Today’s video is a list of my top ten books for traders, or the best finance Books to read to learn about the financial industry. I decided to come up with a list of books that are not just filled with knowledge, but that are also really enjoyable reads – the kind of book that it is hard to put down. Thus there are no university textbooks on this list, no Random Walk Down Wall Street or The Intelligent Investor. To make the list the books had to be interesting, educational, and a lot of fun to read. Many of these books are investment classics, and so people who have worked in markets for any length of time will possibly have read at least a few of these. I have put time stamps below, so you can skip ahead to the books that you are most interested in in case you have already read some of my selections.
Welcome back to patrick boyle on finance so one of the questions i get asked quite a lot in the comments section of my videos is if i could recommend some good finance books for traders or just for people who want to learn more about markets and investments on top of this christmas is coming and many of these books would make great gifts for the finance people that
You know there’s so many great books out there that it was really quite difficult to narrow it down to 10 and so i decided to come up with a list of books that are not just filled with knowledge but that are also really enjoyable reads the kind of book that it’s hard to put down so i won’t be putting any university textbooks or anything like that on the list
To make the list the books had to be interesting educational and a ton of fun to read several of these books are what i would call investment classics and so people who have worked in markets for any length of time will most likely have read at least a few of these i’ll put timestamps in the video description so that you can skip ahead to the books that you’re
Most interested in in case you’ve already read some of my selections the books are in no particular order they’re all just fun to read of general interest and if you’re new to the field of finance you might feel like an old pro by the time you’ve read all of them i’m sure the comment section will be ablaze with comments saying i can’t believe that you left
This one out but i’m just really looking forward to reading the comment section as hopefully you guys will suggest books for me that i haven’t yet read or even just remind me of great books that i’ve forgotten i’m going to put amazon links to every book in the description too so that they’re easy for you to find online okay so my first recommendation is roger
Lowenstein’s book when genius failed it’s the story of the hedge fund long-term capital management also known as ltcm which was the hottest hedge fund of the early 1990s the geniuses in the title of the book are myron shoals and robert martin who shared the 1997 nobel prize for coming up with the black shells martin model for pricing options and they were amongst
The partners at ltcm while this is a great book for finance people as it’s filled with some of the biggest names in the world of finance and really explains a number of hedge fund trading strategies extremely well it also just tells a really great and exciting story of a pioneering business that did really well initially and then collapsed it’s actually a book
That i gave my mom to read even though she wouldn’t necessarily be the typical audience for finance books so if you’re really excited about markets and you have a friend who doesn’t necessarily understand why you can give them a copy of this book to read if you’ve already read this book you should just check out any of roger lowenstein’s other books i’ve read
Most of them and they’re all great he’s just really good at breaking complex topics down into plain english and he really tells a story well okay so next up we have reminiscences of a stock operator by edwin lefevre this is the oldest book on the list it was first published in 1923. almost every trader that i know has read this book and it’s frequently quoted on
Trading floors reminiscences is kind of a thinly veiled but still fictionalized account of the life of one of the most storied traders from almost 100 years ago jesse livermore it’s put forth as being a work of fiction where the lead character’s name is larry livingston but everything in there is heavily based on interviews that lefev did with jesse livermore
Despite the book’s age it continues to offer insights into trading and speculation the book tells the story of livermore’s progression from day trading to big time market speculator and market manipulator it’s filled with really colorful stories of cheats of market manipulators brokers and tipsters the books filled with the lessons that he learned as he made and
Lost his fortune several times over reminiscences is as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago livermore tells us i learned early that there is nothing new in wall street there can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again livermore’s undoing came at points where
He ignored his own advice after repeated warnings about tipsters for example livermore allowed a tip on cotton to lead to a massive loss which grew even larger as he sat on his position hoping for a reversal which was violating his cardinal rules many readers are surprised to learn that livermore the patron saint of day traders advocated less trading and more
Patience as he matured in his early days livermore was dependent on scalping as he got older he was able to lengthen his holding periods and could even afford to do nothing for extended periods when there was no opportunity in the markets okay so the next book up is education of a speculator by victor niederhoffer i’m a little bit biased here as i used to work
For victor and i’ve been friends with him for around 20 years i first read this book before i knew victor though and i’ve probably read it 10 times or more the book starts out with victor telling you that he won’t be giving away any trading strategies as doing so would make no sense whatsoever but then he goes on to tell you all of the life lessons that he learned
Growing up as a kid in brooklyn in his academic career and of all the great ideas that he learned from all the fascinating people that he met along the way it’s a great autobiography that takes you from brooklyn in the 1950s to harvard in the 60s through to being a partner at sources quantum fund in the 1980s and one of the top performing hedge fund managers of
The 1990s the books filled with great stories great ideas and lessons that we can apply in both trading and in life the book is one of my favorites of all time and i consider myself really lucky to know victor and to have learned so much from him and there’s just a ton to be learned from reading his books there’s laugh out loud humor there’s wisdom about humanity
And great great stories all right well the next book up is by jack schwager and it’s his newest book which is called unknown market wizards and i’ve actually just finished reading it now in truth i always recommend all of his books but this being the newest one it’s also the one that relates most to the current market environment in fact some of the interviews
Were done only a couple of months ago the market wizards books are hugely influential in the world of trading they’re amongst the first books that i read that gave kind of a deep insight into how a trader works and how they think about markets jack is not just a good writer but he’s a great interviewer and he’s a trader himself and so he asks extremely insightful
