Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes - And How to Correct Them: Lessons from the New Science of Behavioral Economics


Gary Belsky - 1999
    Most important, they focus on the decisions we make every day and, using entertaining examples, provide invaluable tips on avoiding the financial faux pas that can cost thousands of dollars each year.

Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger


Charles T. Munger - 2005
    Edited by Peter D. Kaufman. Brand New.

Your Money and Your Brain


Jason Zweig - 2007
    In Your Money and Your Brain, Jason Zweig explains why smart people make stupid financial decisions -- and what they can do to avoid these mistakes. Zweig, a veteran financial journalist, draws on the latest research in neuroeconomics, a fascinating new discipline that combines psychology, neuroscience, and economics to better understand financial decision making. He shows why we often misunderstand risk and why we tend to be overconfident about our investment decisions. Your Money and Your Brain offers some radical new insights into investing and shows investors how to take control of the battlefield between reason and emotion. Your Money and Your Brain is as entertaining as it is enlightening. In the course of his research, Zweig visited leading neuroscience laboratories and subjected himself to numerous experiments. He blends anecdotes from these experiences with stories about investing mistakes, including confessions of stupidity from some highly successful people. Then he draws lessons and offers original practical steps that investors can take to make wiser decisions. Anyone who has ever looked back on a financial decision and said, "How could I have been so stupid?" will benefit from reading this book.

All About Asset Allocation


Richard A. Ferri - 2005
    If you're serious about investing for the long run, you have to take a no-nonsense, businesslike approach to your portfolio. In addition to covering all the basics, this new edition of "All About Asset Allocation" includes timely advice on: Learning which investments work well together and why Selecting the right mutual funds and ETFs Creating an asset allocation that's right for your needs Knowing how and when to change an allocation Understanding target-date mutual funds"All About Asset Allocation offers advice that is both prudent and practical--keep it simple, diversify, and, above all, keep your expenses low--from an author who both knows how vital asset allocation is to investment success and, most important, works with real people." -- John C. Bogle, founder and former CEO, The Vanguard Group"With All About Asset Allocation at your side, you'll be executing a sound investment plan, using the best materials and wearing the best safety rope that money can buy." -- William Bernstein, founder, EfficientFrontier.com, and author, The Intelligent Asset Allocator

Laughing at Wall Street: How I Beat the Pros at Investing (by Reading Tabloids, Shopping at the Mall, and Connecting on Facebook) and How You Can, Too


Chris Camillo - 2011
    He is an ordinary person with a knack for identifying trends and discovering great investments hidden in everyday life. In early 2007, he invested $20,000 in the stock market, and in three years it grew to just over $2 million. With Laughing at Wall Street, you'll see: -How Facebook friends helped a young parent invest in the wildly successful children's show, Chuggington--and saw her stock values climb 50% -How an everyday trip to 7-Eleven alerted a teenager to short Snapple stock--and tripled his money in seven days -How $1000 invested consecutively in Uggs, True Religion jeans, and Crocs over five years grew to $750,000 -How Michelle Obama caused J. Crew's stock to soar 186%, and Wall Street only caught up four months later! Engaging, narratively-driven, and without complicated financial analysis, Camillo's stock picking methodology proves that you do not need large sums of money or fancy market data to become a successful investor.

The One Minute Millionaire: The Enlightened Way to Wealth


Mark Victor Hansen - 2001
    Mark Victor Hansen, cocreator of the phenomenal Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and Robert G. Allen, one of the world’s foremost financial experts, have helped thousands of people become millionaires. Now it’s your turn.Is it possible to make a million dollars in only one minute? The answer just might surprise you. The One Minute Millionaire is an entirely new approach, a life-changing “millionaire system” that will teach you how to:* Create wealth even when you have nothing to start with.* Overcome fears so you can take reasonable risks.* Use the power of leverage to build wealth rapidly.* Use “one minute” habits to build wealth over the long term.The One Minute Millionaire is a revolutionary approach to building wealth and a powerful program for self-discovery as well. Here are two books in one, fiction and nonfiction, designed to address two kinds of learning so that you can fully integrate these life-changing lessons. On the right-hand pages, you will find the fictional story of a woman who has to make a million dollars in ninety days or lose her two children forever. The left-hand pages give the practical, step-by-step nonfiction strategies and techniques that actually work in the real world. You’ll find more than one hundred nuts-and-bolts “Millionaire Minutes,” each one a concise and invaluable lesson with specific techniques for creating wealth. However, the lessons here are not just about becoming a millionaire—they are about becoming an enlightened millionaire and how to ethically make, keep, and share your wealth. Whether your goal is less than a million dollars or that amount many times over, there’s never been a better time to achieve abundance. Let The One Minute Millionaire show you the way.

