyama and a small team, this book examines how high-frequency traders profit from speed advantages in US equity markets and how the founders of a new exchange tried to counter that. A narrative introduction to modern market structure.
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Liar's Poker
A first-person account of life as a young bond salesman at Salomon Brothers in the 1980s, describing the trading-floor culture, the rise of mortgage bonds and the personalities who ran the firm. Michael Lewis offers general readers a vivid look inside Wall Street.
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Margin of Safety
Avoiding permanent loss comes first in Seth Klarman's value-oriented approach, which insists on a margin of safety in every investment. The book looks at why many investors stumble and how to assess value and find bargains, for serious and patient investors.
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Mastering the Market Cycle
Economies, credit conditions and investor sentiment all move in cycles, and Howard Marks explains how to recognise where you are in them and adjust risk accordingly. It is aimed at investors and business leaders dealing with uncertainty.
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One Up On Wall Street
Peter Lynch argues that ordinary investors can find promising shares through what they notice at work and in the shops, often earlier than professionals do. He sorts companies into broad types, explains how to research them and describes common mistakes to avoid.
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Poor Charlie's Almanack
Collected talks and writings by Charlie Munger set out his multidisciplinary approach to thinking, including mental models drawn from many fields, his investing philosophy and the psychology of human misjudgement. A resource for readers interested in decision making and investing.
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Principles
Ray Dalio sets out the principles he developed for life and for running an organisation, including radical transparency, open debate and weighing opinions by track record. It describes a systematic approach to goals, problems and decisions, for readers interested in management culture.
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Same as Ever
A collection of short essays on the patterns of human behaviour and risk that stay constant while technology and markets change. Morgan Housel draws practical lessons about money, uncertainty and long-term decision making for general readers.
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Security Analysis
A detailed, technical treatment of how to analyse bonds and shares by studying a company's financial statements and assets to estimate underlying value rather than following the market price. Graham and Dodd's book suits serious students of investing and finance professionals.
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The Big Short
A narrative of the few outsiders who spotted the weakness of the US subprime mortgage market and bet against it before the financial crisis. Michael Lewis explains how complex mortgage securities worked and why so many institutions missed the risk.
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The Bond King
Mary Childs tells the story of Bill Gross, the bond investor who built PIMCO into a giant of fixed income, and follows the turbulent later years of his career. It gives general readers a human view of the bond market and a high-profile money manager.
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The Dhandho Investor
A low-risk approach to value investing built around finding bets where you gain a lot if right and lose little if wrong. Mohnish Pabrai draws on the business habits of Gujarati motel owners in the United States, and the book suits investors who like simple, disciplined frameworks.
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The Essays of Warren Buffett
Drawn from Warren Buffett's letters to shareholders and arranged by theme, these essays cover corporate governance, investing, accounting, mergers and tax. Lawrence Cunningham's selection gives readers a structured way into Buffett's thinking on running and owning businesses.
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The Intelligent Investor
Benjamin Graham sets out a value-investing approach built on separating investing from speculation, treating the market as a moody business partner and insisting on a margin of safety. It is written for ordinary investors who want a disciplined, long-term method.
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The Little Book of Common Sense Investing
Low-cost index investing is the focus here: John Bogle argues that fees and trading costs eat into returns, and that simply owning the whole market for the long term serves most savers better than chasing active managers. Short, clear and aimed at long-term savers.
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The Little Book of Valuation
Aswath Damodaran explains how to value a business, covering intrinsic valuation through discounted cash flow, relative valuation using multiples and the data needed for each. It is designed as a short, practical guide for investors, students and managers.
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The Little Book That Beats the Market
Joel Greenblatt describes a simple rules-based strategy, often called the magic formula, that ranks companies by earnings yield and return on capital and favours those scoring well on both. It is written for individual investors who want a mechanical, easy-to-follow method.
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The Most Important Thing
Howard Marks gathers the principles behind his investment thinking, including second-level thinking, understanding risk, awareness of market cycles and a sceptical, contrarian attitude to prevailing sentiment. It suits investors who want to sharpen their judgement rather than follow formulas.
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The Price of Time
Edward Chancellor traces the history of interest and argues that holding rates too low for too long distorts investment and encourages borrowing and speculation. The book offers context for readers interested in monetary policy and the role of interest rates in the economy.
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The Psychology of Money
Short stories about luck, risk, greed and knowing when you have enough illustrate Morgan Housel's argument that financial outcomes depend more on behaviour than on technical knowledge. It suits general readers who want to think more clearly about money.
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The Warren Buffett Way
An analysis of Warren Buffett's investment approach, tracing its roots in the ideas of Benjamin Graham, Philip Fisher and Charlie Munger. Robert Hagstrom organises the method into groups of tenets covering business, management, finance and valuation, for investors who want to learn how Buffett chooses companies.
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Valuation
A comprehensive guide to valuing companies, written by McKinsey consultants, centred on discounted cash flow and the idea that value comes from return on invested capital and growth. It is aimed at finance professionals, managers and students who need rigorous valuation methods.
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You Can Be a Stock Market Genius
This book explains special-situation investing, in which shares may be mispriced around corporate events such as spin-offs, mergers, restructurings and bankruptcies. Joel Greenblatt walks through how to evaluate these opportunities, and it suits investors comfortable with doing their own research.
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Courses to go with Finance & Investing reading
Turn the ideas into skills with self-paced video courses. Each shelf shows the books it pairs with.
Udemy courses
Finance for non-finance managers
Courses that explain finance without the jargon.
Pairs well withThe Psychology of MoneyFinancial IntelligenceThe Little Book of Common Sense Investing
Browse Finance for non-finance managers coursesUdemy courses
Financial modelling & valuation
Courses on financial modelling and valuation.
Browse Financial modelling & valuation coursesUdemy courses
Investing
Courses on investing fundamentals.
Browse Investing coursesUdemy courses
Accounting
Courses on accounting and reading financial statements.
Browse Accounting coursesUdemy links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you enrol, at no extra cost to you.
Put it to work
Apply one concept to a financial question, capital-allocation decision or valuation assumption.
Common questions
- How many Finance & Investing books are on this list?
- This page lists 29 Finance & Investing books, 2 of them marked Foundation / Essential and 1 marked Recent / New thinking.
- Which Finance & Investing books should I start with?
- Good first reads are the featured picks: Same as Ever by Morgan Housel, The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, and The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.
- Who is this Finance & Investing reading list for?
- Executives, investors and finance-curious professionals.
- Are there courses to go with these Finance & Investing books?
- Yes. This page lists 4 Udemy course shelves for Finance & Investing: Finance for non-finance managers, Financial modelling & valuation, Investing, and Accounting. Udemy links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you enrol, at no extra cost to you.
- How are the books chosen?
- The Business Reading Room curates its library by topic and groups titles into collections: Foundation / Essential, Core / Recommended and Recent / New thinking.
- Where can I buy these books?
- Each book links to Amazon through an affiliate link. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Editions, formats and prices are shown on Amazon.