The
following are offered as helpful sources for understanding
and insight as it pertains to investing. Neither
list is exhaustive, but the investor may find them
helpful.
Online Resources
The
most important online resource the investor has at
her fingertips is EDGAR. As the Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC) website itself explains, "EDGAR,
the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval
system, performs automated collection, validation,
indexing, acceptance, and forwarding of submissions
by companies and others who are required by law to
file forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission." This is where the investor
goes to obtain much of the necessary information
about companies, including annual and quarterly filings,
proxies, etc. Listed below are the links for
both the SEC, which can be a useful source for information
about securities laws in general, and EDGAR.
●
http://www.sec.gov
●
http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml
As
the importance of the internet as a medium for disseminating
information has come to rival or surpass other channels, another
source of data on potential investments is the companies
themselves. Many corporations, even the smaller
ones, include not only extensive information on their
products and services, but provide their SEC filings
directly to investors. To find this information,
look for the "Investor Relations" section
of the company website, and within that there should
be a tab entitled "SEC Filings," "Financial
Reports," or some similar designation. Often the company
will provide its SEC filings in PDF format, which
is visually similar to a photocopy of the original
document and is easier to read than other
layouts.
There are
many websites one can utilize to find advice about
investing in general - some interesting, many worthless. But
one that every investor should visit is the Berkshire
Hathaway website, which offers that company's annual
reports from 1995 as well as every shareholder letter
written by the CEO, legendary investor Warren Buffet,
since 1977. No investor's education is complete
without thoughtful reference to these letters.
●
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com
Texts of Interest
This
is by no means a comprehensive list, but the following
comprises a number of texts relevant to the discipline
of investing that may be of interest, including a
number of indispensable classics:
●
Berkshire Hathaway Annual Reports (see above)
●
Security Analysis - Graham and Dodd
●
The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham
●
The
Interpretation of Financial Statements – Benjamin Graham
and Spencer B. Meredith
●
The Snowball:
Warren Buffett and the Business of Life – Alice Schroder
● The
Essential Buffet - Robert Hagstrom
●
Buffet: The Making of an American Capitalist - Roger
Lowenstein
●
The New Buffettology – Mary
Buffett and David Clark
●
Investment Biker - Jim Rogers
●
Adventure Capitalist - Jim Rogers
●
Hot Commodities - Jim Rogers
● Pioneering
Portfolio Management - David F. Swensen
●
Unconventional Success: A
Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment – David F.
Swensen
● Market
Wizards - Jack Schwager
● The
New Market Wizards - Jack Schwager
● Stock
Market Wizards - Jack Schwager
●
The Money Masters - John Train
●
The New Money Masters - John Train
●
Money Masters of our Time - John Train
●
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits - Philip Fisher
●
Common Stocks as Long Term
Investments – Edgar Lawrence Smith
● Reminiscences
of a Stock Operator - Edwin Lefevre
● Where
are the Customer's Yachts? - Fred Schwed, Jr.
● Manias,
Panics and Crashes - Charles P. Kindleberger
●
A Short History of Financial
Euphoria – John Kenneth Galbraith
●
The Go-Go Years: The Drama
and Crashing Finale of Wall Street’s Bullish 60s – John
Brooks
●
Once in Golconda: A True
Drama of Wall Street 1920-1938 – John Brooks
●
Fifty Years in Wall Street –
Henry Clews
●
The Mind of
Wall Street – Leon Levy
● Investment
Gurus - Peter Tanous
●
More Than You Know: Finding
Financial Wisdom In Unconventional Places – Michael
Mauboussin
●
Bill Gross on Investing - Bill Gross
● You
Can Be a Stock Market Genius - Joel Greenblatt
●
Stocks for the Long Run - Jeremy Siegel
● Stock
Market Logic - Norman Fosback
●
Options as a Strategic Investment - Lawrence McMillan
● Analysis for Financial Management - Robert Higgins
● Valuation:
Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies - Copeland, Koller and Murring
●
Creative Cash Flow
Reporting: Uncovering Sustainable Financial Performance –
Charles W. Mulford,
Eugene E.
Comiskey
●
The Financial Numbers Game:
Detecting Creative Accounting Practices – Charles W.
Mulford,
Eugene E.
Comiskey
●
Financial Shenanigans: How
to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports
– Howard
Schilit
●
Quality of Earnings: The
Investor’s Guide to How Much Money a Company is Really
Making –
Thorton L.
