Reading is critical to the growth and education of every investor. Below are sites that I read regularly, and a list of books I consider essential to informing my views as an investor. These resources provide an on-going source of information, and I highly recommend them if you are interested in learning more about investing and personal finance.
On the Web
Josh Brown provides a continuous stream of funny, insightful and informative observations. He is irreverent and merciless in calling out the conflicts and bad behavior in the financial services industry.
Morgan Housel was formerly a writer for the Motley Fool where he homed. in on key issues and lessons around investing in a concise and entertaining style. He has since left TMF but his articles remain.
Howard Marks is a legendary value investor whose regular (and archived) memos offer timeless and incredibly insightful commentary on what it takes to be a successful investor.
David Merkel is a long time financial writer and investment manager who provides un-biased and grounded commentary on investing and risk.
Barry Ritholtz runs his own RIA and is a prolific blogger with great insight and skepticism about market punditry. Barry also has a terrific podcast via Bloomberg where he interviews notables such as Jack Bogle, Howard Marks and Ken Fisher.
The Monevator is a UK based blog that delivers common sense advice on investing and personal finance with wit and a direct style.
Carl Richards is a financial advisor best known as the “sketch guy” who manages the Behavior Gap site that illustrates how investors’ emotions get in the way of success.
Jason Zweig is a long time Wall Street Journal writer and author who shares his insights on the investing industry.
Quartz is a news and information site focused on global business issues. It’s engaging and diverse. Its Daily Brief email, delivered overnight, highlights important news from QZ and around the web. (Disclosure: my daughter Caroline works at Quartz)
Cullen Roche is an asset manager who focuses on macro economic and monetary issues.
Tren Griffin is a blogger and author with a series of posts about learnings from a variety of notable investors as well as unlikely subjects (e.g. Groucho Marx).
The Brooklyn Investor is an insightful blogger who posts (unfortunately infrequently) about companies and topics that are interesting and often off the beaten path.
Books
The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks. Compiled from his essays, this is my favorite book on investing.
The Warren Buffet Way by Robert Hagstrom
Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman. (Note: very expensive due to limited availability of print versions). I met Klarman while in grad school at Boston University in 1989 when he addressed our Investments class and his view on value investing struck a chord with me.
Value Investing, A Balanced Approach by Martin Whitman. I met Marty once through his daughter Barbara who was once a neighbor. He’s a major figure in the field of value investing.
Essays of Warren Buffet by Lawrence Cunningham. A great way to begin to understand Buffett.
Winning the Loser’s Game by Charles Ellis. A seminal book on the challenges of active investing.
Clash of Cultures by John Bogle. Insight from the father of passive index investing.
A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel. Another advocate of low cost, passive investing, Malkiel’s classic is currently in its eleventh edition.
Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. This is the bible for fundamental analysts that Warren Buffett calls his “roadmap for investing.”
Market Wizards by Jack Schwager. A terrific series of interviews with and analysis of successful traders. Summary: it’s all about risk management.
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. More readable for individual investors than Security Analysis. It contains many insights that are valuable today.
Charlie Munger, The Complete Investor by Tren Griffin. Warren Buffet’s right hand man – witty, insightful and brutally honest.
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Irving Fisher. A timeless classic by the father of investment manager Ken Fisher.
Value Investing: From Graham to Buffet and Beyond by Bruce Greenwald et al. An important and valuable book on value investing and understanding companies.
Investing, the Last Liberal Art by Robert Hagstrom. Anyone with a Liberal Arts education will appreciate this book which describes the latticework of ideas that weave multiple disciplines into a coherent view of companies and markets.
Beating the Street by Peter Lynch. The former manager of Fidelity’s famed Magellan Fund is looked down upon somewhat today by some who feel his tenure was short and he just “caught a wave”. But this book contains great insight and logic around investing. And he never “blew up” which is more than some of today’s hedge fund managers can say.