Questions and really gets some of the best traders in markets to open up and explain what they do and why they do it when i was starting out i went through all of his books that were available at the time looking for ideas that i could test and for tips as to how i could improve my trading these books are just an absolute must read for anyone learning how to
Trade okay so next on the list is liars poker by michael lewis and this is a bit of an industry classic and brings us back to fixed income trading at salomon brothers in the 1980s in many ways this book is kind of a precursor to when genius failed as it introduces us to john merryweather and to the fixed income arbitrage group at solomon brothers who then later
Went on to found long-term capital management it also shows us the genesis of mortgage bonds created by louis rineri when he worked at solomon in the 1970s through the creation of mortgage-backed security solomon brothers not only held a near monopoly on an entire section of the bond market for several years but their creation was also one of the first moves into
Financialization which changed the face of investment banking and led to the kind of products that were then blamed for the financial crisis of 2008. lewis writes a hilarious account of what it’s like starting out on wall street and the different characters that you meet on a trading floor michael lewis has written a number of really well-known books many of which
Have been turned into big films things like the big short money ball the blind side and as popular as all of these other books are i would still argue that this one is his best okay so next up we have fiasco a hilarious and sometimes disturbing account of working at morgan stanley in the mid 1990s frank parknoy who later became a professor of law and finance at
Berkeley worked in the derivatives group at morgan stanley in the 1990s structuring complex financial products partner explains in some detail how structured products were created how they work around various regulations and restrictions all while still getting triple a credit ratings the book’s an entertaining read but also educates the reader on how derivatives
Work and how they’re sold it also highlights the problems that they can cause for people who don’t understand them you get a front row seat for many of the derivatives losses in the 1990s like at procter gamble and at orange county you learn the various tax and regulatory reasons that incentivize the creation of these products too it’s an entertaining exciting and
Educational book and i strongly recommend it okay our next book up is the winner’s curse by nobel prize winner richard taylor taylor’s a professor at the university of chicago and an innovator in the world of behavioral economics he’s worked with kahneman and tversky and has been key in defining the field of behavioral economics the winner’s curse isn’t just
An academic piece though it’s written for a lay audience but it’s just a really good introduction to financial anomalies which are of great interest to any trader conventional economics according to taylor assumes that people are highly rational and unemotional it assumes that they can calculate like a computer and that they have no self-control problems this
Book walks you through the many biases that can be found in investor behavior and being aware of these is of massive importance to a trader when you dig into it a huge number of trading strategies traded by hedge funds and asset managers are based on some aspect of behavioral finance which makes his ideas some of the most prescient in markets today okay so next
On the list we have the autobiography of edward torp which is called a man for all markets torp is a mathematician blackjack researcher and hedge fund manager he first became famous with his book beat the dealer which mathematically proved that the house advantage in blackjack could be overcome by card counting and some other strategies he’s one of the first quant
Traders and he developed an early approach to pricing and hedging options ahead of the black shoals formula he was one of the first investors to apply the kelly formula to sizing his trades a man for all markets tells his life story it shares the lessons he learned growing up and it explains how he developed his quantitative trading approach it’s educational it’s
Entertaining and it’s inspiring while his success in trading is amongst the best in the world the thing that makes torp so interesting is his ability to move from one investment approach to another as he found new opportunities and it’s just always worthwhile reading autobiographies of people like torp as it’s fascinating just to see how someone that successful
And innovative thinks okay our second last book on the list is my life as a quant by emanuel durman and it’s a really interesting and enjoyable book where emmanuel tells us how he went from being a particle physics researcher to a wall street quant he takes us from his years in academia to bell labs and then to goldman sachs where he led the quantitative finance
Group innovating in the pricing of derivatives and other complex securities durman’s honest descriptions of the pros and cons of wall street and the academic world are refreshing the book is filled with humanity which will resonate with anyone who’s worked in a serious capacity in science or in financial markets he talks about the salaries the demands on your
Time what the interviews are like the intellectual freedom and so on it’s rare to find a book like this or to even hear these topics discussed in an informal conversation so i just really strongly recommend to the book to anyone even with a passing interest in the world of quantitative finance last up we have investment biker by jim rogers jim is an investment
Icon working alongside george soros as his first business partner an investment biker he describes his motorcycle trip around the world and all of the things that he learned he details his adventures and travels in a series of investment books but investment bikers stuck out for me as particularly enjoyable jim described setting out on a round the world tour with
His girlfriend on two motorbikes to discover global investment opportunities based upon his own observations about the situation on the ground in various what would have been at the time developing or relatively underdeveloped countries in the 1990s interspersed with notes on the motorcycle near misses and repairs jim’s tales are rich in part because of his deep
Background in history geography politics and economics he weaves this knowledge base into discussions around historical trade routes the existence of infrastructure most conductive to trade natural ports navigable rivers borders with amiable and wealthy neighbors existing road and rail infrastructure he lays bare the essential components for economic success for
Countries things like the introduction of a stock market in a country is bullish the lack of sufficient transport roots in an otherwise bountiful farming nation is bearish jim gives insights into the fundamental foundations of economic success and these are just evergreen ideas which matter hugely to investors and traders i remember reading this book around 25
Years ago before i worked in markets or even intended to work in the markets and it really impacted my way of thinking about how the world and economic development works so that’s my top 10 list i’ve put amazon links in the video description below if you want to look up any of the books let me know what books you think are missing from my list and don’t forget
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Transcribed from video
Top Ten Finance Books For Traders & Investors By Patrick Boyle