This is a great hands-on book for everyday folks who are not big on budgeting or elaborate financial roadmaps – but want a simple plan for creating wealth throughout their careers.  The author tells us the inspiring story of a low-level manager and beautician whose combined income never exceeded $55K, but managed to own 2 homes debt free, put their 2 kids through college and still amassed a retirement nest egg of over $1 million.  Bach gives you a step-by-step user-friendly plan to get you there. 

This is a personal finance classic that should be on everyone’s bookshelf.  The author covers many different personal situations that we encounter in life, and provides practical, unbiased, honest-to-goodness advice about how to meet your financial goals. From life insurance to IRAs, checking accounts and how to deal with debt or estate transfer issues – Quinn’s got it covered. Thorough and confident, respectful personal financial advice.    

Sometimes some of us need an uncle to kick us in the pants to get things going properly.  Dave Ramsey is that kind of guy – if you’ve ever listened to him speak, you know what I mean.  Ramsey may be considered to be the evangelist of personal finance. He’s been there himself, raising himself from a financial meltdown situation to significant wealth. He’s the guy to get advice from if you have significant debt and don’t where to turn.  His famous “7 Baby Steps to Financial Freedom,” is a treatise on creating wealth in a sensible, doable manner.    

Along with David Bach, Jane Bryant Quinn, and Dave Ramsey, Suze Orman is one of the top personal finance gurus.  Her advice hits home for most of us, and she tells it like it is.  I find her overall advice pragmatic and motivational.  While some of the investment advice I find to be a bit too mainstream (especially when it comes to portfolio asset allocation), most everything else is spot on.  It’s a great complementary book to have along with Quinn’s classic mentioned above.    

John Marks Templeton is one of the greatest investors of all time.  He is noted for being one of the best value pickers of all time – having bought heavy at the tail-end of the Great Depression, and selling outrageously tech stocks at the peak in 2000.  No one had a better sense of long-term timing than Templeton.  Yet this book is not about market timing, but rather how to employ a long-term value approach to investing in stocks, while looking for bargains across the globe. All investors can learn from one of the greats of all time. 

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I read this book at least once a year – it keeps me humble. It’s the tragic tale of the stellar rise and tragic fall of Long-Term Capital Management – the brainchild of John Meriwether, formerly a fixed income genius at Salomon Brothers.  Meriwether employed quantitative whizzes at his hedge fund – most notably Nobel Prize laureates Myron Scholes and Robert Merton who employed proprietary quant models to spot mis-pricings and under-valuations in derivatives and fixed income markets – but the Frankenstein model they created almost tore down the entire global financial system.  What an eye-opener!  

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If you’re into stock screens, this book is a must read.  I do not recommend this book for passive investors, but anyone who’s ever done some form of analytical research on a company for investment purposes will appreciate it.  It was an eye-opener for me after I was first enamored by the classic value picking stock strategies (by the likes of Ben Graham and Warren Buffett, e.g.). O’Shaughnessy wakes up the value guys and says, “Wait, there’s more to the picture here,” and he shows you why and how using some pretty competitive quantitative screens.

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Michael Covel interviewed some of the world’s most successful trend-followers to write this book.  In addition to providing valuable insights on how to be a trend follower, he provides audited performance stats for all the fund managers covered.  Most academics in the investment world don’t believe in trends, or at least they don’t recommend this approach for average investors.  But academics are academics, and the best trend followers are highly successful money managers.  Again, this book is not for passive investors – it is an advanced book for active investors. Indeed, some of the principles covered may fall into a metaphysical category of some sort – not your everyday book on investing by any means.      

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Jack Schwager has written two books that may be considered investment classics.  They are Market Wizards, and The New Market Wizards.   Both are essential reading for active traders.  There are interviews with some of the most successful traders of all time – Marty Schwarz, Ed Seykota, Mark Ritchie, Monroe Trout, Paul Tudor Jones, Richard Dennis, William O’Neill, David Ryan, Michael Steinhardt, William Eckhardt and Stanley Druckenmiller.  What a gala of stars – these are your gold medalists of the active trading world!  More than just books on trading, the principles discussed in these interviews are motivational and enlightening – useful for anyone who wants to excel at whatever occupation they’re in.  You could say that these traders are “type A” personalities.  They’re all extremely good at what they do, but for most, it came with years of struggle to get it right – to battle the demons inside themselves and come out on top – humbled and enlightened by the markets.  Truly amazing reads, in my opinion.

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I use this web site all the time to track, compare and analyze ETFs and mutual funds.  It’s even great for doing fundamental research on individual companies (i.e. stock analysis), but again, but I don’t believe that the average individual investor should be a stock picker.  One of the great things about Morningstar’s fund performance stats is that it includes the cost of management and expense fees, which is essential when comparing funds.  Whenever I’ve narrowed it down to two or three funds, I always check Morningstar’s long-term cumulative performance charts under the Chart tab, and also use the Portfolio analysis features to triple-check a fund’s security holdings. This is an essential due diligence exercise for investors.  Finally, the Week Ahead is a good read if you’re interested in knowing what key economic stats and company earnings reports are scheduled for the week.  The site includes a portfolio tracking and performance reviews.

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This is kind of like the Wikipedia of investing.  If you need to double-check the definition of an investment term or need some further info about a fund or investment strategy, this is a good resource to refer to.  How about maximum contributions to a Roth IRA? The earliest age that you can draw social security benefits? Investopedia has got it covered. The site also offers a free monthly newsletter on investing.

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This financial newspaper is up there with the best in quality of reporting and analysis.  For those who really want to supplement their understanding of the fundamental micro and macro forces of the world financial markets, a subscription to the digital and/or print editions are almost mandatory.  I particularly love the first-rate video reports by the FT, available at https://www.ft.com/video

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I love reading The Economist magazine every week.  It gives you a great summary of key political and business events from the prior week, as well as truly insightful articles on economic trends worldwide.  The data and charts provided are a quick way to get a grip on world politics and business.  I don't use the digital/online edition as much, so I can’t really comment – but I love the print edition.  There are more charts, graphs and data than you would ever need.  I also enjoy reading the Lifestyle and Science and Technology sections.     

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