The 5 Best Investing Books That Can Change Your Life

Investment, particularly in the equity market, is a vast subject that can be approached from many angles. Not only is it a complex subject, it also requires in-depth, specific knowledge.

Yet before investing in a stock, few people do the work of researching and learning this knowledge. And often, mistakenly, they tell themselves that because everyone’s talking about this stock, it must be great.

Unfortunately, the opposite is often true: if everyone’s talking about a stock, its price must be high, and so its growth potential is likely to be very low.
But did you know that there are actually plenty of accessible and, above all, comprehensible resources on the subject?

Although often sulked over, these investment books not only help you to find nuggets among small companies, but also to avoid being fooled by the general hype around IPOs, for example.

And whether you’ve already invested in a few products on the stock markets, or you’re simply a curious beginner, it’s always a good idea to improve your knowledge on the subject of investing, and get investing strategies from famous Gurus.

So in this article, we’re going to introduce you to the best books on investing in the stock market. These books are references in their field, but are still accessible to beginners.

Our goal: to give you best investing books you need to invest confidently in the stock market.

1. “The Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham

“By far the best book on investing ever written” – Warren Buffet

The Intelligent Investor is considered a bible by many investors. In his book, he explains validated and recognized principles for building your wealth and get rich with common stock. Although these principles were written many years ago, they remain just as relevant today.

Like an encyclopedia, it brings together the key concepts for unearthing the best businesses that will perform over the years. These include: knowing the company you want to invest in, investing for profits over time rather than quick gains, and trusting your own analysis and observations. He also explains why day trading should be avoided if you want to build wealth.

Once you’ve read it, you’ll have the keys to choosing the right equities to invest in.

2.”How to Make Money in Stocks” by William J. O’Neil

“Anyone can learn to invest effectively with this proven investment system.”

This guide to investing, which has sold over 2 million copies, makes it easy for investors to choose the right stocks. It’s so comprehensive in so many ways that it’s one of our favorite books at MarketAdvisor. His investment strategy is based on a simple acronym: CAN SLIM :

• C : Current big or acceleration quarterly earning and sales per share
• A : Annual earning increases
• N : Newer companies, new products, new management
• S : Supply and demand
• L : Leader or Laggard
• I : Institutuinal sponsorship
• M: Market direction

By applying this pattern to your stocks, you’ll be able to pick out those that have a solid intrinsic-value and that will perform well in the future.

He also explains simple strategies for selling stocks at the right time, including one that has become famous: “Always, without exception, limit your losses to 8% of your cost”.

Finally, he shows us over 100 stock charts, past and present, with commentary and analysis based on his principles. This makes it easy for any beginner to understand his or her strategy, and to become familiar with reading stock prices.

3.”Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits” by Philip A. Fisher

We can’t do this top 5 without mentioning one of the great classics that every investor should have on their bookshelf.

This book is a compilation of three works that P. Fisher wrote during his lifetime. Fisher explains that to make money in the markets, you have to analyze and study what has worked in the past. What’s more, he is an adept of the Buy&Hold approach, and his writings are deeply influenced by Peter Lynch and Warren Buffet. This is reflected in the two main strategies he details in his book:

• Buy companies that are cheap (e.g. low Price-earning ratio), and hold them forever. Why do you do this? Because most of the time, good companies multiply their value over the years.
• Buy companies when the overall market is down, and sell them when the market is up or at its peak. If we do this, we should make a profit on every share we buy.

He then goes on to detail the 15 points he uses to select the companies in which to invest, such as companies with market-leading products (like the L of the CAN SLIM from the book “How to Make Money in Stocks”).

In short, this investing book highlights the relevance of studying company data to build long-term wealth.

4.”One Up On Wall Street” by Peter Lynch

This is another classic in of best investing books, with over 1 million copies sold. Peter Lynch knows what he’s talking about: not only is he America’s leading fund manager, he is also one of the richest man and has a fortune estimated at over $450 million.

What we love about MarketAdvisor is its mantra: the average investor can become an expert in his or her field and pick stocks that perform as well as Wall Street professionals, with just a little research. According to Lynch, opportunities abound in the markets, and by simply analyzing the figures of a company and its competitors, you can discover growth stocks that will increase in price by a factor of 10 over time: these are what he calls “tenbaggers”. So you can turn a standard portfolio into a star portfolio.

Lynch promises that if you ignore the ups and downs of the market, the moments of fear and the moments of euphoria, and remain consistent in your strategy, your stock basket will grow exponentially.

If you want to know, we did an article on this book: link to the article

5. “The Little Book That Beats the Market” by Joel Greenblatt

In 2005, Joel Greenblatt published a book on stock investing that is now considered a classic of financial literature. A New York Time bestseller on investing book, the book explains how the average investor can beat the markets in a simple way.

By applying a formula for each stock studied, which evaluates the company’s financial data, we can draw up a list of high-potential, competitively-priced stocks.

After exploring the basic principles of stock market investing, he reveals his famous formula for selecting the best stocks to beat the markets. Although his formula is relatively simple, understanding it is a real key for the investor.

Joel Greenblatt set out to create a book that would be simple and understandable to anyone. That’s why, if we had to recommend a book to start investing, we’d definitely recommend this one.