In this article, we are going to review the 20 best investment books for professional investors.
The main thing that differentiates professional investors from new investors is the knowledge they have acquired through experience. Some pro investors have been able to understand the market and could predict market fluctuations. They could also identify profitable investment opportunities and have probably developed a long term investment philosophy.
No matter what you have achieved as a pro-investor, learning and seeking for more knowledge on investing should never cease. One of the world’s most successful investors, Warren Buffet still reads 500 pages of corporate reports every day even after owning the most impressive investment portfolio in the world.
Here are some investment books for professional investors that you should start reading right away.
20 Best Investment Books For Professional Investors
1. One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know to Make Money in the Market
One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch offers timeless advice to the professional investor. In this book, Lynch provides tips on how the average investor can identify investment opportunities even before institutional and top professional investors do.
As an investor himself, Lynch understands the tricks and strategies that put some investors about many others in the market. In this book, he lays down those strategies in a clear and concise language that any pro-investor should be able to understand.
This book will teach you how to analyze potential investment opportunities by reviewing a company’s financial statement and by identifying which numbers really count. He also provides guidelines on how investors can invest in fast-growing companies and earn huge returns in the long term.
If you’re a pro-investor looking for ways to make long term gains on your investment, then this book will help you find the right investment opportunities and teach you how to avoid the less profitable ones.
Author: PeterLynch
Current edition: 2nd Edition (April 2000)
Pages: 304
2. A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing
This is one of the few investment books for professional investors that provides actual strategies that could boost the investment portfolio of the average investor.
In this book, you’ll learn the basics of the stock market and how to identify profitable investment opportunities through long-term investment strategies. You’ll also find details on how financial markets work, especially the American financial market.
The book provides technical explanations and reviews of various market theories while offering real advice on how to trade funds like stocks, bonds, money market accounts, trusts to insurance, homeownership, and real estate investment.
Originally, this book was written for the non-professional investor. However, its updated version can serve professional investors seeking low-risk strategies for long term growth.
For a book with many stock market terminologies, analytics techniques, and investment strategies, A Random Walk Down Wall Street is quite easy to read and digest making it one of the best investment books for beginners and pro investors.
Author: Burton G. Malkiel
Current edition: Twelfth Edition (January 2019)
Pages: 432
3. Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond
If you’re looking for a book on investing that has detailed examples and real-life strategies on how to predict and quantify a company’s competitive advantage, which will help you make the right investment decisions, then you need to get Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond.
Written by some of the savviest investment individuals, the book reveals the fundamental principles of value investing and illustrates applications of investing techniques through the profiles of successful investors like Warren Buffet, Mario Gabelli, Michael Price, and others.
You’ll also find case studies that highlight the techniques in practice. These case studies are quite easy to follow, so you should be able to practice them and get your investment portfolio in order.
From the beginning of the book to the end, you’ll find information that should help you make the right decisions when it comes to value investing.
Authors: Bruce C. N. Greenwald, Judd Kahn, Paul D. Sonkin, and Michael van Biema
Current edition: 1 Edition (January 2004)
Pages: 320
4. Stocks for the Long Run: The Definitive Guide to Financial Market Returns & Long-Term Investment Strategies
Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy Siegel is one of the best investment books for professional investors. This book helps you to craft actionable investment strategies while providing explanations on stock market terminologies and expert analysis on the financial crises that rocked the stock market.
The book goes deeper into the economies of other nations like China and India. Through it, you will learn techniques that will help you earn long-term profits in the markets of these countries. It also focuses on global markets and provides information that will help you diversify and make profitable investment decisions in today’s global economy.
Stocks for the Long Run answers many of the questions on the lips of beginners and professional investors alike.
The book offers a great overview of the stock market, highlights the value approach to stocks, and provides actionable principles that professional investors should follow.
Author: Jeremy J. Siegel
Current edition: 5 Edition (January 2014)
Pages: 448
5. Market Wizards, Updated: Interviews with Top Traders Paperback
It’s never easy to get top traders to reveal their secrets for success. Most of them would rather stick to motivational quotes than provide step-by-step guidance and strategies on how they were able to navigate the market and hit trading success.
Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager is an investment book for professional investors who aim to take their investment portfolio a step further. This book details interviews of top traders across most financial markets and from those interviews are strategies, techniques, and principles that should help the determined investor to achieve well-deserved success.
The book features interviews with big-time money-makers like Paul Tudor Jones, Ed Seykota, Bruce Kovner, and more. It also provides actual details on how many top traders were able to amass their wealth out of almost nothing.
Also, the book covers almost all parts of investing and trading. You’ll find information on futures, psychological analysis required for making an investment, equities, and methods used by investors who follow economy-wide trends.
Market Wizards is best for professional investors that have gained enough experience in the stock market. It is for investors who can read in-between the lines and work with strategies that helped the pros become who they are.
