Ed Recommends: One Up on Wall Street
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I dig books. I guess that’s not a surprise, since I write books for a living. But I strongly believe in better living through reading. Success is colored in black and white. Reading the right books can help you get control over all sorts of aspects of your life and prepare you for new careers, new hobbies, or anything else you can think of.
Over the years, I’ve been asked to recommend many of my favorite books. Naturally, people ask me about the best poker books. But people also ask me about other books: books about investing, books about taxes, books about finance. I also get questions about books on all sorts of topics.
Last night I had a great idea. I’d share some of my favorite books on this blog. So here’s my first one.
One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch is the best beginner’s investing book I’ve read. Lynch was the manager of Fidelity’s Magellan fund from 1977-1990, and during that time he amassed one of the finest records of any fund manager. But his results aren’t what make this book so good. It’s good because it fully demystifies the stock picking process. It teaches you what to look for in a good stock. And more importantly, it teaches you how to find the real deal out of all the snake oil.
Poker is filled with people happy to offer (and even sell) bad advice. Investing suffers from the same problem, only ten times more so. If you listen to the average TV financial analyst, you’ll hear a bunch of nonsensical mumbo jumbo. Worse yet, if you actually buy stocks based on what you hear on TV, you’ll likely end up with unsatisfactory returns.
Lynch’s book teaches you to separate the wheat from the chaff. It teaches you to think for yourself. It teaches you to separate the few nuggets of wisdom from the vast sea of foolishness. And it’s geared for beginners, so anyone can follow its ideas. I recommend everyone read this book, no matter how much or little you plan to invest. Even if you just own a few mutual funds in a retirement account, the knowledge in this book will allow you to make better decisions for yourself now and in the future.
Tags: fidelity-magellan, investing, one-up-on-wall-street, personal-finance, peter-lynch, stock-market, value-investing
I dig books too.
I read this book when it was published in the late 80′s and it taught me a lot. Even though I never really got into investing in individual stocks – I am a mutual fund investor – the knowledge in this book really helped me to understand the basics of market dynamics and I have had better investment results because of it.
I would also recommend Thomas J. Stanley’s excellent book “The Millionaire Next Door”. Ed, you talked about the importance of good money management, in regards to poker, in your “Going Pro” articles. This book carries it further, talking about good money management in all walks of life. Definitely a must-read.