Books

Want to read what we have? Here is our list. (All books can easily be purchased by clicking any of the Amazon links to the right). First, we recommend checking them out from a library first. Remember the time value of money and how it can compound over time. $1,000 saved on books is worth over $10,000 after compounding at 8% annually for 30 years. You will note that we dont have any books listed by Jim Cramer. That is not an error.

PERSONAL FINANCE BOOKS

Personal Finance for Dummies by Eric Tyson
Reading any Dummies book does not make you a dummy. In fact, we are surprised by how good the entire Dummy franchise really is. Their other financial books have amazing depth and clarity. You should be able to find this at your local library. While the information is good, the books are not entirely suited to physicians. Meaning you will need to use our site also!

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americas Wealthy by Thomas Stanley and William Danko
This book led us to the idea that you shouldnt try to keep up with the Joneses because they are broke. It is an insightful look into the financial habits of those who are truly wealthy.

The Physicians Guide to Investing: A Practical Approach to Building Wealth by Robert Doroghazi
This is a helpful guide in getting physicians to think about money. Some of it assumes that you already know a base amount of financial information, which we do not believe

most physicians have. There is nothing you cant get from here that you cant get from our site. For those who are curious, we have to mention it.

Financial Planning Handbook for Physicians and Advisors by David Marcinko

From the CFPs (Certified Financial Planners) we talked to, they recommended this book as being the most detailed. While we agree that it is chock full of useful information, it may be a little over the head of most physicians. Lastly, it is now becoming outdated with teh most recent edition being almost a decade old.

BOOKS THAT MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON AND HELP YOU BECOME MORE SUCCESSFUL
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Being book smart will only get you so far if you are socially inept. For those who are already charming and charismatic, feel free to skip this one. For the rest of us, this is a must read.

10 Days to Faster Reading by The Princeton Language Institute and Abby Marks Beale
If you are interested in finance, you will have to read. You may as well do it as quickly as you can. This book, considered the definitive in speed reading, will give you the tools necessary.

The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz

It is hard to work a full day, handle family and other obligations, and then think that you have it in you to follow up with a business idea, or write a novel, or do something extraordinary other than medicine. Even if you dont want to do any of these things, this book will still make you feel excited about life.and that is a good thing.

Poor Charlies Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger

You cant afford not to read this book. You will understand how the other guy at Berkshire Hathaway, billionaire Charlie Munger, thinks. This book will change your life and help you think about better ways to think. If there is any book we would recommend on this page, this would be it.

NON-TECHNICAL FINANCE BOOKS THAT WILL OPEN UP YOUR EYES ABOUT FINANCE
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
We are large fans of any financial biography. The super successful have traits that can be mimicked and if not mimicked, at least acknowledged. Steve Jobs was the CEO of Apple, the largest company by market cap, ever. It is well written and worth a read or listened to via audiobook to understand what drives successful people.

Snowball: Warren Buffett by Alice Schroeder

Here at theinvestmentmd.com, we are unabashedly huge fans of Mr. Buffett. He has shown consistency in his investment returns as well as his integrity. He is undoubtedly the greatest investor of all time. You should be asking yourself, why doesnt everyone just copy his strategy? It is not as easy as it appears and requires more discipline than anything else. But it is not outside the realm of possibility for you to learn what makes him tick. Reading this biography will help you become a better investor and likely a better person also.

Of Permanent Value by Andrew Kilpatrick

If you want to know more than Snowball gave you regarding Warren Buffett, then you need to read Of Permanent Value. This VERY comprehensive book tracks Buffett in a very intimate way. You will learn what books are his favorite, what he likes to eat and much more. You will truly get inside the mind of the worlds greatest investor.

The Black Swanby Nassim Taleb

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No, this is not a book about Natalie Portman. We love books that give us new glasses to view the world with. The central idea is looking at Black Swan events that are essentially unaccounted for in normal probability distributions that shape the course of history. The book is part philosophy, part math and part investing. It will change the way you look at the world and chance events. Taleb wrote another great book called Fooled by Randomness. We suggest starting with The Black Swan and then going to the other title if you enjoy the first.

Fooling Some of the People All of the Time: A Long Short Story by David Einhorn
We admire David Einhorn...just not quite as much as we admite Mr. Buffett. Einhorn is the head of Greenlight Capital, an investment management firm. In this book, he talks about how he shorted the company Allied Capital. To short a company is to bet against it. The reason the book is vital is that it will show you how to dissect an investment and it does so in laymans terms to help the average reader understand. We continue to believe that one must try to mentally destroy a company first, and if you cant, then it may be worthy of investment. Einhorn tells you what to look for when trying to destroy a company and he does so in a way that makes the book read like a detective story.

BOOKS FOR THE ACTIVE INVESTOR BEGINNER

*Why Stocks Go Up And Down by William H. Pike
The publisher of this book has written that it is , the book you need to understand other investment books. With the Buffett books listed below, you learn how Buffett defines a good company. With this book, you learn the basic investing lingo that really is indispensable. Of note, there was a Neurology/Pathology resident who dropped out of residency, Michael Burry, who went on to make over 100 million dollars in the stock market crash of 2008-09. He is listed in Michael Lewis book, The Big Short. He recommended reading a few key books and that would be all you needed to read to understand investing. Some of his books are listed on this site and will have an asterisk by each.

*Buffettology by Mary Buffett

Mary Buffett was married to one of Warren Buffetts sons and wrote this book from the information she gleamed from Warren himself while she was part of the family. The book is broken down into two parts, one part qualitative and one part quantitative. If you dont like math, just read the other half of it.

