The Best Investment Books Ever Written

I recently started listening to the podcast Investing by the Books produced by the Nordic investment banker Redeye. The hosts are Eddie Palmgren and Niklas Sävås, and they are great. Both are lifelong learners, and they love books on investing. In this show, we talk about the best investment books that Eddie and Niklas have ever read. We’ll find out their favorite book about Buffett. We’ll also get more insights on Mr. Market, moats, and the Ackman Paradox.

Topics Covered

• The quick bios of Eddie Palmgren and Niklas Sävås
• The first investing books Eddie and Niklas read
• Investing by the Books podcast and their producer, Redeye
• What counts as an investment book?
• The latest edition of The Intelligent Investor is better than the first
• On selecting the right investment book to read
• Price vs. margin of safety
• Risk, luck, probability, and the need to avoid big losses
• Favorite books about Buffett
• Best book to recommend to beginner investors
• Obscure investment books and Investment Biker: Around the World with Jim Rogers
• Quality investing and investing for the long term
• The best book on interpreting financial statements
• The Ackman Paradox
• Beware of the maxim of making money on your first trade, and being mindful of the maxim of overconfidence
• Revisiting A Random Walk Down Wall Street

Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten, and twenty years from now.

Warren Buffett – 1996 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letter

Books Mentioned

My goal was to learn what investment books Eddie and Niklas have in their top 10. In the list that follows, I’ve decided to include every title in addition to their favorites that were mentioned on the show.

• The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham – According to Niklas, “If Graham were alive today, I don’t think he’d write this book. He’d write something more profound.”
• Both of the Peter Lynch books – One Up on Wall Street and Beating the Street
• History – Once in Golconda by John Brooks
• Risk and Probability – Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein
• Books on Buffett – Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders, The Snowball, The Warren Buffett Way
• Recommendations for new investors – The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks (Mark’s Picks – Millionaire Teacher and The Little Book That Builds Wealth)
• Owning the best stocks for the long term – Quality Investing by Eide, Cunningham, and Hargreaves
• On deciphering financial statements – The Interpretation of Financial Statements by Benjamin Graham (Mark’s pick – Warren Buffett and the Interpretation of Financial Statements by Mary Buffett)
• More favorites – The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success and Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger

I’m not sure when this list was developed, but here is a Top 20 list at Investing by The Books.

Investing by The Books Podcast

I’m slowly working my way through every episode of this podcast. If you are curious about the show, my suggestion is to:

1. Click on show #0 on the podcast page.
2. Click on that link. It will take you to the Redeye website, where there is a 17-minute video for this introductory episode.
3. Then listen to the first official episode with the author of Intelligent Fanatics Project.
4. Then pick 4-5 episodes that look interesting. Then start listening to the rest of the episodes.