Some good resources for learning about investing
There is so much information out there today on investing and markets. Hundreds of books, articles, podcasts etc have been produced on the topic on how to generate alpha.
I’ve been investing and reading about investing for over 20 years, and if someone were to ask me where they should start to educate themselves on investing (particularly in equities), these are the resources I would point them towards:
The Intelligent Investor - a bit cliched but this is the bible of value investing, written by Benjamin Graham. Reading this book will help frame your thinking on investments and assessing good from bad. Was first published a long time ago in 1949, but the core principles are still as relevant as ever today.
Securities Analysis by Graham and Dodd - another foundational book on value investing, first published all the way back in 1934. Here you will get a framework for evaluating securities, and learn about key concepts such as the margin of safety.
Buffett Partnership Letters and Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters - there is an unbelievable amount of alpha to pick up from reading over all of Buffett’s investment letters, from his earliest days. I’m convinced a lot more people claim to have read the Buffett Partnership Letters and Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters than actually have read them all. The fact you can download these letters all for free from your computer at home is simply incredible - easily worth the price of 5x MBAs in my view.
Learn from the greatest there ever has been, how he thought about investing and positioned his capital in a wide range of market conditions and over a 50+ year period! See how his investing strategy and philosophy evolved as he matured and as he grew his capital base.
Howard Marks memos - Howard Marks is an incredible thinker, and has an amazing ability to express complex concepts with real simplicity and eloquence. Howard was always more of a credit market investor than an equity market investor, but his thoughts on markets, market cycles, and the role of psychology and behavioural finance in investing are valuable for investors across any asset class.
Joel Greenblatt’s class notes - from the special situation investing classes Greenblatt taught at Columbia University. Greenblatt’s investing track record was incredible at Gotham Capital, generating annual returns of ~ 50% from 1985 to 1994. Another disciple of value investing, Greenblatt’s style also had a ‘special situations’ bent to it. His book titled ‘You Can Be A Stock Market Genius’, while a bit of a cheesy title, is a great book that I would also highly recommend.
These are my top 5 recommendations for those wanting to learn about the art of investing. The knowledge and wisdom you can gain from each of these resources is really priceless, and yet they are available to all of us for such a nominal price. These resources themselves are some of the best investments you can make.
If there are other great investing resources that you would recommend, I’d love to hear of them in the comments.
Best,
BTS