The Warren Buffett Way by Robert Hagstrom

Buffetology may be easier to understand but this book goes into more detail in regards to analyzing some of Buffetts key investments during his career.

How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff

This book has been around since the 1960's and yet people still read it to this day. This suggests that people are a) still being duped by stats, and b) this book is very important and pertinent. You can likely find it at a local library. It breaks down statistics to a laypersons level. You can finish it in a couple of hours.

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns (Little Books. Big Profits.)
John Bogle is the father of the index fund and Vanguard. He is full of integrity and common sense. Anything he writes is worth reading. This book is a great primer for the newbie investor. Another book in the same genre is Winning the Loser's Game: Timeless Strategies for Successful Investing by Charles Ellis. Both books talk about minimizing expenses and maximizing returns and avoiding the hype that the investment community puts out to make you spend more.

INTERMEDIATE
The Essays of Warren Buffett
This book is simply a collection of some of the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Reports. We have listed the website to get the full reports on our Websites page. This book is the highly condensed version. Once again, we are Buffett idolizers. We view the fact that he shares his knowledge with us as if Michael Jordan were to teach us how to play basketball or Mozart to teach us

piano. We devour any information he gives us and we think you will be smarter for doing so also. If you are serious about investing, you MUST read Buffetts annual shareholder letters. Remember, they are free unless you get this condensed version.

*The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

Ben Graham taught Warren Buffett at Columbia Business School. Graham is considered the father of value investing in that he was the one who made a method for analyzing investments. Before Graham, people went by word of mouth. Graham wrote this book to allow the average person to understand what he wrote in Security Analysis (listed below). Burry thinks that anyone can get the information from this book alone and doesnt need to read Security Analysis. This book also holds the classic ideas of Mr. Market and Margin of Safety. Anyone exposed to active investing will likely have heard these termsand also have read this book. Buffett considers it the greatest book on investing, ever. If you look at the returns of Graham and Buffett over their respected careers, you will realize that they use some method that works. You must read as much by the two of them that you can get your hands on. We would also check out Ben Graham: The Memoirs of the Dean of Wall Street by Ben Graham also.

*Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Phillip Fisher

Buffett describes himself as 85% Ben Graham and 15% Phil Fisher and most view Buffett as the synthesis of Graham and Fisher. The book focuses on the idea of finding great investments that are the best of breed and holding on to them. It is not difficult to understand and is a quick read.

How to Read a Financial Report by John A Tracy

At theinvesmentmd.com, we hold accounting in high regard. It is the language of business. If you cant read a financial report, then you are trusting that someone else can. We dont trust too many people, especially investment managers, and think that an active investor needs to do her own homework. This book is very easy to follow and is considered a classic. The topic isnt that exciting but it beats paying money to sit in an accounting class. The book also has easy to follow diagrams from page to page and you are lead through full reports figuring out what goes where.

Value Investing from Graham to Buffett and Beyond by Bruce Greenwald, Judd Kahn, Paul Sonkin and Michael van Biema
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This book goes on a case by case basis in valuing companies and looking for value. Practice makes perfect. Following the actions of good investors makes sense. Another book that that serves as a roadmap for finding value on a case-by case basis is You Can Be A Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt. The title is ridiculous but the book is worth reading.

The Bond Book: Everything Investors Need to Know About Treasuries, Municipals, GNMAs, Corporates, Zeros, Bond Funds, Money Market Funds, and More by Annette Thau
We do believe in investing in bonds as well. This book is considered the authoritative text for learning how to invest in bonds.

ADVANCED
Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham
This is considered the definitive book of investing. Before this book, valuation metrics were almost non-existent and trading securities went by hunches and word of mouth. It is a difficult book to get through and the examples are outdated, despite several editions being made. But its importance cant be overstated. Buffett once told himself that he would not invest until he had completely understood this book. Better for the advanced investor and surely after one has tackled The Intelligent Investor.

Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman

Klarman is an investing titan and is in the mold of Ben Graham. He runs Baupost Investment Group in Boston. He is reclusive and doesnt make a bunch of noise, which is what an investor with good ideas should do to keep people from copying his strategy (Buffett aside). Klarman wrote this book in the 80s and no copies have been made since. The book retails in the thousands on Ebay. Try finding digital copies onlineit is easier than you think.

Investment Valuation by Aswath Damadoran

Graham shows you the way to go through financial statements and see where companies can hide unpleasant facts about the company. Damadoran simply tells you how to value

you any company, basically through cash flow analysis. This book could substitute several finance classes and is worth it for the serious investor. If you cant understand discounted cash flow analysis or get an accurate idea of what tangible book value means, this is the book for you.

*The Art of Short Selling by Kathryn Staley

We are not big shorters here at theinvestmentmd.com. But there is something to be said about shorting. Once again, we like the maxim of Bruce Berkowitz (a guru we hold in high regard), who stated that before you invest in a company, try to destroy it or think of ways that the company could go under. If you or anyone else cant figure out ways to sink the company, then it is likely a company worth investing in at the right price. This book goes over the strategies of how to try to bet against a company. This can also help you know what to look out for in companies you decide to may want to invest in, not just bet against.

Derivatives Demystified: A Step-by-Step Guide to Forwards, Futures, Swaps and Options (The Wiley Finance Series) by Andrew Chisholm
This is the book we have used, in addition to textbooks for class, for understanding options and futures. Even we stay away from swaps. It is relatively easy to follow and understand assuming you have some financial structural knowledge.