The Complete TurtleTrader: The Legend, the Lessons, the Results


Michael W. Covel - 2007
    Convinced that great trading was a skill that could be taught to anyone, he made a bet with his partner and ran a classified ad in the Wall Street Journal looking for novices to train. His recruits, later known as the Turtles, had anything but traditional Wall Street backgrounds; they included a professional blackjack player, a pianist, and a fantasy game designer. For two weeks, Dennis taught them his investment rules and philosophy, and set them loose to start trading, each with a million dollars of his money. By the time the experiment ended, Dennis had made a hundred million dollars from his Turtles and created one killer Wall Street legend.In The Complete Turtle Trader, Michael W. Covel, bestselling author of Trend Following and managing editor of TurtleTrader.com, the leading website on the Turtles, tells their riveting story with the first ever on the record interviews with individual Turtles. He describes how Dennis interviewed and selected his students, details their education and experiences while working for him, and breaks down the Turtle system and rules in full. He reveals how they made astounding fortunes, and follows their lives from the original experiment to the present day. Some have grown even wealthier than ever, and include some of today's top hedge fund managers. Equally important are those who passed along their approach to a second generation of Turtles, proving that the Turtles' system truly is reproducible, and that anyone with the discipline and the desire to succeed can do as well as—or even better than—Wall Street's top hedge fund wizards.In an era full of slapdash investing advice and promises of hot stock tips for "the next big thing," as popularized by pundits like Jim Cramer of Mad Money, the easy-to-follow objective rules of the TurtleTrader stand out as a sound guide for truly making the most out of your money. These rules worked—and still work today—for the Turtles, and any other investor with the desire and commitment to learn from one of the greatest investing stories of all time.

What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars


Jim Paul - 1994
    In this honest, frank analysis, Paul and Brendan Moynihan revisit the events that led to Paul's disastrous decision and examine the psychological factors behind bad financial practices in several economic sectors.This book—winner of a 2014 Axiom Business Book award gold medal—begins with the unbroken string of successes that helped Paul achieve a jet-setting lifestyle and land a key spot with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. It then describes the circumstances leading up to Paul's $1.6 million loss and the essential lessons he learned from it—primarily that, although there are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in them, all losses come from the same few sources.Investors lose money in the markets either because of errors in their analysis or because of psychological barriers preventing the application of analysis. While all analytical methods have some validity and make allowances for instances in which they do not work, psychological factors can keep an investor in a losing position, causing him to abandon one method for another in order to rationalize the decisions already made. Paul and Moynihan's cautionary tale includes strategies for avoiding loss tied to a simple framework for understanding, accepting, and dodging the dangers of investing, trading, and speculating.

Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich


James J. Cramer - 2006
    My goal in life is to make it easier for you to make money." Jim Cramer is the champion of the middle-class investor. Every night on Mad Money, he provides valuable information about stocks, steering investors away from danger zones and leading them to the investments that can turn a lackluster portfolio into a powerhouse of profit. In his new book, he shows investors how to take the advice on his TV program and put it into action. Cramer walks investors through the key decisions they have to make: understanding their tolerance for risk and defining their goals, doing the essential homework on a stock, and knowing how to buy and sell stocks the right way -- the Cramer way. This is a true nuts-and-bolts guide to investing, from Cramer's detailed discussion of the sort of homework investors must do to his own guidelines for knowing when and how to sell stocks. Mad Money is a hugely entertaining television program, but it also offers valuable information that can be the basis for a winning portfolio. Cramer shows how to turn the "Lightning Round" into a terrific tool for investing; it's stock-market strength training. He reveals how he can assess a stock in only seconds -- a valuable skill that every investor can acquire and put to good use. He explains what to look for in his CEO and CFO interviews, and how to use those conversations to make successful investment decisions. He reviews some of his best calls made on Mad Money, as well as some of his worst ones, to extract ten lessons from each that can profit every investor. And for the Mad Money junkies who just can't get enough, Cramer goes behind the scenes to explain everything from the reason behind his deliberate mispronunciations to his notorious chair abuse to the zany props and buttons that keep things humming. From the first "Booyah" to the last roar of the bull, Mad Money is every investor's favorite television program, and Jim Cramer's Mad Money is the book that can turn a TV program into a top-notch stock portfolio.

