Bill Ackman needs no introduction to our readers. Although we already have a page which lists Ackman’s favorite books, this appears to include some new names, and we provided more information on each book. The list is printed with Mr. Ackman’s kind permission by InvestingByTheBooks.
Check out the full list below.
Bill Ackman’s recommendation: Margin of Safety
Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor by Seth A. Klarman
Investors are all too often lured by the prospect of instant millions and fall prey to the many fads of Wall Street. The myriad approaches they adopt offer little or no real prospect for long-term success and invariably run the risk of considerable economic loss – they resemble speculation or outright gambling, not a coherent investment program. But value investing – the strategy of investing in securities trading at an appreciable discount from underlying value – has a long history – has a long history of delivering excellent investment results with limited downside risk.
Taking its title from Benjamin Graham’s often-repeated admonition to invest always with a margin of safety, Klarman’s ‘Margin of Safety’ explains the philosophy of value investing, and perhaps more importantly, the logic behind it, demonstrating why it succeeds while other approaches fail. The blueprint that Klarman offers, if carefully followed, offers the investor the strong possibility of investment success with limited risk.
‘Margin of Safety‘ shows you not just how to invest but how to think deeply about investing – to understand the rationale behind the rules to appreciate why they work when they work, and why they don’t when they don’t.
Bill Ackman’s recommendation: The Intelligent Investor
The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Text on Value Investing by Benjamin Graham
The Classic Text Annotated to Update Graham’s Timeless Wisdom for Today’s Market Conditions
The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham’s philosophy of “value investing” — which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies — has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949.
Over the years, market developments have proven the wisdom of Graham’s strategies. While preserving the integrity of Graham’s original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today’s market, draws parallels between Graham’s examples and today’s financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham’s principles.
Vital and indispensable, this HarperBusiness Essentials edition of The Intelligent Investor is the most important book you will ever read on how to reach your financial goals.
Bill Ackman’s recommendation: Security Analysis
Security Analysis: The Classic 1934 Edition by Benjamin Graham
Rare is the opportunity to see, much less own, an original. But this unusual, carefully crafted reproduction of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd’s immortal Security Analysis gives you that chance–to read and treasure a true classic–the book that gave birth to value investing.
Continuously in print through five editions, for more than 60 years, and through nearly a million copies, the primer for many of America’s most illustrious investors–and the wellspring of Graham and Dodd’s Wall Street Immortality–Security Analysis is indisputably the most influential book on investing ever written. Still the investors’ bible, it’s as frequently consulted today as it was when it first appeared in 1934.
Of course, over the years and over five editions, Security Analysis changed. Its language was modernized. New material was added. Metaphors and examples were brought up to date. In the light of changing times, these alterations were necessary and appropriate.
But what of the original book? The very durability of this work arouses our curiosity. And what we discover when we return to the original is very simply a classic, a work whose uncompromising worth has not paled since it first saw the light of day in 1934.
The original words of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd–put to paper not long after the disastrous Stock Market Crash of 1929–still have the mesmerizing qualities of rigorous honesty and diligent scrutiny, the same riveting power of disciplined thought and determined logic that gave the work its first distinction and began its illustrious career.
The words you will read here are eloquent. Not only a financial genius and a man of high repute for honorable dealings, Graham was a man of letters invited to teach in the literature department at Columbia University (as well as in the economics and philosophy departments).
Bill Ackman’s recommendation: One Up on Wall Street
One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch
In easy-to-follow terminology, Lynch offers directions for sorting out the long shots from the no shots by spending just a few minutes with a company’s financial statements. His advice for producing “tenbaggers” can turn a stock portfolio into a star performer!
Bill Ackman’s recommendation: Beating the Street
Beating the Street by Peter Lynch
Legendary money manager Peter Lynch explains his own strategies for investing and offers advice for how to pick stocks and mutual funds to assemble a successful investment portfolio.
Develop a Winning Investment Strategy—with Expert Advice from “The Nation’s #1 Money Manager.” Peter Lynch’s “invest in what you know” strategy has made him a household name with investors both big and small.
An important key to investing, Lynch says, is to remember that stocks are not lottery tickets. There’s a company behind every stock and a reason companies—and their stocks—perform the way they do. In this book, Peter Lynch shows you how you can become an expert in a company and how you can build a profitable investment portfolio, based on your own experience and insights and on straightforward do-it-yourself research.
