Books on the stock market
 

What's a good introductory book on the stock market? I currently am investing in mutual funds, but I would like to learn to evaluate and invest in stocks all on my own. A book that could teach me to evaluate relevent factors in making buying decisions would be extremely helpful.

Re: Books on the stock market
 

One of the classics is Peter Lynch's One Up On Wall Street. He talks about buy and hold of solid companies you know. Good read. Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor is truly the all time classic. It has been revised. Those two should get ya started.

Re: Books on the stock market
 

two books by James O'Shaughnessy:

What Works On Wall Street
How To Retire Rich

changed my financial outlook for life. ironically, James himself caught the dot-com craze and started a new company called Netfolio that crashed hard and forced him to sell his mutual fund rights to Hennessy Funds, who fortunately have maintained his philosophies to a tee with great success.

for my personal stock picks, I follow his model pretty closely, though I have higher tolerance for micro-cap companies, and lower tolerance for debt/equity.

John Montgomery of Bridgeway Funds is also a fave of mine, but his exact formulas are not published.

Re: Books on the stock market
 

A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market by John Allen Paulos

One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel

Re: Books on the stock market
 

[ QUOTE ]
One of the classics is Peter Lynch's One Up On Wall Street. He talks about buy and hold of solid companies you know. Good read. Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor is truly the all time classic. It has been revised. Those two should get ya started.

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The Peter Lynch book is a good, light read. Very popular, and has some good ideas. The problem is that the one big things people take away from it is "invest in what you know". So they go out and buy companies that make products they like w/o gettting deep enough into the business model or financials. I think that book by itself has lost people more money in the market than maybe any other.

The Intelligent Investor is a great book, but a very dry read. I think most people are aware that Ben Graham was Warren Buffett's mentor. Phil Fisher was Buffett's other big investing influence and I consider his book "Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits" to be at least as good as Graham's. Another good easy read with very good ideas is "Winning the Investment Marathon" by Brad Perry.

edit: Add John Neff on Investing to my list as well.

Re: Books on the stock market
 

I enjoyed Peter Lynch's "Beating the Street".
It is kind of general, but it has a lot of solid advice.

Re: Books on the stock market
 

This should be exactly what you are looking for.

Re: Books on the stock market
 

Well I was just trying to get him started and steeer him away from all the "day trading" or "How I made millions" or "look at my great hedge fund" type of books.

Re: Books on the stock market
 

[ QUOTE ]
Well I was just trying to get him started and steeer him away from all the "day trading" or "How I made millions" or "look at my great hedge fund" type of books.

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No, I agree. It's not a bad book. It's just misused.

Re: Books on the stock market
 

Read A Random Walk Down Wall Street - and then buy all index funds!