Recommended Books

Invest With Success -
Big Profits for Small Investors

Dr Schaap does a great job in explaining how the market works, what shares to buy, when to buy, when to sell, and a whole lot more.

By the time you’ve finished reading the book you’ll understand the author’s 50-50 Strategy. A complete long-term trading system that covers everything from stock selection, entries, exits, and money management.

If you're interested in learning a sensible trading system, read Invest With Success.

Recommendation: 5/5 stars

Stan Weinstein’s Secrets for
Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets

Stan Weinstein describes an effective medium to long-term trading approach that utilizes market stage analysis as the central theme.

The idea is to find stocks that have the best chance of developing a strong long-term trend so that you can ride it from the bottom of the cycle to the top.

He concentrates on the things that really matter and leaves out the rest. If you’re new to technical analysis you’ll get a good grounding in the basics and learn a great trading system as well. This is a practical book with ideas that can applied.

Recommendation: 5/5 stars

Trading in a Nutshell

Stuart McPhee holds nothing back. He is very generous in the way that he shares his knowledge.

What is refreshing about this author is how he instructs the reader to focus on the essential elements of successful trading.

Some of the highlights of the book include:
- the key principles of trading successfully
- the importance of developing and following a trading plan
- thorough money management principles, and
- astute observations and key insights into the practical nature of trading

The lessons in this book are similar to a driver’s license. You shouldn’t drive without a license, nor should you trade without a plan. This book will help you to create the plan.

Here is a link to the Trading in a Nutshell website where you will find some video previews from the bonus CD that come with the book.

Recommendation: 5/5 stars

The Five Rules For
Successful Stock Investing

Pat Dorsey, the Director of Stock Analysis at Morningstar explains how to select and analyze investment quality stocks. The ideas and techniques discussed in this book are second to none.

Communicating in clear and precise way, he gets straight to the point describing the Morningstar methodology which aims to discover a company’s true performance and investment potential.

The first half of the book describes the method, while the second half applies the theory to stocks in the individual sectors of the market. The application of the theory to stocks in the different market sectors makes this book stand out amongst the competition. It is very thorough and practical.

The quality of the ideas, the depth of the information covered, and the industry sector analysis section of this book makes it great value for money.

Recommendation: 5/5 stars

The Little Book That Beats The Market

Joel Greenblatt is an investing super star. His investment company averaged a 40% annual return for a twenty year period.

What I like about Joel is that he keeps his approach simple. In fact, he wrote this book for his children so they could learn how to invest.

This book is based on what Joel calls the “Magic Formula”. A simple formula that finds good companies trading a cheap prices. The approach he advocates is mechanical, where you buy a number of stocks meeting the magic formula. You hold them for 12 months, and then sell them.

The approach is sound, but it does require you to invest for the long term, and to realize that not all years will be profitable with this system.

As a means for screening the market for winners, the magic formula is hard to beat. If you apply some additional analysis (as taught in our Stock Market Tutorial) you’ve got a winning method.

Recommendation: 5/5 stars

The Intelligent Investor

This book has been a favorite with investors ever since it was first published in 1950. Benjamin Graham is known as the “father of value investing”. His ideas have shaped some of the best investors of all time, including his student Warren Buffett.

Don’t be put off by the age of this book. The concepts it describes are just as relevant today as when they were first written.

Some of the ideas discussed in the book include:

• The difference between investing and speculating
• Margin of safety
• Market psychology
• Fundamental analysis
• The importance of a company having a history of making money
• Quality of earnings
• Acting as though you’re buying the whole business
• Stock selection criteria for investors with differing risk appetites

Although some of the chapters do require you to exercise tenacious attention in order to follow what’s being discussed, this book provides valuable information for the investor.

Recommendation: 5/5 stars

One Up On Wall Street

Peter Lynch was one of America’s most successful fund managers. Over a 13 year period starting in 1977 his Magellan fund averaged a whopping 29% annual return, making it the best performing fund in the world.

This book is full of wisdom and you’ll walk away after reading it with some practical, down to earth ideas that can be applied straight away.

One of the main ideas in the book is that of buying into companies that you already know something about. It’s split into three sections covering the author’s methodology. The section on “Picking Winners” is my favorite.

Recommendation: 5/5 stars

The 5 Keys To Value Investing

The author is a professional value investor and has worked with the best at Fidelity Investments. He presents a sensible methodology for picking stocks and goes beyond the basics to present the reader with a realistic approach.

The book is only 200 or so pages but contains a wealth of knowledge for the intermediate investor.

Recommendation: 5/5 stars

Value Investing Made Easy

The nice thing about this little book is that it explains the underlying value investing principles simply.

This book is a good way to get to know Benjamin Graham’s ideas, without reading his other works which require a more strenuous approach on the part of the reader.

Recommendation: 4/5 stars

The Contrarian Investor’s Thirteen

Benj Gallander is a Canadian investor with some useful ideas. Of note are his method of setting target sell prices based on an analysis of a company’s 10 year share price spread.

He puts forward a “Purchase Weighting System” that investors can use to decide how much investment capital to put into individual investments. He also introduces his “Point Tally System” that’s used to assess a stock before you purchase it.

Overall, it provides some practical ideas that beginners will find useful.

Recommendation: 4/5 stars

Return from Recommended Books to Home page