Favorite Investing Books – Valuewalk Readers

'I read Capital Returns in one sitting. I wish this book had been available when I started in the business. One of the best books on investment I've ever read.'

-Russell Napier, author of Anatomy of the Bear

'Capital Returns shows how excess investment drives mean reversion in the stock market. Investors who wish to understand bubbles should read this book.'

-Jeremy Grantham, Founder and Chief Investment Strategist, Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo

'Forget Warren Buffett. If you really want to know how markets work read this.'

-Merryn Somerset-Webb, Editor, MoneyWeek

'Investors, fancying themselves capitalists, have long ignored the vital role of capital investment in driving investment success. This wonderful book may change that. Delve into its readable and informative even revelatory pages, and let the scales fall from your eyes.'

-James Grant, Grant's Interest Rate Observer

'This book exemplifies the simple but sadly unrecognised idea that long term investment success depends on understanding business models.'

John Kay, author of Other People's Money and the Kay Review of UK Equity Markets

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits by Joel Greenblatt

A comprehensive and practical guide to the stock market from a successful fund manager—filled with case studies, important background information, and all the tools you’ll need to become a stock market genius.

Fund manager Joel Greenblatt has been beating the Dow (with returns of 50 percent a year) for more than a decade. And now, in this highly accessible guide, he’s going to show you how to do it, too. You’re about to discover investment opportunities that portfolio managers, business-school professors, and top investment experts regularly miss—uncharted areas where the individual investor has a huge advantage over the Wall Street wizards. Here is your personal treasure map to special situations in which big profits are possible, including:

· Spin-offs
· Restructurings
· Merger Securities
· Rights Offerings
· Recapitalizations
· Bankruptcies
· Risk Arbitrage

Quality of Earnings by Thornton L. O'glove

An indispensable guide to determining how much money a company is really making and for buying and selling stocks without making costly blunders.

From Library Journal

The Art of Short Selling by Kathryn F. Staley

A one-of-a-kind book that shows you how to cash in on the latest investing trend--short selling

"The Art of Short Selling is the best description of this difficult technique."--John Train, Train, Thomas, Smith Investment Counsel, and author of The New Money Masters

"Kathryn Staley has done a masterful job explaining the highly specialized art of short selling. Her approach to telling the true stories of famous investment 'scams' will keep the reader spellbound, while teaching the investor many crucial lessons."--David W. Tice, Portfolio Manager, Prudent Bear Fund

"Selling short is still a misunderstood discipline, but even the most raging bull needs to know this valuable technique to master the ever-changing markets."--Jim Rogers, author, Investment Biker

On the investment playing field, there is perhaps no game more exciting than short selling. With the right moves, it can yield high returns; one misstep, however, can have disastrous consequences. Despite the risk, a growing number of players are anteing up, sparked in part by success stories such as that of George Soros and the billions he netted by short selling the British pound. In The Art of Short Selling, Kathryn Staley, an expert in the field, examines the essentials of this important investment vehicle, providing a comprehensive game plan with which you can effectively play--and win--the short selling game.

Whether used as a means of hedging bets, decreasing the volatility of total returns, or improving returns, short selling must be handled with care--and with the right know-how. As Staley points out, "Short selling is not for the faint of heart. If a stock moves against the position holder, the effect on a portfolio and net worth can be devastating. Investors need to understand the impact on their accounts as well as the consequences of getting bought in before they indulge in short selling." The Art of Short Selling guides you--clearly and concisely--through the ins and outs of this high-risk, high-stakes game.

The first--and most important--move in selling short is to identify flaws in a business before its share prices drop. To help you tackle this key step, Staley shows you how to evaluate company financial statements and balance sheets, make sense of return ratios, detect inconsistencies in inventory, and analyze the statement of cash flows. Through real-world examples that illustrate the shorting of bubble, high multiple growth, and theme stocks, you'll proceed step by step through the complete process and learn to carry out all the essentials for a successful short sell, including quantifying the risk factor and orchestrating correct timing, as well as implementing advanced valuation techniques to execute the sell/buy.

