A list of Books that I found to make me a better investor. The books are divided into three segments. Investing, Business, and Psycology.

1. Books to make you a better
Investor
By Cameron Fen

2. Investments Books

3. Value Investing from Graham to Buffet
• A good book that lists
the basics of value
investing
• Also talks about famous
investors
• The two value
investment workshops
next week is based on
this book
• Greenwald also teaches
a class for Columbia on
the internet

4. The Manual of Ideas by John
Mihaljevic
• Good for beginners
and advanced
investors
• Teaches 9 different
strategies for finding
value stocks ranging
from cigar butt style
investor to following
well known investors

5. You can be a Stock Market Genius:
(Even if You're Not Too Smart!)…

6. …Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of
Stock Market Profits by Joel Greenblatt
• Joel Greenblatt averaged a 50% annual growth
rate of capital over the 10 years that he ran his
fund
• He teaches you the basics of investing
especially special situation investing
• Teaches you how to find information on
spinoff, bankruptcies, rights offerings, and
equity stubs

7. Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman

8. Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman
!!!!!!!!!!!!!

9. Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman
• Never Fear! Copies are available on pdf
– If you can’t find one on the internet ask me I have
a version
• A good primer into value investing
• Klarman emphasizes finding
undervalued/cheap stocks trading significantly
below intrinsic value
• Stocks may be unloved and hairy

10. One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch
• Mainly a growth
investing book
• Talks about how to
use the knowledge
you know as a
consumer on the
stock market

11. The L’eggs Story
• Peter Lynch, heard through his wife that
Hanes was selling pantyhose in drugstores
through the L’eggs brand
• Based on this information and a little bit of
research, women go to the drugstore once a
week, but they go to departments stores once
every six weeks Lynch decided to buy
• Company was a “ten bagger”

12. Peter Lynch on Fundamental Research
• “I remember buying -- I bought 48 different
pairs [of No Nonsense, the competitor to
L’eggs] at the supermarket, colors, shapes, and
sizes…I said, ‘Try this out and come back and
see what's the story with No Nonsense.’ And
people came back to me in a couple weeks
and said, ‘It's not as good.’ That’s what
fundamental research is.”

13. Business Books

14. Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton
Christensen
• Explains why large
companies are
susceptible to
disruptive innovation
and often become
insignificant

15. Q: How many McDonalds are
there in the US

16. Let’s use a measuring trick!
• How many McDonalds are in your
neighborhood?
• How many people are in your neighborhood?
• How many people are in the US?
• Micky D’s = ((McDonalds in Neighborhood) ÷
(People in Neighborhood)) * (People are in
US)
• Now what is your estimate?

17. 14,157 McDonalds in the US

18. How to Measure Anything by Douglas
Hubbard
• The measuring trick
came from this book
• One of the most
useful sections deals
with 90% confidence
interval calibrations

19. Double Your Profits in Six Months or
Less by Bob Fifer
• 3G PE hands out this
book to all
employees
• Advocates draconian
cost cuts to all facets
of business
• Merit pay for
employees

20. Our next books tells the story,
among others, of why a former
stockbroker built a fiber-optic line
from Chicago to New York?

21. Our next books tells the story,
among others, of why a former
stockbroker built a fiber-optic line
from Chicago to New York?
Even worse, the line cut right
through mountains and towns
when it would have been easier to
go around them?

22. Flash Boys by Michael Lewis
• Read this book and
you’ll learn all about
that fiber optic wire
• This book talks about
high frequency
trading and the band
of nerds that rallied
together to stop high
frequency traders

23. Buy-ology by Martin Lindstrom
• Marketing book that
talks about the
benefits of using
Neuroscience
• He uses brain scans
and MRI’s to
determine what we
like and don’t like

24. Psychology and other

25. Think Twice by Michael Mauboussin
• This book also deals
with psychological
biases but relates
them more
concretely to
investments

26. What kills more people
Homicides or Suicides?

27. According to the CDC, in 2011, there
were 12,996 homicides and…

28. According to the CDC, in 2011, there
were 16,238 homicides and
39,518 deaths by suicide

29. Availability Bias
• People assume homicides kill more people
because it is in the news more often
• However just because we hear about
something more often doesn’t make it more
likely but our brains think it is more likely

30. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel
Kahneman
• If you like learning
about the availability
bias and other biases
that can effect you as
an investor or a
person read this
book

31. Fooling Some of the People All the
Time by David Einhorn
• Fun Fact: David
Einhorn is a better
writer than you!
• If you think moving
money around makes
for boring reading
you haven’t read this
book

32. The Big Short by Michael Lewis
• A book on the
financial crisis
• Talks about the
investors who saw it
coming
• Michael Lewis is also
a better writer than
you but you knew
that already

33. The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb
• Written right before
the financial crisis
• Talks about the
impact of tail events
(low probability
events)

34. Fun Fact From the Black Swan
A function with a fat enough tails
can have an average that does not
exist

35. Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis
• A fun book about the
excesses at a
financial institution
• You won’t learn
much about investing
(except something
about a few famous
finance folks) but you
will laugh out loud

36. But Cameron, you say, I don’t
have time to read these books!

37. Quit your whining! I have a
solution.

38. Listen to books on tape
• You probably spend an hour a day
walking, driving, or taking the
train to places
• Use that time to read
• Get books on tape

39. Audible.com
• If you are okay
with paying $15 a
month for books
get audible
• First month is free

40. Audible.com Pro-Tip
You can return as many books as
you want in a month, so even if
you only have the 1 book a month
plan, you can actually listen to as
many books as you want

41. Mr. Cheapo’s solution
• If $15 is too much to
pay I recommend
doing this
• Search the web for
free pdf versions of the
book and download
• Use a text to speech
program like Spesoft to
turn the pdf into a
mp3 file

42. Potential Problems
• Spesoft reads the natural line breaks in books,
like that one, as pauses
• In order to get rid of line breaks, save the file
as a plain text file (you may have to get Adobe
Acrobat for that) and then copy over to
Spesoft
• I can also give you code that I wrote to get rid
of line breaks (except for paragraphs), but you
will need to install Java