Author: Jack D. Schwager
Current edition: 1 Edition (February 2012)
Pages: 512
6. Fail-Safe Investing: Lifelong Financial Security in 30 Minutes
Every investor seeks to minimize risk and make huge returns from investments. In reality, this is very difficult to achieve and some investors turn out to be the biggest losers even after spending on a lot on market analysts.
Fail-Safe Investing by Harry Browne is the investor’s guide to safe investing. In this book, Browne details his conservative approach to investing that will help any investor make huge returns without having to worry about heavy losses.
Through this strategy, the average investor will be able to identify profitable investment opportunities and predict market conditions under periods of prosperity, recession, inflation, and depression.
Browne also lays down principles that every investor should follow and things to avoid like buying on margin, market timing, and stock tips.
This book acts as a guide for an investor looking for a safe means of preserving wealth and investing for long-term gains. Even though it was released in the 2000s, it remains of the best investment book for professional investors looking for real-life advice on safe investing.
Author: Harry Brown
Current edition: (January 2001)
Pages: 176
7. Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
For investors who want to make more out of today’s market, thinking out of the box is a must. There are so many investment opportunities out there, but identifying the ones that will lead to long-term wealth is a problem that plagues many investors.
Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a book that aims to change the way you think and perceive business and the world. Taleb who is a veteran trader and renowned risk expert offers captivating insight on how investors can make the right risk-investments by understanding the hidden secrets in life that affect our everyday life including our businesses.
This book doesn’t only focus on investing in stocks, bonds or equities, rather it encompasses all aspects of life and tries to make sense of how the world works.
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Current edition: Updated Edition (August 2005)
Pages: 368
8. Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week!
Rule #1 by PhilTown offers great lessons on how an investor can evaluate a company and decide whether or not to invest there. In this book, self-made millionaire Phil Town lays down the steps he used to turn $1,000 into $1 million in only five years.
The book offers practical advice to investors who want to learn different approaches to value investing. Town also shares his investing philosophy and the process through which you can make huge returns on investments that focuses on 1 rule – don’t lose money.
His process involves you evaluating companies like a business owner rather than a stock investor looking for an opportunity to make wealth. It also involves taking advantage of today’s internet tools that have made company evaluation and stock trading very easy.
More techniques like knowing the only five numbers that count in valuing a potential investment will place you on the right track in your investment endeavors.
Through this book, you will learn a risk-free Rule #1 approach that will help you make more profit than losses, or better still, no losses at all.
Author: PhilTown
Current edition: (August 2007)
Pages: 336
9. Winning the Loser’s Game, 6th Edition: Timeless Strategies for Successful Investing
Investors looking to re-work their portfolio or change their investment strategies so as to make more profits would love this book.
Winning the Loser’s Game by Charles D. Ellis is the go-to guide and one of the best investment books for professional investors seeking long-term gain in the stock market. It offers advice on how individual investors can avoid common traps and get on the right path that leads to investment success.
The book is populated with a number of updated facts, figures, and charts that will make the strategies and techniques shared in the book easier to understand.
In the book, topics like U.S. government bonds, active management, the investment management industry, and behavioral economics are covered in-depth to help you get acquainted with the latest trends in today’s market.
Ellis offers you his secrets and techniques that have helped him succeed and will also help you set realistic objectives and develop a winning investment strategy that will take you well into retirement.
Author: Charles D. Ellis
Current edition: 6 Edition (July 2013)
Pages: 288
10. The Little Book of Behavioral Investing: How not to be your own worst enemy
As an investor, being emotional about trading is one of the many behavioral traits that can lead you to make wrong investment decisions and lose money.
In the Little Book of Behavioral Investing by James Montier, you’ll find details of the behavioral challenges faced by many investors. He reveals how common psychological barriers like emotion, overconfidence, bias, and others can affect investment decision-making.
The book not only identifies these behavioral traits but also, provides ways investors can identify them and avoid them.
As a professional investor, you probably have some significant experience in the stock market and maybe you have made a lot of huge returns within the last years. That should boost your confidence and make you more interested in going after high-risk investments or make you bias in your investment endeavors.
Montier explains how these decisions would be your undoing and the right behavioral principles you should follow to maintain a successful investment portfolio.
Author: James Montier
Current edition: 1 Edition (January 2010)
Pages: 236
11. Quantitative Value, + Web Site: A Practitioner’s Guide to Automating Intelligent Investment and Eliminating Behavioral Errors
Quantitative Value, + Web Site by Wesley Gray and Tobias Carlisle is the right book for the quantitative investor. The book shares the principles of value investing and quantitative investing and uses these principles to develop a unique approach to stock selection.
This book is perfect for any investor looking for a new approach to investing. It focuses on the quantitative value strategy which gives more guarantee of long-term returns.
The book covers topics like how to avoid and uncover unprofitable stock, financial statement manipulation, financial distress, and fraud. It also details steps you can take to identify the stocks with the highest quality and the secrets to finding deeply undervalued stocks.