O’Glove
● All
About Commodities - Russel Wasendorf & Thomas
McCafferty
● The CRB Commodity Yearbook
●
The Commitments of Traders
Bible – Stephen Briese
●
The Prize: The Epic Quest
for Oil, Money and Power – Daniel Yergin
●
The End of Oil – Paul
Roberts
●
Beyond Oil: The View From
Hubbert’s Peak – Kenneth S. Deffeyes
●
The Origin of Financial
Crises: Central Banks, Credit Bubbles and the Efficient
Market Theory –
George Cooper
●
Anatomy of the Bear: Lessons
From Wall Street’s Four Great Bottoms – Russell Napier
●
The Greatest Trade Ever –
Gregory Zuckerman
●
Against the Gods - Peter Bernstein
●
Devil Take the Hindmost - Edward Chancellor
●
The Trouble with Prosperity - James Grant
●
Fooled By Randomness: The
Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and Life – Nassim
Nicholas Taleb
●
The Black Swan – Nassim
Nicholas Taleb
●
A Demon of Our Own Design:
Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial
Innovation –
Richard
Bookstaber
●
The Book of Risk – Dan Borge
●
The (mis)Behavior of
Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin, and Reward - Benoit Mandlebrot
&
Richard Hudson
●
The Myth of the Rational
Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall
Street –
Justin Fox
●
The Trillion Dollar
Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit
Crash – Charles R. Morris
●
Bad Money: Reckless Finance,
Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American
Capitalism –
Kevin Phillips
●
Greenspan’s Bubbles: The Age
of Ignorance at the Federal Reserve – William A.
Fleckenstein
●
Investment Madness: How
Psychology Affects Your Investing … and What to Do About
It –
John R.
Nofsinger
●
The Price of Prosperity: A
Realistic Appraisal of the Future of Our National Economy
–
Peter L.
Bernstein
●
A Primer on Money, Banking,
and Gold – Peter L. Bernstein
● Deals,
Deals, and More Deals - Regina Pitaro
●
Den of Thieves - James B. Stewart
● Conspiracy
of Fools - Kurt Eichenwald
● Disneywar
- James B. Stewart
● Blood
in the Street - Charles Gasparino
●
The Art of Short Selling - Kathryn Staley
●
The Vulture Investors - Hilary Rosenberg
●
When Genius Failed - Roger Lowenstein
● The
Smartest Guys in the Room - Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
●
Hedgehogging – Barton Biggs
●
The Battle for the Soul of
Capitalism – John Bogle
●
Corporate Governance:
Promises Kept, Promises Broken – Jonathan R. Macey
●
The Recurrent Crisis
in Corporate
Governance - Paul W. MacAvoy and Ira M. Millstein
●
The Anatomy of Corporate
Law: A Comparative and Functional Approach – Kraakman,
Davies,
Hansmann,
Hertig, Hopt, Kanda, and Rock
●
The Emperor's Nightingale - Robert Monks
●
Extreme Value Hedging: How
Activist Hedge Fund Managers Are Taking on the World –
Ronald D. Orol
●
Active Value Investing –
Vitaly N. Katsenelson
●
In Search of Excess: The
Overcompensation of American Executives – Graef S. Crystal
●
The Recurrent Crisis in
Corporate Governance – Paul W. MacAvoy and Ira M. Milstein
●
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas Kuhn
●
Freakonomics – Steven D.
Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
●
Superfreakonomics – Steven
D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
● The
Creative Process - Edited by Brewster Ghiselin
●
Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen - Mark Buchanan
●
Nexus: Small Worlds and the
Groundbreaking Theory of Networks – Mark Buchanan
●
The Illusion of Conscious
Will – Daniel M. Wegner
●
Guns, Germs, and Steel –
Jared Diamond
●
The Mystery of Capital: Why
Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere else
–
Hernando deSoto
●
Globalization and its
Discontents – Joseph Stiglitz
●
Reinventing the Bazaar: A
Natural History of Markets – John McMillan
●
The Authentic Adam Smith –
James Buchanan
Interesting Articles
In
addition to the above, I have decided to include
articles or other items of interest which may be
informative or, occasionally, amusing. Listed
below are the hyperlinks therefor.
Jim Rogers, various articles
Get
Richest Quickest - New York Magazine, 11-22-04 (article
on hedge fund managers)
Best
Trades Ever - Economist, December 04
A Fifth Point of Inflection, P. Bernstein, 2004
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