Financial Statements: A Step-by-step Guide to Understanding and Creating Financial Reports


Thomas R. Ittelson - 1998
    Explains how to read the three basic types of financial statements--the balance sheet, the income statement, and the cash flow--and uses this foundation to explain the flow of cash and product.

Financial Freedom: A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need


Grant Sabatier - 2019
    Time is not. Become financially independent as fast as possible.In 2010, 24-year old Grant Sabatier woke up to find he had $2.26 in his bank account. Five years later, he had a net worth of over $1.25 million, and CNBC began calling him "the Millennial Millionaire." By age 30, he had reached financial independence. Along the way he uncovered that most of the accepted wisdom about money, work, and retirement is either incorrect, incomplete, or so old-school it's obsolete.Financial Freedom is a step-by-step path to make more money in less time, so you have more time for the things you love. It challenges the accepted narrative of spending decades working a traditional 9 to 5 job, pinching pennies, and finally earning the right to retirement at age 65, and instead offers readers an alternative: forget everything you've ever learned about money so that you can actually live the life you want.Sabatier offers surprising, counter-intuitive advice on topics such as how to:*  Create profitable side hustles that you can turn into passive income streams or full-time businesses*  Save money without giving up what makes you happy*  Negotiate more out of your employer than you thought possible*  Travel the world for less*  Live for free--or better yet, make money on your living situation*  Create a simple, money-making portfolio that only needs minor adjustments*  Think creatively--there are so many ways to make money, but we don't see them.But most importantly, Sabatier highlights that, while one's ability to make money is limitless, one's time is not. There's also a limit to how much you can save, but not to how much money you can make. No one should spend precious years working at a job they dislike or worrying about how to make ends meet. Perhaps the biggest surprise: You need less money to "retire" at age 30 than you do at age 65.Financial Freedom is not merely a laundry list of advice to follow to get rich quick--it's a practical roadmap to living life on one's own terms, as soon as possible.

The 12% Solution


David Alan Carter - 2017
    A strategy that’s not pie-in-the-sky and not just a bunch of theory, but rather a systematic plan that is backed up with real numbers showing it clearly beating the S&P 500 over time. A trading strategy that’s understandable, repeatable, that works and works simply.Anyone can do this. In simple-to-understand language, you’ll discover---- The six ETFs that power the strategy, and why.-- The simple technique for identifying which of those ETFs to buy, and which to sell. And most importantly, when.-- How $5,000 can end up $1,000,000 in your retirement portfolio.-- How to protect your portfolio during market downturns with a simple cash trigger.-- In short, how to earn an average of 12% annually in the stock market with minimal trading, less volatility, and less risk.Beat "The Street" in just 20 minutes.If you have 20 minutes a month and a computer, you can turn any investment amount into a steadily growing compounding machine that will make you the envy of Mad Money’s Jim Cramer and 99% of all mutual fund managers.Make just 2-4 trades one day a month. The strategy tells you what ETFs to buy and what to sell. That’s it. Then turn off the computer and go live your life.

Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar: The Technical Analysis of Price Action for the Serious Trader


Al Brooks - 2009
    That's why Al Brooks has created Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar. With this book, Brooks--a technical analyst for Futures magazine and an independent trader--demonstrates how applying price action analysis to chart patterns can help enhance returns and minimize downside risk. Along the way, you'll discover the importance of understanding every bar on a price chart, why particular patterns are reliable setups for trades, and how to locate entry and exit points as markets are trading in real time.Throughout these pages, some of the most useful tools for deciphering price action are covered in detail, including:Trendlines and trend channel linesPrior highs and lowsBreakouts and failed breakoutsThe size of bodies and tails on candlesThe relationship between current bars to prior barsAnd much moreLearning what the market is telling you can be difficult, but with the right approach, you can achieve this goal and capture consistent profits in the process. Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar has all the information you need to succeed at this endeavor and will put you in the best position possible to make the most of your time in today's turbulent markets.Praise for Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar"Al Brooks has written a book every day trader should read. On all levels, he has kept trading simple, straightforward, and approachable. By teaching traders that there are no rules, just guidelines, he has allowed basic common sense to once again rule how real traders should approach the market. This is a must-read for any trader that wants to learn his own path to success." --Noble DraKoln, founder ofwww.SpeculatorAcademy.com and author of Trade Like a Pro and Winning the Trading Game"Al Brooks is a trader's trader. He understands the focused energy it takes to be successful at trading and works long, hard hours in front of the computer screen to beat the markets. In his first trading book, he outlines, selflessly, his strategy step by step. A doctor and educator in his previous life, he uses his eye for detail and transfers lessons he learned in training himself on the art of trading to the written page. For those who are willing to delve into the details of day trading and dedicate the time and energy to do it seriously and most likely profitably, Al Brooks's book Reading Price Charts Bar by Bar, is a must-read." --Ginger Szala, Publisher and Editorial Director, Futures magazine