Packed with landmark, cutting-edge examples, up-to-the-minute guidelines, and pertinent regulations, The Art of Short Selling is a timely and comprehensive reference that arms you with the necessary tools to make a prepared and confident entrance onto the short selling playing field.

How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg

The Freakonomics of math—a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands

The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it.

Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer?

How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God.

Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.

Concentrated Investing: Strategies of the World's Greatest Concentrated Value Investors by Allen C. Benello, Michael van Biema, Tobias E. Carlisle

Discover the secrets of the world's top concentrated value investors

Concentrated Investing: Strategies of the World's Greatest Concentrated Value Investors chronicles the virtually unknown—but wildly successful—value investors who have regularly and spectacularly blown away the results of even the world's top fund managers. Sharing the insights of these top value investors, expert authors Allen Benello, Michael van Biema, and Tobias Carlisle unveil the strategies that make concentrated value investing incredibly profitable, while at the same time showing how to mitigate risk over time. Highlighting the history and approaches of four top value investors, the authors tell the fascinating story of the investors who dare to tread where few others have, and the wildly-successful track records that have resulted.

Turning the notion of diversification on its head, concentrated value investors pick a small group of undervalued stocks and hold onto them through even the lean years. The approach has been championed by Warren Buffett, the best known value investor of our time, but a small group of lesser-known investors has also used this approach to achieve outstanding returns.

• Discover the success of Lou Simpson, a former GEICO investment manager and eventual successor to Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway
• Read about Kristian Siem, described as "Norway's Warren Buffett," and the success he has had at Siem Industries

Concentrated Investing will quickly have you re-thinking the conventional wisdom related to diversification and learning from the top concentrated value investors the world has never heard of.

100 Baggers: Stocks That Return 100-to-1 and How To Find Them by Christopher W. Mayer

This book is about 100-baggers. These are stocks that return $100 for every $1 invested. That means a $10,000 investment turns into $1 million. Chris Mayer can help you find them.

It sounds like an outrageous quest with a wildly improbable chance of success. But when Mayer studied 100-baggers of the past, definite patterns emerged.

In 100-Baggers, you will learn
the key characteristics of 100-baggers
why anybody can do this. It is truly an everyman s approach. You don t need an MBA or a finance degree. Some basic financial concepts are all you need
a number of crutches or techniques that can help you get more out of your stocks and investing.

The emphasis is always on the practical, so there are many stories and anecdotes to help illustrate important points.

You should read this book if you want to get more out of your stocks. Even if you never get a 100-bagger, this book will help you turn up big winners and keep you away from losers and sleepy stocks that go nowhere.

After reading 100-Baggers, you will never look at investing the same way again. It will energize and excite you about what s possible.

Getting More: How You Can Negotiate to Succeed in Work and Life by Stuart Diamond

This new model of human interaction has been chosen by Google to train the entire company worldwide (30,000 employees), is the #1 book for your career chosen by The Wall Street Journal’s website, and is labeled “phenomenal” by Lawyers’ Weekly and “brilliant” by Liza Oz of the Oprah network.

Based on more than 20 years of research and practice among 30,000 people in 45 countries, Getting More concludes that finding and valuing the other party’s emotions and perceptions creates far more value than the conventional wisdom of power and logic. It is intended to provide better agreements for everyone no matter what they negotiate – from jobs to kids to billion dollar deals to shopping.

The book, a New York Times bestseller and #1 Wall Street Journal business best seller, is based on Professor Stuart Diamond’s award-winning course at the Wharton Business School, where the course has been the most popular over 13 years. It challenges the conventional wisdom on every page, from “win-win” to BATNA to rationality to the use of power. Companies have made billions of dollars so far using his new model and parents have gotten their 4-year-olds to willingly brush their teeth and go to bed.

