Read These 5 Books Before Buying Your First Stock

There is an old saying that people when first enter the stock market with money— they lose the money and get out with wisdom. And once they have gained enough experience, they enter the market with wisdom and get out with the money.

It’s important to self-educate yourself first if you don’t want to get burned in the market.

I have read hundreds of books on investing, and these are the five books I would recommend to anyone who is just getting started.

One Up On The Wall Street

Peter Lynch, a famous investor and author, delivered a 29.2% average return from 1977 to 1990, making his Magnellan Fund the best-performing mutual fund in the world.

In this book, Peter Lynch, contrary to popular belief, stresses that individual investors can have a distinct advantage over Wall Street fund managers if they follow a few rules.

Here is a YouTube video where Peter Lynch talks about the various mistakes people make while investing in the stock market.

100 Baggers: Stocks That Return 100-to-1 and How To Find Them

Chris Mayer studied all the 100 baggers and tried to find a pattern he saw in all these stocks. He asks investors to focus on the business, not on market prices.

Here is my favorite quote from the book:

The biggest hurdle to making 100 times your money in a stock — or even just tripling it — may be the ability to stomach the ups and downs and hold on.

The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham

Ben Graham’s book on investing is considered the Bible for any serious investor. Warren Buffet considers this book “by far the best book on investing ever written.”

There are two main concepts in this book that became very famous among investors, and you may want to understand them: the concept of Mr. Market and the Margin of Safety.

Investing the Templeton Way

The contrarian investor, Sir John Templeton, wrote this book outlining his investment philosophy. Money magazine called him “the greatest stock picker of the century.”

Sir John was one of the first few investors in the US who looked globally for stocks. If you want to know more about Sir John, I wrote an article here on his life.

Mastering the market cycle

This is a great book to understand the market cycle, especially in the current high interest rate environment.

Howard Marks, the cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management, has drawn insights for this book from the several memos he has written over the years for Oaktree clients.

Warren Buffet, when asked about Howard Marks’ memo, said

“When I see memos from Howard Marks in my mail, they’re the first thing I open and read. I always learn something.”

Thank you for reading!

I hope you liked the article, and if you did, feel free to leave a comment. You can also give a clap for motivation (yes, you can clap multiple times).

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