Millionaire Teacher: The Nine Rules of Wealth You Should Have Learned in School


Andrew Hallam - 2011
    But Andrew Hallam did so, long before the typical retirement age. And now, with Millionaire Teacher, he wants to show you how to follow in his footsteps. With lively humor and the simple clarity you'd expect from a gifted educator, Hallam demonstrates how average people can build wealth in the stock market by shunning the investment products peddled by most financial advisors and avoiding the get-rich-quicker products concocted by an ever widening, self-serving industry.Using low cost index funds, coupled with a philosophy in line with the one that made Warren Buffett a multi-billionaire, Hallam guides readers to understand how the stock and bond markets really work, arming you with a psychological advantage for when markets fall.Shows why young investors should hope for stock market crashes if they want to get rich Explains how you can spend just 60 minutes a year on your investments, never open a financial paper, avoid investment news, and still leave most professional investors in the dust Promotes a unique new investment methodology that combines low cost index funds and a Warren Buffett-esque investment philosophy Millionaire Teacher explains how any middle-income individual can learn can learn the ABCs of personal finance and become a multi-millionaire, from a schoolteacher who has been there and done that.

The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It


Scott Patterson - 2010
     They were preparing to compete in a poker tournament with million-dollar stakes, but those numbers meant nothing to them.  They were accustomed to risking billions.     At the card table that night was Peter Muller, an eccentric, whip-smart whiz kid who’d studied theoretical mathematics at Princeton and now managed a fabulously successful hedge fund called PDT…when he wasn’t playing his keyboard for morning commuters on the New York subway.  With him was Ken Griffin, who as an undergraduate trading convertible bonds out of his Harvard dorm room had outsmarted the Wall Street pros and made money in one of the worst bear markets of all time.  Now he was the tough-as-nails head of Citadel Investment Group, one of the most powerful money machines on earth. There too were Cliff Asness, the sharp-tongued, mercurial founder of the hedge fund AQR, a man as famous for his computer-smashing rages as for his brilliance, and Boaz Weinstein, chess life-master and king of the credit default swap, who while juggling $30 billion worth of positions for Deutsche Bank found time for frequent visits to Las Vegas with the famed MIT card-counting team.     On that night in 2006, these four men and their cohorts were the new kings of Wall Street.  Muller, Griffin, Asness, and Weinstein were among the best and brightest of a  new breed, the quants.  Over the prior twenty years, this species of math whiz --technocrats who make billions not with gut calls or fundamental analysis but with formulas and high-speed computers-- had usurped the testosterone-fueled, kill-or-be-killed risk-takers who’d long been the alpha males the world’s largest casino.  The quants believed that a dizzying, indecipherable-to-mere-mortals cocktail of differential calculus, quantum physics, and advanced geometry held the key to reaping riches from the financial markets.  And they helped create a digitized money-trading machine that could shift billions around the globe with the click of a mouse.     Few realized that night, though, that in creating this unprecedented machine, men like Muller, Griffin, Asness and Weinstein had sowed the seeds for history’s greatest financial disaster.     Drawing on unprecedented access to these four number-crunching titans, The Quants tells the inside story of what they thought and felt in the days and weeks when they helplessly watched much of their net worth vaporize – and wondered just how their mind-bending formulas and genius-level IQ’s had led them so wrong, so fast.  Had their years of success been dumb luck, fool’s gold, a good run that could come to an end on any given day?  What if The Truth they sought -- the secret of the markets -- wasn’t knowable? Worse, what if there wasn’t any Truth?   In The Quants, Scott Patterson tells the story not just of these men, but of Jim Simons, the reclusive founder of the most successful hedge fund in history; Aaron Brown, the quant who used his math skills to humiliate Wall Street’s old guard at their trademark game of Liar’s Poker, and years later found himself with a front-row seat to the rapid emergence of mortgage-backed securities; and gadflies and dissenters such as Paul Wilmott, Nassim Taleb, and Benoit Mandelbrot.     With the immediacy of today’s NASDAQ close and the timeless power of a Greek tragedy, The Quants is at once a masterpiece of explanatory journalism, a gripping tale of ambition and hubris…and an ominous warning about Wall Street’s future.