Prof. Diamond draws from his experience as a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist at The New York Times, Harvard-trained attorney, Wharton MBA, U.N. Consultant in many countries and manager and executive in many sectors, including technology, agriculture, medical services, finance, energy and aviation. “The ROI from reading Getting More will make it the best investment you make this year,” says Rhys Dekle, the business development head of the Microsoft Games division, which produces X-Box. He added that the book was his team’s best investment of the year too. The model was also used to quickly solve the 2008 Hollywood Writer’s Strike.

The advice is addressed through the insightful stories of more than 400 people who have used Prof. Diamond’s tools with great success: A 20% savings on an item already on sale. An extra $300 million profit in a business. A woman from India getting out of her own arranged marriage. Better relationships with the family, including teenagers. Raises at work. Better jobs. Dealing with emotional situations. Meeting one’s goals. Finding better things to trade. Solving cultural and political problems, sports conflicts, and ordinary arguments.

The book is intended to be used in any situation. The most common response is “life changing”, beginning on page one. “The most inspirational book I have read this year” said David Simon, an attorney in San Francisco, CA. “This book can change the world,” says Craig Silverman, Investment Advisor, Long Island, NY

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William L. Ury, Bruce Patton

Since its original publication nearly thirty years ago, Getting to Yes has helped millions of people learn a better way to negotiate. One of the primary business texts of the modern era, it is based on the work of the Harvard Negotiation Project, a group that deals with all levels of negotiation and conflict resolution.

Getting to Yes offers a proven, step-by-step strategy for coming to mutually acceptable agreements in every sort of conflict. Thoroughly updated and revised, it offers readers a straight-forward, universally applicable method for negotiating personal and professional disputes without getting angry-or getting taken.

Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett: Twenty Cases (Columbia Business School Publishing) by Yefei Lu

Since the 1950s, Warren Buffett and his partners have backed some of the twentieth century's most profitable, trend-setting companies, but how did they know they were making the right investments? Did Buffett take the lead on every decision, or was the key to act cooperatively? What did Buffet and his partners look for in an up-and-coming company, and is it possible for others to copy their approach?

A gift to Buffett followers who have long sought a pattern to the investor's success, Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett presents the most detailed analysis to date of Buffet's long-term investment portfolio. Yefei Lu, an investor, starts with Buffett's interest in the Sanborn Map Company in 1960 and tracks nineteen more of his major investments in companies such as See's Candies, theWashington Post, GEICO, Coca-Cola, US Air, Wells Fargo, and IBM. With rare access to partnership letters, company documents, annual reports, third-party references, and other original sources, Lu pinpoints what is unique about Buffett's timing, instinct, use of outside knowledge, and postinvestment actions, and he identifies what could work for all investors with companies big and small, global and domestic. His substantial chronology accounts for broader world events and fluctuations in the U.S. stock market, suggesting Buffett's most important trait may be his open and alert worldview.

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, Fourth Edition by Warren E. Buffett, Lawrence A. Cunningham

The year 2015 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Berkshire Hathaway under Warren Buffett's leadership, a milestone worth commemorating. The tenure sets a record for chief executive not only in duration but in value creation and philosophizing. The fourth edition of The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America celebrates its twentieth anniversary. As the book Buffett autographs most, its popularity and longevity attest to the widespread appetite for this unique compilation of Buffett's thoughts that is at once comprehensive, non-repetitive, and digestible. New and experienced readers alike will gain an invaluable informal education by perusing this classic arrangement of Warren's best writings.

The fourth edition's new material includes:

• Warren's 50th anniversary retrospective, in what Bill Gates called Warren's best letter ever, on conglomerates and Berkshire's future without Buffett;

• Charlie Munger's 50th anniversary essay on ''The Berkshire System'';

• Warren's definitive defense of Berkshire's no-dividend practice; and

• Warren's best advice on investing, whether in apartments, farms, or businesses.

The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham: Selected Writings of the Wall Street Legend by Janet Lowe

The sillier the market's behavior, the greater the opportunity for the business-like investor. Follow Graham and you will profit from folly rather than participate in it."-Warren E. Buffett.

