Recommend some good books on personal finance.

Cafe Society
1

I’ve decided to take the bull by the horns. I’m going to invest in the market (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, commodities, options). I’m planning to save some cash every month for this purpose until I have a “war chest” available. In the meantime I intend to research market terminology, investment techniques, risk management, etc. in detail. To that end please recommend me the (in your opinion) best books out there re: investment.

The books I’ve already that have something to do with personal finances are:

The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason

This book illustrates the need for investing while at the same time showing the power of compound interest. Couched in the format of parables and stories it gives good general advice while providing motivation to start investing now. However short on details relevant to modern day investing this is a great book for a teen or young adult who doesn’t realize how most people grow wealthy (Self-employed professionals, investors, and business owners primarily).

The Market Wizards by Jack Schwager
The New Market Wizards by Jack Schwager

Both of these books are compilations of interviews with very successful investors. Schwager, an author who has been involved in trading for a number of years, asks some good questions with variable results. Some of the interviews contain good specific advice for the general investor, others don’t summarize well. This book gives one an idea of some of the different techniques used to determine a good trading decision.

Wealth Without Risk by Charles Givens

This book is packed with a lot of information. Unfortunately not very much of it is pertinent to the market. It contained some useful advice such as using no-load type funds and tieing the interest rate to general market trends but, ultimately, this book wasn’t centered nearly enough on the market.

The Courage to be Rich by Suze Orman

I read this book in a couple hours at my mother’s suggestion. I’m pretty disappointed in this work. It seems to consist primarily of the sort of feelgood message you might expect from your garden variety motivational speaker. Very little concrete information on investing or the market in this book.

I’m NOT looking for a book which consists in large part of a motivational or inspirational message or which isn’t primarily centered on market based investing.

I’m looking for:

  1. A good intermediate level reference book(s) that thoroughly explains all of the commonly used market terminology (i.e. P/E ratio, Put/Call ratio, dollar cost averaging, etc.).

  2. Book recommendations regarding risk management WRT the market.

  3. Some good intermediate and advanced level analysis and trading techniques (the advanced to be consumed after the intermediate stuff is digested of course).

Thx in advance financial gurus!

Grim

2

I cannot recommend highly enough Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street, the essential primer on efficient market hypothesis (essentially, the theory that markets absorb all available data, and thus it is impossible in the long run to “beat the street”).

It has a lot of the practical factual information you’re looking for, plus a good introduction to a widely-held (though not exclusively-held) view of how financial markets work.