Holiday Reading List
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
With the market in a correction and the majority of the Greenback Consulting portfolio parked in cash, and with slow holiday trading coming up, I figured now would be as good a time as any to catch up on some reading. There are a lot of books on my reading list and although I'd like to get them all read before the end of the year, I probably won't have enough time. Feel free to add any good books you have read or heard might be worthwhile reading.
First up on the list is the "Little Book" series: The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Boggle, The Little Book That Beats the Market by Joel Greenblatt, The Little Book That Makes You Rich by Louis Navellier and Steve Forbes and The Little Book of Value Investing by Christopher Browne and Roger Lowenstein. These books look like quick reads and are written by some of the best in the particular area of investing. Even if they aren't revolutionary, its always nice to see what some of the best have to say about common sense investing.
As a daily reader of Investor's Business Daily, I am a fan of the IBD style of picking and owning "leading stocks" in bull markets. I actually haven't read any of the William O'Neil books, but am picking up How to Make Money in Stocks and The Successful Investor. Hopefully these books will give me a clearer understanding of the IBD approach to leading stocks.
In the "psychology" category I'd like to read The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the follow up to his wildly popular underground book Fooled by Randomness. A book heavier on science, I'm looking at Your Money Your Brain by Jason Zweig. It has only been in stores for a few months but looks like it has gotten pretty strong ratings so far. Finally, I'm looking to read MicroTrends by Mark Penn and E. Kinney Zalesne; it doesn't specifically deal with trading or markets, but I liked Blink and Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell a lot, and MicroTrends promises a similar approach to the world.
In the "energy" category I just picked up The Oil Factor by Stephen Leeb and will probably read the follow-up book The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Survive When Oil Costs $200 Per Barrel. As any reader of this blog knows, I'm big on trading the energy names, and hopefully these books will give me a clearer understanding of the energy markets. Finally I'm looking at Clean Tech Revolution by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder because if crude stays as high as it is right now, no doubt alternative energies will start to penetrate the market and it would be nice to stay ahead of the alternative energy curve.
In the "fear mongering" category I'm looking at the two most popular books right now, Financial Armageddon by Michael Panzner and Crash Proof by Peter Schiff and John Downes. Although I don't necessarily buy into the hype that the world is teetering on the brink of economic collapse, I still think knowing the big bear arguments is beneficial. I read Maxed Out by James Scurlock last year and read the Alan Abelson column in Barron's every Saturday. These authors might go a little too far in calling for the collapse of the system but they are still on to something...
A few books that I don't know how to categorize but am nevertheless looking at include Hedge Hunters by Katherine Burton which has been getting a lot of media coverage lately; Traders, Guns and Money by Satyajit Das which has been recommended to me by quite a few people; The Way of the Turtle by Curtis Faith, a relatively new book which looks promising and has gotten pretty strong reviews; and The Poker Face of Wall Street by Aaron Brown, which has actually been on my reading list for a really long time.
Finally, in the "pop economics" category there are still a few books I'd like to read. I just finished reading The Underground Economist by Tim Harford and I read Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner last year. These books don't necessarily teach a whole lot about economics, trading or investing, but they are fun to read and can be really interesting. The books I'm looking at right now are The Armchair Economist and More Sex is Safer Sex by Steven Landsburg, The Economic Naturalist by Robert Frank, Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan, and Hidden Order by David D. Friedman.
Posted by Rob Pitingolo 8:07 PM