"[Graham] is the genius who literally created the framework for investment analysis that leads to successful investing. Like that other genius Edison, Graham created light where there was none." -Bill Ruane, Sequoia Fund.

"It's never the wrong time to invoke the name of Benjamin Graham, value investor par excellence." -Money

"The search for intelligent investing should begin with the remarkable Benjamin Graham's timeless teachings. Read Lowe's book and you'll learn to seek what the original master sought as she helps Graham reclaim his rightful place as the most important and extraordinary investment writer of any generation."-Kenneth Lee, author of Trouncing the Dow.

Known as the "father of value investing," Benjamin Graham was-and is-one of America's most lauded financial thinkers. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, a former student of Graham, extols him to this day. Brilliant, successful, and ethical, he revolutionized investment philosophy by introducing the concepts of security analysis, fundamental analysis, and value investing-theories that have become timeless essentials of the field. Now, Janet Lowe, author of Benjamin Graham on Value Investing and Warren Buffett Speaks, reintroduces the foundations of Graham's eminence-including his ever-relevant market observations and his assessment of long-term economic problems-by presenting a unique compilation of his writings that contains rare and/or previously unpublished articles, lectures, and interviews.

Almost twenty-five years after his death, Benjamin Graham continues to have one of the largest and most loyal followings of any investment philosopher of this century. A prolific and popular writer whose trademark was blending original ideas with wit and intelligence, he has guided and inspired Wall Street professionals with his thoughtful ruminations and piercing insights on a host of investment and economic topics. Though bits and pieces of this material are widely quoted even today, the full writings have not always been easy to find-until now.

The result of in-depth research, The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham brings together the very best the investment legend had to offer, including such incisive works as:
* "Inflated Treasuries and Deflated Stocks: Are Corporations Milking Their Owners?"
* "The Ethics of American Capitalism".
* "Proposals for an International Commodity-Reserve Currency".
* "The New Speculation in Common Stocks".
* "Is American Business Worth More Dead Than Alive?".
* "The Simplest Way to Select Bargain Stocks".

A groundbreaking volume that fills an important niche in investment literature, The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham is destined to become as timeless a classic as its distinguished subject.

Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond by Bruce C. N. Greenwald, Judd Kahn, Paul D. Sonkin , Michael van Biema

From the "guru to Wall Street's gurus" comes the fundamental techniques of value investing and their applications
Bruce Greenwald is one of the leading authorities on value investing. Some of the savviest people on Wall Street have taken his Columbia Business School executive education course on the subject. Now this dynamic and popular teacher, with some colleagues, reveals the fundamental principles of value investing, the one investment technique that has proven itself consistently over time. After covering general techniques of value investing, the book proceeds to illustrate their applications through profiles of Warren Buffett, Michael Price, Mario Gabellio, and other successful value investors. A number of case studies highlight the techniques in practice.
Bruce C. N. Greenwald (New York, NY) is the Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management at Columbia University. Judd Kahn, PhD (New York, NY), is a member of Morningside Value Investors. Paul D. Sonkin (New York, NY) is the investment manager of the Hummingbird Value Fund. Michael van Biema (New York, NY) is an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University.

Anatomy of the Bear: Lessons from Wall Street's four great bottoms by Russell Napier

How does one spot the bottom of a bear market? What brings a bear to its end?

There are few more important questions to be answered in modern finance. Financial market history is a guide to understanding the future. Looking at the four occasions when US equities were particularly cheap - 1921, 1932, 1949 and 1982 - Russell Napier sets out to answer these questions by analysing every article in the Wall Street Journal from either side of the market bottom.

In the 70,000 articles he examines, one begins to understand the features which indicate that a great buying opportunity is emerging.

By looking at how markets really did work in these bear-market bottoms, rather than theorising how they should work, Napier offers investors a financial field guide to making the best provisions for the future.