Thinking in Bets 

Annie Duke 

Uncertainty vs results impacts our lives and every decision we make.  This book will help you to make better decisions not just in investing.

 

Concentrated Investing: Strategies of the World's Greatest Concentrated Value Investors

Allen C. Bennello, Micheal van Biema, Tobias E. Carlisle 

I really enjoyed the examples and style of this book. Lots of valuable lessons from the best in the industry.

 

The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution 

Gregory Zuckerman

Must read for everyone in asset management. Reads like a thriller and teaches an incredible story of how Renaissance Technologies became probably one of the best performing funds worldwide. 

 

Latticework: The New Investing

Robert G. Hagstrom

Great book.  It makes you think deep about your investment approach and shows you how to constantly add to your toolkit with an interdisciplinary educational approach. 

 

The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America 

Warren Buffett's letters, selected and arranged by Lawrence A. Cunningham

Berkshire shareholder letters arranged in a structured way. Must read for every long term investor.  Full of wisdom, humor and common sense.

 

Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari 

Great big picture book, which made me even more concerned regarding climate change.  One thought I had after reading this was that the human race currently behaves like a virus destroying our very basis for living (population growth, wild animal extinction, mass meat production...the numbers provided are eye opening).

 

The Little Book That Beats The Market

Joel Greenblatt

Written for his kids and fun to read. Hidden in the simplicity is a simple truth of how to systematically outperform the market. 

 

The Dhando Investor - The Low-Risk Value Method to High Returns

Mohnish Pabrai

Thank you for the investment framework and priceless lessons. Buy this book, is it is >10x investment.

 

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profit

Philip A. Fischer

Should be mandatory in every business school. One of the best worth reviewing over and over again. Here a link to his key points/investment checklist.

 

The Education of a Value Investor

Guy Spier

Refreshingly honest and humble account of Guy Spier's journey to becoming a successful value investor. Finished it in a day and bought a copy for everybody in my firm afterwards. Guy thank you for writing this! 

 

The 3G Way: Dream People Culture

Francisco S. Homem de Mello

An introduction to the management style created by Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles, and Beto Sicupira, the trio that's taken over some of the greatest cons of American capitalism

 

Poor Charlie's Almanack

Charlie Munger, edited by Peter D. Kaufman

Munger propounds in the 'Multiple Mental Models' approach to decision making. This collection of 'Big Ideas from Big Disciplines' contains an iconoclastic checklist for decision-making. Book is written in a non-conventional style and fun to read. This would be in the top ten of my book recommendations.

 

The Zero Marginal Cost Society

Jeremy Rifkin

In The Zero Marginal Costs Society, New York Times bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin describes how the emerging Internet of Things is speeding us to an era of nearly free goods and services, precipitating the meteoric rise of a global Collaborative Commons and the eclipse of capitalism. Good FT article can be found here.

The Quest: Energy Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World

Daniel Yergin

The Quest tells the inside stories, tackles the tough questions, and reveals surprising insights about coal, electricity, and natural gas. He explains how climate change became a great issue and leads readers through the rebirth of renewable energies, energy independence, and the return of the electric car.

 

Positive Linking - How Networks Revolutionise the World

Paul Ormerod 

Network effects make conventional approaches to policy, whether in the public or corporate sectors, much more likely to fail. But they open the possibility of truely positive linking- of more subtle, effective and succesfull policies, ones which harness our knowledge of network effects and how they work in practice.

 

Limits to Growth, the 30-Year Update

Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows 

"Not everything bears reputation, but truth does- especially when that truth is both denied by entrenched interests and verified by new information."