In Beating the Street, Lynch for the first time explains how to devise a mutual fund strategy, shows his step-by-step strategies for picking stock, and describes how the individual investor can improve his or her investment performance to rival that of the experts.
There’s no reason the individual investor can’t match wits with the experts, and this book will show you how.
Bill Ackman’s recommendation: You Can Be a Stock Market Genius
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
Bill Ackman’s recommendation: Quality of Earnings
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.
Bill Ackman’s recommendation: The Essays of Warren Buffett
The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America by Lawrence A. Cunningham
Buffett repeatedly declares The Essays “Recommended Reading”
- By arranging Buffett’s lengthy writings thematically, Cunningham’s classic clarifies all the principles of Buffett’s philosophy of business and investing.
- Cunningham’s new book, Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Value of Values, takes deep dives inside Berkshire’s businesses to glimpse the future by a study of the past.
Bill Ackman’s recommendation: The Warren Buffett Way
The Warren Buffett Way: Investment Strategies of the World’s Greatest Investor by Robert G. Hagstrom
“Simply the most important new stock book of the 1990s, to date. Buy it and read it.” -Kenneth L. Fisher Forbes
The runaway bestseller-updated with new material included for the first time!
“The Warren Buffett Way outlines his career and presents examples of how his investment techniques and methods evolved and the important individuals in that process. It also details the key investment decisions that produced his unmatched record of performance.” -from the Foreword by Peter S. Lynch Bestselling author, One Up on Wall Street and Beating the Street
“. . . an extraordinarily useful account of the methods of an investor held by many to be the world’s greatest.” -The Wall Street Journal
“Robert Hagstrom presents an in-depth examination of Warren Buffett’s strategies, and the ‘how and why’ behind his selection of each of the major securities that have contributed to his remarkable record of success. His ‘homespun’ wisdom and philosophy are also part of this comprehensive, interesting, and readable book.” -John C. Bogle Chairman, The Vanguard Group
“It’s first rate. Buffett gets a lot of attention for what he preaches, but nobody has described what he practices better than Hagstrom. Here is the lowdown on every major stock he ever bought and why he bought it. Fascinating. You could even try this at home.” -John Rothchild Financial columnist Time magazine
Bill Ackman’s recommendation: Confidence Game
Confidence Game: How Hedge Fund Manager Bill Ackman Called Wall Street’s Bluff by Christine S. Richard
An expose on the delusion, greed, and arrogance that led to America’s credit crisisThe collapse of America’s credit markets in 2008 is quite possibly the biggest financial disaster in U.S. history. Confidence Game: How Hedge Fund Manager Bill Ackman Called Wall Street’s Bluff is the story of Bill Ackman’s six-year campaign to warn that the $2.5 trillion bond insurance business was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Branded a fraud by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, and investigated by Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ackman later made his investors more than $1 billion when bond insurers kicked off the collapse of the credit markets.
- Unravels the story of the credit crisis through an engaging and human drama
- Draws on unprecedented access to one of Wall Street’s best-known investors
- Shows how excessive leverage, dangerous financial models, and a blind reliance on triple-A credit ratings sent Wall Street careening toward disaster
Confidence Game is a real world “Emperor’s New Clothes,” a tale of widespread delusion, and one dissenting voice in the era leading up to the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.
Bill Ackman’s recommendation: The Outsiders
The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William N. Thorndike
#1 on Warren Buffett’s Recommended Reading List, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Letter, 2012
What makes a successful CEO? Most people call to mind a familiar definition: “a seasoned manager with deep industry expertise.” Others might point to the qualities of today’s so-called celebrity CEOs—charisma, virtuoso communication skills, and a confident management style. But what really matters when you run an organization? What is the hallmark of exceptional CEO performance? Quite simply, it is the returns for the shareholders of that company over the long term.
In this refreshing, counterintuitive book, author Will Thorndike brings to bear the analytical wisdom of a successful career in investing, closely evaluating the performance of companies and their leaders. You will meet eight individualistic CEOs whose firms’ average returns outperformed the S&P 500 by a factor of twenty—in other words, an investment of $10,000 with each of these CEOs, on average, would have been worth over $1.5 million twenty-five years later. You may not know all their names, but you will recognize their companies: General Cinema, Ralston Purina, The Washington Post Company, Berkshire Hathaway, General Dynamics, Capital Cities Broadcasting, TCI, and Teledyne. In The Outsiders, you’ll learn the traits and methods—striking for their consistency and relentless rationality—that helped these unique leaders achieve such exceptional performance.
