What is the best book you've read about investing in the stock market?

Many noobs are asking!!

So I thought to give this thread a bump!

Cheers. :

I don't have one "best" book as I've found a variety of books which cover an individual topic really well... bit like trading in the sense there is no single best/magic formula. Below however are what i feel are some great titles/authors to consider (for varying reasons).

Nicolas Darvas – “How I Made $2,000,000 In The Stock Market”
Don’t let the title fool you... this is not a technical “how to” book, or detailed manual/plan (and is not even a detailed lesson on the Darvas Box System), and I’m not recommending it for the specific TA strategies or anything like that, however it offers some excellent “bigger picture” lessons.

Easy quick reading, entertaining and I believe it is a really insightful book PROVIDED you’re seeing the “bigger picture” lessons it has to offer, to become a consistently profitable trader over the long term such as:

• Must develop a personalised plan and find what works for YOU;
• This plan MUST have a proven positive expectancy (a positive edge), as no-one knows what will happen next after their trade is placed.... trading is an odds based endeavour and we are constantly forced to make decisions in the face of uncertainty, therefore a tested proven plan that has positive expectancy over a large number of trades is imperative (and a too often overlooked aspect by many traders I believe);
• Trading without a proven plan that has positive expectancy (a positive edge) will almost always lead, in the long term, to loss of capital;
• Execute your plan with discipline, consistency and patience;
• Listening to market noise, rather than following your tested system, generally will lead to poor or ad hoc decision making which invariably leads to inconsistent and/or poor/negative returns;
• The importance of recording/journal all your trades, then review and analyse the results.

Even though the book is certainly old now, there really are some valuable lessons to learn about the bigger picture of trading.
If reading this book helps to reinforce how important the above points are to become a consistently profitable trader over the long run, then you will have spent your time very well by reading it.

Other good titles I believe worth considering include:

• Richard L. Weissman – “Trade Like a Casino: Find Your Edge, Manage Risk, and Win Like the House” (reinforcing the utmost importance of finding, understanding & having confidence that you do have a tested positive edge system over a large number of trades along with managing risk)
• Mark Douglas – “Trading in the Zone”
• Denise Shull – “Market Mind Games: A Radical Psychology of Investing, Trading and Risk”
• Stan Weinstein – “Secrets For Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets” (mainly for his explanation of Market Structure and the 4 key market phases)
• Brett Steenbarger

Cheers
Stuart

Found in a street library, and having a read .

The Great Crash 1929 , by John Kenneth Galbraith

Hi ....
My suggestion would be Warren Buffetts book, 'The Warren Buffett Way' by Robert Hagstrom, particularly the 1st edition, if you can locate one......
They made a mistake in publishing too much info on Warrens methodology for calculating an Intrinsic Value - when they realised that, the 2nd edition cut out the most important 46 pages.....

Other books that I have are as follows:-

BEST book on Day Trading is "The Stock Trader" by Tony OZ - ISBN 0 9679435 0 7….

BEST TA book is "Technical Analysis Explained" by Martin Pring - ISBN 0 07 112778 X….

2nd BEST TA book is “Technical Analysis from A to Z” by Steven.B.Achellis - ISBN 0 071 36348 3....

GOOD TA book is “Technical Analysis of Stock Trends” by Edwards & Magee…..

BASIC Charting book is "The Australian Investors Guide to Charting" by Regina MEANI - ISBN 0 947351 97 3…...

BEST Candlestick book is "Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques" by Steve Nison - ISBN 0 7352 0181 1…...

BEST Advanced Candlestick Book is “Beyond Candlesticks” by Steve NISON - ISBN 0 471 720 X …...

BEST book on Fibonacci is "Fibonacci Applications and Strategies for Traders" by Robert Fischer…...….

BEST ASX/Stock Markets Dictionary is ”Understanding The Stock Exchange – The Essential Reference” by N.E.RENTON - ISBN 1 86350 242 4.

BASIC book on Candlesticks is by Louise Bedford called "The Secret to Candlestick Charting" - ISBN 1 876627 28 X..…. it is incorrect in several areas - read the paragraph at the top of page 31 in Bedfords book -The last sentence "For this reason etc" - a lot of her theories are suspect - its a beginners book - If you look at page 7, second paragraph where she says she follows Nison's writings but she occasionally changes them to suit herself, yeah right - bedfords interpretation of Multiple Doji's is in direct oposition to Nison's - Bedford says 2 or more Doji's lessens their importance - Japanese writings and teachings specifically point to Intensifying their influence as reversal signals – and there are numerous other instances where she deviates from the Japanese writings.

Louise Bedford & Daryl Guppy are great Traders - BUT - theirs books are the 'Comics' of this industry - everyone should begin by reading, and understanding everything they says, BUT then you need to follow that up by reading some of the more "In Depth" publications that are available - to read the Bedford & Guppy books, and then rely wholly & solely on them for your Trading Career would be a Grave Mistake IMHO.

As mentioned above, THE BEST Candlestick Book is "Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques" by Steve Nison.

BOOKS on TRADING PSYCHOLOGY
Good Book on Trading Psychology is BY Livermore - The Psychology of Trading. ISBN:0-07-146979-6.


THE BEST BOOKS on FINANCIAL ANALYSIS are -
"The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham - ISBN 0 06 055566 1;

"Security Analysis" by Benjamin Graham & David.L.Dodd - ISBN 0 07144820 9;

"The Warren Buffett Way" by Robert.G.Hagstrom,Jnr - ISBN 0 471 17750 4...


GOOD and easy to understand FINANCIAL ANALYSIS books are -
"Getting Started in Fundamental Analysis" by Michael.C.Thomsett - ISBN 0 471 75446 3;

"Mastering Fundamental Analysis" by Michael.C.Thomsett - ISBN 1 876627 44 1;

"Analysing Company Accounts" by Martin Roth - ISBN 0 73140 114 X.

Cheers

DrB