Herman E. Daly, former World Bank senior economist and Proffesor, School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland

How to Create a Mind 

Ray Kurzweil 

"Ray Kurzweil pioneered artificial intelligence systems that could read print in any type style, synthesize speech and music, and understand speech. These were the forerunners of the present revolution in machine learning that is creating intelligent computers…. It also offers important insights into a future in which we will begin solving what I believe is the greatest problem in science and technology today: the problem of how the brain works and how it generates intelligence." Thomaso Poggio, MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Science; Director

 

Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition 

Bent Blyvbjerg, Nils Bruzelius and Werner Rothengatter

‘Provides a fascinating look at the  pervasiveness of misinformation in the planning of major construction projects and the systematic bias of such misinformation towards justifying project implementation. The power of its analysis is vastly reinforced by the range of cases examined, extending over seventy years and five continents’.  Alan Altshuler Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

 

The (Mis)behaviour of Markets

Benoit B. Mandelbort and Richard L. Hudson

With the invention of fractal geometry, mathematical superstar Benoit Mandelbrot forever changed our understanding of nature and influenced a host of modern fields, from chaos theory to computer animation. Together with science journalist and former Wall Street Journal editor, Mandelbrot turns a fractal eye to the behaviour of financial markets and proves that they are far riskier than has commonly held believed. He shows that we need a new theory rather than reengineering of old ones with the help of GARCH and co. 

 

Margin of Safety

Seth Klarman 

Just check the current price on EBay for a hardcopy ($1800). Why? Because this is simply the knowledge of a brilliant investor, which goes against most of the stuff you would learn in Business School. Recently free PDF versions are available at some blogs (just Google it). "Because investing is as much an art as a science, investors need a margin of safety. A margin of safety is achieved when securities are purchased below underlying value to allow for human error, bad luck, or extreme volatility in a complex, unpredictable, and rapidly changing world." 

 

BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS AND FINANCE

Michelle Baddeley

Standard models in economics and finance usually assume that people are rational, self-interested maximisers, effectively co-ordinated via the invisible hand of the price mechanism. Whilst these approaches produce tractable, simple models, they cannot fully capture the uncertainties and instabilities that affect everyday choices in today’s complex world. Insights from the other social and behavioural sciences can help to fill the gap and behavioural economics is the subject which brings economics and finance together with psychology, neuroscience and sociology. Behavioural Economics and Finance introduces the reader to some of the key concepts and insights from this rich, inter-disciplinary approach to real-world decision-making.

 

Antifragile

Nassim Taleb

The core idea is that we should create systems (like nature) benefiting from randomness, at the heard of of such a system would be smaller units and more room for try and error.  At the moment the world especially the economy is moving in the opposite direction. Antifragility (the opposite of fragility) is the answer.  "Antifragility is not just the antidote to the Black Swan; understanding it makes us less intellectually fearful in accepting the role of these events as necessary for history, technology, knowledge, everything."

 

Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy

Whilliam H. Janeway

Many people understand the political forces of our world. Add an understanding also of the financial forces at work in the modern economy and the list of wise people diminishes dramatically. Janeway understands all three and writes about their interaction with great insight build on theoretical and depth and practical experience.

 

Thinking Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahnemann 

'As Copernicus removed the Earth from the centre of the universe and Darwin knocked humans off their biological perch, Kahneman has shown that we are not the paragons of reasons we assume ourselves to be' Economist

Buy it fast and read it slow!

 

A Random Walk Down Wall Street

Burton G. Malkier

This one may well belong in the classics category

Whether you're considering your first 401(k) contribution, contemplating retirement or anyware in between this book should be on your reading list.

 

Living High & Letting Die

Our illusion of innocence

Peter Unger

A small amount of money sent to charity like UNICEF will ensure that fewer poor children will die. Yet even when aware of this most people sent nothing. Peter Unger examines this all-too common example of letting die, generating a bold and controversial look at moral assessment.

 

Pioneering Portfolio Management 

David F. Swensen

Yale Endowment Funds Manager Swensen provides his investment strategy and insides into portfolio management.

 

Man's search for Meaning

Victor Frankel

Thoughtful book provides a lot of energy and good reason to think about what to do with your life.

"Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast."

 

THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR 

Benjamin Graham

This book is legendary and should be mandatory for every finance student.

 

Faulty Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy

Raghuram G. Rajan 

In Fault Lines, Rajan demonstrates how unequal access to education and health care in the United States puts us all in deeper financial peril, even as the economic choices of countries like Germany, Japan, and China place an undue burden on America to get its policies right. He outlines the hard choices we need to make to ensure a more stable world economy and restore lasting prosperity

 

Investment Madness: How Psychology Affects Your Investing...and What to Do About It

 John R. Nofsinger

A good read for everybody. As Benjamin Graham put it:"The investor's chief problem-and even worst enemy-is likely to be himself."

