4 of the Best Books for Future Investors

Photo of author

By Ben Myers

Getting into the right mind-set to make money from investing is pivotal if you want to be a success. There are countless books on this subject out there and many are good, but more are pure rubbish. So, here’s our pick of the best.

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America by Warren Buffett

He is considered to be today’s most successful investor. In this 1997 book of essays, he gives his views on many topics that are of interest to corporate America’s shareholders. This book is ideal for young investors who can get a peek at the way a company manages itself and works with shareholders. It also delves in the way thoughts are processed when boosting a company’s enterprise value.

The essays discuss many topics such as finance, investing, corporate governance, mergers, and acquisitions as well as stock alternatives. They go over accounting policies, valuations, and tax matters. Buffett outlines all of his business principle basics. He informs shareholders that their interests have to be aligned with those of the company.

He promotes the idea of purchasing shares of business when those shares are discounted beneath their inherent value. He supports the idea of bucking current investment trends.

Beating the Street by Peter Lynch

 As one of the most successful stock market investors, Peter Lynch published this book in 1994 to give readers a peek into his mind. He started as an intern for Fidelity Investments in the mid-1960s. A decade later, he managed the Magellan Fund which, at that time, had close to $20 million in assets. By the turn of the 1990s, that fund had grown to $18 billion with almost 1000 stock positions. His fund averaged returns of more than 29 percent a year.

Reading this book will help shed light on the process involved in deciding to buy or sell stock. Lynch suggests that individual investors can exploit market opportunities themselves as well as Wall Street. His advice is to invest in what they know.

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

This book was written in 1949 but to this day it is considered the best investing book of all. Even Warren Buffet agrees. Grahan is the father of value investing. He advocates purchasing stocks that look as if they are under priced when compared to their inherent value. This is determined via a fundamental analysis of the stock.

Graham gives the reader the means to learn how to do fundamental stock analyses. He goes over ways of managing your portfolio with a positive and a defensive tactic. He uses a comparison of several company stocks to help illustrate these points.

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

When this book was published in 1937, the Great Depression was in full swing. As of today, it is still a bestseller with over 30 million copies being sold. Hill did his research by observing wealthy associates during his lifetime.

He published his 13 principles for success at the encouragement of Andrew Carnegie. He created these principles based on his own observations and his research. The principles include faith, desire, knowledge, specialized and organized planning and persistence. He even believed in using the sixth sense. He highly promoted brainstorming with like-minded individuals.

The book provides deep insight into the psychology of success and abundance. It is the best book for any investor to read considering today’s slant towards believing negative news and gorging itself on shock-value media.

The greatest investors of all time honed their skills with years of thought, research and practice. When you finish reading these, you will want to read the next batch on the list of investor books.

If this hasn’t been enough for you, check out this list of real estate investment books from Asset Column.

Images Courtesy of DepositPhotos