I know this is rather off-message for a journalist like me, but we really ought to read fewer articles and more books.
As my fellow blogger Morgan Housel once said of books, “Their edge over articles is simple: They are an automatic filter”. Think about it. Writing a book is a huge commitment. You need to think very carefully about what you’re saying. But you can write an article in half an hour.
Josh Brown thinks much the same way. Nuance is important, but there just isn’t room for it in 500 words. You only get to learn about a subject properly by reading books, at least to start with.
Don’t get me wrong. You don’t need to empty your local library to learn the basics of successful investing. To quote the investment author William Bernstein, “The body of knowledge that the individual investor, or even the professional, needs to master is pitifully small”.
But where do you start? Well, if you’ve not yet discovered Five Books, take a look — and thank you, Robert Seawright, for drawing it to my attention. It’s a series of weekly interviews in which clever people are asked to recommend five books in their area of expertise.
I would particularly recommend:
Jason Zweig on Personal Finance;
Burton Malkiel on Investing and
John Gapper on Financial Speculation.
Finally, there is no need for investors to know about economics, but a basic understanding does help to explain why market forecasting is so devilishly difficult. You might therefore want to look at this as well:
John Kay on Economics in the Real World.
Happy reading!
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Robin is a journalist and campaigner for positive change in global investing. He runs Regis Media, a niche provider of content marketing for financial advice firms with an evidence-based investment philosophy. He also works as a consultant to other disruptive firms in the investing sector.