 

The new paradigm for financial markets

George Soros

George Soros explains his reflexive (financial) theory. According to him we need a total new theory framework in economics. The proof for his theory based on the philosophy of Karl Popper is his success as hedge fund manager.

 

Surviving the financial fallout

John Calverley 

John is the Head of Research North America, Standard Chartered Bank. He was previously Chief Economist and Strategist of American Express Bank.

"Indispensable for everyone who want to understand how bubbles arise-and how to avoid being caught out by the next one."

 

The big short  

Micheal Lewis

If you really want to understand the financial crises, read the big short.

 "When the crash of the U.S stock market become public knowledge in the fall of 2008, it was already old news."

 

You are who you become

from Ilse Nelemans

A good personal vision helps you to establish the meaning of your existence and make decisions that are both important for you an appropriate to you.

 

Personality 

 Daniel Nettle

This book will make you look afresh at yourself and those around you, and give you new insights into your own personality. It won't tell you how you should live, but it might just help you live life to your strengths.

 

A demon of our own design

 Richard Bookstaber

"I cannot recommend this book too highly. It is a clear exposition of what the combination of derivatives, leverage, and hedge funds can do to the markets." -forbes.com

 

Valuation 

from McKinsey & Company,  one really has to understand how companies create value. This book is "the bible" for corporate valuation.

 

The Black Swan

from Nassim Taleb, the impact of the Highly Improbable. It is one of the best books I know. One interesting personal point I get out of it is, that you have to invest in extrem chances. This is also true for all aspects of your life. Just check his CV afterwards you are going to read this book...;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

 

Irrational Exuberance

Robert Schiller

One of the first critical well known academic disputs as well the field of behavioural finance.

This books provide a good overview about current financial markets written by a world class professor.

http://www.irrationalexuberance.com/

 

Social Intelligence

from Daniel Goleman, thinks about what really drives you in life.

One interesting example is evidence that your social life, really effect your health. We can also learn from him when it comes to economic issues.

 

Rebuilding Trust in Banking

Ray Kinsella 

In this collection of essays published over the last ten years, Ray Kinsella argues that the root cause of the present global financial crisis is an ethical 'Black Hole' at the heart of corporate capitalism.

 

Happiness

Daniel Nettle.

If happiness is good itself, why haven't we simply envolved to be happier?

Think about it and read it.

 

REWORK

Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

Minimalistic work resulting into more outcome.

 

Financial Markets Yale introduction lecture

Robert Schiller

Financial institutions are a pillar of civilized society, supporting people in their productive ventures and managing the economic risks they take on. The workings of these institutions are important to comprehend if we are to predict their actions today and their evolution in the coming information age. The course strives to offer understanding of the theory of finance and its relation to the history, strengths and imperfections of such institutions as banking, insurance, securities, futures, and other derivatives markets, and the future of these institutions over the next century. view class sessions >>  

 

Stocks for the long run

Jeremy Siegel

A major highlight of this new edition of Stocks for the Long Run is the chapter on global investing. With the U.S. stock market currently holding less than half of the world's equity capitalization, it's risky for investors not to diversify abroad. This updated edition shows you how to create an “efficient portfolio” that best balances asset allocation in domestic and foreign markets and provides thorough coverage on sector allocation across the globe.

Stocks for the Long Run is essential reading for every investor and advisor who wants to fully understand the market - including its behavior, past trends, and future influences - in order to develop a prosperous long-term portfolio that is both safe and secure.

 

The effective Executive

Peter Drucker

Brilliant book!

 

Freakonomics

Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

 

What do estate agents and the Ku Klux Klan have in common? Why do drugs dealers live with their mothers? How can your name affect how well you do in life? Stephan D.  Levitt  teaches economics at the University of Chicago. His Idiosyncratic economic research into areas as varied as guns and games shows has triggered debate in the media and academic circels. He recently received the Amercian Economic Association's John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every two years two the best American economist under forty.