Stepping Stones for An Investor

1. Pearls of Investment Wisdom: pdf version (free)

2. Manly P. Hall's Ten Basic rules for better living

3. Poor Charlie’s Almanack : Read Chapter Three & Four at least twice

4. Three engines of value by John Huber

5. Straight and crooked thinking by Robert H. Thouless

6. Memo from Howard Marks:

   1. if you know nothing about investing, I’d suggest you read Ditto first, and then pick any memo you’re interested in.

   2. Main themes:

      1. the importance of risk and risk control

      2. the repetitiveness of behavior patterns and mistakes

      3. the role of cycles and pendulums

      4. the volatility of credit market conditions

      5. the brevity of financial memory

      6. the errors of the herd

      7. the importance of gauging investor psychology

      8. the desirability of contrarianism and counter-cyclicality

      9. the futility of macro forecasting

7. Warren Buffett’s letters to shareholders:

   1. To get start, I’d suggest you read Buffett’s 1998 University of Florida Speech.

   2. Then read his 2014 letter.

   3. Then pick any letter you’re interested in.

   4. A super compilation of Buffett’s letters and speech transcripts.

   5. You may also read Benjamin Graham’s letters and articles.

   6. Some speeches and writings of Buffett and Munger.

   7. Another great pointer to value investing.

8. Peter Lynch on Investing:

   1. speech transcript

   2. investment philosophy

9. The Art of War by Sun Tzu

10. The Wisdom of the Stoics by Frances and Henry Hazlitt

11. Nomad Investment Partnership letters by Nick Sleep.

12. Portfolios of Investing Gurus from Dataroma:

    1. If you want to study gurus’ portfolio management, this is a great pointer.

    2. You may get some inspiration from their portfolios, but be sure not to copy their strategies. Why? See the tweets 1, 2, 3 and 4.

    3. Always think for yourself first.

13. When diversification fails? by Sébastien Page and Robert Panariello

    1. A shorter version

    2. Another pointer

    3. “Full-sample correlations are misleading. Prudent investors should not use them in risk models, at least not without adding other tools, such as downside risk measures and scenario analyses. To enhance risk management beyond naive diversification, investors should re-optimize portfolios with a focus on downside risk, consider dynamic strategies”

    4. “Many investors do not fully appreciate the impact of correlation asymmetries on portfolio efficiency - in particular on exposure to loss. During left-tail events, diversified portfolios may have greater exposure to loss than more concentrated portfolios”

14. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter Bernstein

    1. A very good narrative about how the concept of risks emerged.

15. Risks, Uncertainty and Profits by Frank Knight:

    1. A great introduction to different types of risks and uncertainty

    2. You may have a glimpse from this tweet.

16. A Treatise on Probability by John Maynard Keynes

    1. A compilation of Keynes’ letters and articles on investing.

17. Philosophical Notebook of Nassim Taleb:

    1. His genre might make it difficult for people to understand. But you may start with summaries of Fooled by Randomness, then Antifragile , and then Skin in the Game.

    2. You cannot eliminate risks, but you can prepare for the rainy days with good strategies. Always remember that survival comes first.

    3. if you love math, you may enjoy his Statistical Consequences of Fat Tails

18. Psychology of Human Misjudgment by Charlie Munger:

    1. Here is a good summary

    2. A list of behavioral biases

    3. A super compilation of Munger’s letters and speed transcripts

    4. The art of stock picking

19. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman:

    1. I strongly suggest you read this book

    2. If you run short of time, here is a good summary

20. Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies:

    1. Another list of fallacies

    2. An illustrated one

    3. Thirty-eight dishonest tricks by R. H. Thouless

21. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator , Wall Street stories by Edwin Lefevre

    1. Read it from cover to cover.

22. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Mackay

23. Human Action by Mises:

    1. Read Part One and Part Four

24. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon

25. Jason Zweig Interview With Seth Klarman

26. Valuation tools and courses by Aswath Damodaran

    1. Click “Tools” for valuation tools: be careful not to blindly trusts the metrics.

    2. Click “YouTube” for courses

27. Portfolio management:

    1. Kelly Criterion

       1. Original paper: math demanding

       2. Kelly criterion and stock markets by Rotando and Throp: math demanding

       3. A brief introduction by 10-k diver: with some basic math

       4. Another introduction by Ziemba

       5. The good and bad of Kelly criterion: article 1, podcast, blog 1, blog 2,

       6. A case study of SBF collapse: with some basic math

       7. A mini course on the math of gambling with some good references

       8. How to calculate Kelly?

28. The pitfalls of speculation by Thomas Gibson

29. The art of investing by John Hume

30. Confusion De Confusiones by Joseph De La Vega

31. Free ebooks by Project Gutenberg

32. Investment Principles and Checklists

33. The Walter Schloss Archive

34. Investment Library

35. François Rochon letters to shareholders

36. Book lists:

    1. Li Liu

    2. Warren Buffett

    3. Charlie Munger

    4. Nassim Taleb

    5. Howard Marks

    6. Guy Spier

    7. Mohnish Pabrai: writings

37. ValueWalk, only if you’re a hardcore reader

38. A Collection of Quotes from Investing Gurus by Garrett

39. Developing New Products and Services by Saylor Academy