The Best Investment Books on Value Investing
Offer clues to financial success!
Does reading pay? The best investment books on value investing may certainly expand investment horizons.
Many successful investors read investing books voraciously as they have a thirst for information on stock investment.
Well written books on investing allow investors to keep up to date on the market.
As well, they may provide a thoughtful analysis of the past and valuable insights about the future.
This can provide an outline for what works and what doesn't.
Books on investment can be generally be divided into a number of categories including ...
- those dealing with millionaires and how to emulate them
- those dealing with share trading and charting
- those dealing with making money through real estate
- those related to building wealth for retirement
- those dealing with money management and budgeting
- those dealing with share market investing
- those describing the methods of successful investors
... and the list could go on.
While there are thousands of books similar to those above lining the shelves of bookstores, there are relatively few dealing with value investing that are available for interested investors.
They offer strategies that when applied to the reader's individual financial situation may allow them to reap enormous financial benefits.
The best investment books from my value investing perspective are outlined below.
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Value Investing (Bruce C.N. Greenwald et al)
An important read for stock investors as it provides an extensive summary and explains the innovations in the field as practiced by some of the most successful investors.
It is more informative than many other books about the subject and ranks highly in my estimation as a stock market investing book. It should be required reading for the discerning investor.
The Intelligent Investor-4th Ed. (Benjamin Graham)
Benjamin Graham has been variously described as the father of value investing and the greatest investment adviser of the 20th century.
Does one need to say any more in order to suggest that this book, The Intelligent Investor, is essential reading as one of my best investment books in order to discover the Graham value investing approach?
The Essays of Warren Buffett (Lawrence A. Cunningham)
The author has selected and arranged material from Berkshire Hathaway annual reports for this book.
Warren Buffett commented on Cunningham's book by saying: “His book is far better than any of the biographies written to date. If I were to pick one book to read, this would be the one.”
Does that say enough?
One Up On Wall Street (Peter Lynch)
Peter Lynch outlines his investment experience from running the star performing Fidelity Magellan Fund over a period of some 20 years during which time the fund was the best performing fund in the world.
His focus on looking for 'multibaggers', companies that offered exceptional growth at a fair price, enabled losses in companies that failed to live up to their growth prospects to be swamped by the gains that the successful high-growth companies offered.
This is another one of my best investment books as it has made me focus on growth as well as value.
Market Wise (Brian McNiven)
Brian McNiven advocates calculating fair value of a stock using straight forward arithmetic, and outlines this approach in his book.
It is the approach that I favor as it is an 'absolute' approach in that it does not rely on the current price of the stock.
The Richest Man in Babylon (George S. Clason)
This is one of the classic, if not one of the best investment books, and while it is not directly concerned with stock value investing, it has been described as holding the key to thrift, financial planning and personal wealth.
As such, it deserves a mention in my list.
The Little Book of Value Investing (Christopher H. Browne)
Christopher H. Browne distills his decades of value investing into this book. It provides insights that can be only obtained by experience.
Unlike Brian McNiven's book, this is not a book for those looking for an arithmetical formula to determine the intrinsic value of stocks. But it is still a valuable read in my opinion.
Active Value Investing (Vitaliy N. Katsenelson)
Vitaliy Katsenelson discusses how to achieve success in long-term sideways moving markets.
To justify his argument, he discusses the historical performance of the U.S. market over the last two centuries and what caused prolonged bull markets, bear markets and range-bound markets.
The recent global financial crisis may well lead to the type of market he outlines. More importantly, he provides insights on how to invest in such market conditions.
Buffett Beyond Value (Pren C. Jain)
This Warren Buffett biography provides guidance to the average investor so that they can consider investing like Warren Buffett.
The book is liberally sprinkled with Warren Buffett quotes as well as a discussion of Warren Buffett stock picks which the author analyzes in order to provide the reader guidance in understanding the principles underlying Warren Buffett's approach to investing.
Investing the Warren Buffett way is described by the author as as looking for value-plus-growth. Value is determined by a consideration of the past performance of the company and growth is about forecasting the future performance.
I found this to be a very informative book and read it twice to extract the maximum benefit from the valuable insights it contains. It suggests a similar message to One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch.
VALUE: The intelligent Investor's Guide to Finding Hidden Gems on the Share Market (James Carlisle)
This value stock investing book provides readers with an easy to read account of what value investing is, and how you can use it to your advantage.
Interestingly, the author summarizes this value stock investing book by providing 'three little rules'. Check them out?
Understanding Asset allocation (Victor Canto)
I often read that selecting the appropriate asset allocation is more important in obtaining the best returns than selecting individual investments from a particular asset class.
This book by Victor Canto in which he analyzed seven asset classes over several decades provided evidence for this assertion.
He also found that of all the asset classes he investigated, value stocks proved to be the best investment in this time period even though small-cap stocks gave better returns.
The Vital Few: The Trivial Many (George Muzea)
Stock insider trading is a feature of the investment strategy of George Muzea, the author of the book The Vital Few: The Trivial Many. He describes an approach to investing that uses the buying and selling activities of company insiders to inform investment decisions.
Through his company, Muzea provides research in this area to many analysts and investors. There is considerable interest in the investment community for the research he provides.
To Conclude ...
These books are not only the best investment books from a value investing point of view, they are sometimes amusing reading for the budding value investor. They are worthy of careful study.
Related Article:
Rich Woman: A book on investing for women - A book that argues that women investors have more advantages than men. Worth a look?
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