Author: Wesley Gray and Tobias Carlisle
Current edition: 1 Edition (December 2012)
Pages: 288
12. Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments (Bloomberg)
Making mistakes and learning from them is a part of investing that most investors will definitely experience. But if you’re seeking to make more profits, then it will be best to avoid these mistakes by learning from the experiences of other investors.
Big Mistakes by Michael Batnick explores the setbacks encountered by big-time investors and the lessons learned from the mistakes that shaped more successful strategies going forward.
The book features stories from top investors like Warren Buffet, Jack Bogle, John Maynard Keynes, Chris Sacca, and more.
Big Mistakes will teach you the mistakes of the biggest names and by learning them you can avoid losing ground, anticipate challenges, exercise caution, and identify commonly overlooked warning signs.
Author: Michael Batnick
Current edition: 1 Edition (June 2018)
Pages: 192
13. The Behavioral Investor
The Behavioral Investor by Dr. Daniel Crosby examines the psychological, sociological, and neurological factors that influence investment decisions. The book also provides solutions that will help investors improve their behavior so as to make better investment decisions.
This book will serve every professional as they go farther into the world of investing. Huge returns or losses can bring about certain emotions which could interfere with further investing decisions and probably cause an investor to make easily avoidable mistakes.
In the book, you will find practical steps on how to keep yourself in control regardless of the economic situation or market condition.
Author: Daniel Crosby
Current edition: (October 2018)
Pages: 257
14. Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor
Common Sense on Mutual Funds by John C. Bogle is one of the few investment books for professional investors that have received a positive review from Warren E. Buffet (one of America’s most successful investors of all time). This goes on to show just how priceless the information in this book is.
Bogle shares his knowledge, research, and experience on mutual fund investing while expanding the mind of the investor on how to stay ahead of the trend without incurring huge losses.
Author: John C. Bogle
Current edition: 39677th Edition (October 2000)
Pages: 496
15. Thinking, Fast and Slow
Similar to the impressive Rich Dad, Poor Dad structure, Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman presents two different opposite systems which reflect our thinking process towards decision making.
The first system is fast, intuitive, and emotional. The second system is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Through these two systems, Kahneman shares practical insights into how choices are made in our business and personal lives and how we can make better choices to help improve both aspects of our lives.
Author: Daniel Kahneman
Current edition: 1 Edition (October 2011)
Pages: 512
16. The
Acquirer’s Multiple: How the Billionaire Contrarians of Deep Value Beat the
Market
The Acquirer’s Multiple by Tobias E. Carlisle is another masterpiece that dives deeper into value investing. The book features stories of top investors like Warren Buffet, David Einhorn, Carl Ichan, and Dan Loeb. It details how they started their investment journey and how they kept things going.
Author: Tobias E. Carlisle
Current edition: 1 Edition (October 2017)
Pages: 159
17. Investing Demystified: How to Create the Best Investment Portfolio Whatever Your Risk Level
As a professional investor, you have probably created a working investment portfolio that will last you well into retirement. That should mean that a book that teaches you how to create the best investment portfolio is best for only beginners who are yet to wrap their heads around all the terminologies and processes involved in investing.
However, this book still serves professional investors, especially those investors looking for new approaches to try out so as to make more returns.
The book details how to mix stocks, bonds, and cash to make a top-performing portfolio. It also focuses on diversification and simplicity which will help your portfolio thrive at any risk level.
Author: Lars Kroijer
Current edition: 2 Edition (May 2017)
Pages: 252
18. Inside Private Equity: The Professional Investor’s Handbook
As said in the title, this book serves as a handbook to all investors in the private markets. It offers advice on how to handle the mechanics of portfolio construction and provides tools that can be used in monitoring current investments, as well as, the process of screening new opportunities.
In the book, you will find strategies that will empower the investor to better manage their portfolio and make better returns on investments.
Author: James M. Kocis, Bachman IV, James C., Long III, Austin M., and Craig J. Nickels
Current edition: 1 Edition (April 2009)
Pages: 282
19. That Thing Rich People Do: Required Reading for Investors
The book offers timeless advice to beginner and professional investors alike.
It starts by explaining the basics and moves on to strategies through which
investors can achieve faster growth at lower risks.
Through this book, the beginner investor will be able to learn about the stock market and how to create an effective investment portfolio. The professional investor, on the other hand, will learn more about risk management, maintaining better diversification, and how to identify profitable investment opportunities.
Author: Kaye A. Thomas
Current edition: (May 2010)
Pages: 158
20. Wall Street Kitchen: The Recipe Behind a Housewife’s 1000% Stock Return
Wall Street Kitchen by Victor Chiu features a step-by-step recipe on how to multiply wealth in the stock market along with delicacies from his mother’s kitchen.
The book is more of the advice offered to Chiu by his mother on investing and how to develop effective investment strategies.
Author: Victor Chiu
Current edition: (November 2016)
Pages: 244
