I have been working on a list, and could use some opinions from other monkeys:

Investing: - The Intelligent Investor – Ben Graham - Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffet’s Shareholder Letters - The Most Important Thing – Howard Marks - You Can Be a Stock Market Genius – Joel Greenblatt - One Up on Wall Street – Peter Lynch - Margin of Safety – Seth Klarman - Quality of Earnings – Thornton O’Glove - Money Masters of Our Time – John Train - Education of a Value Investor – Guy Spier - Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits – Philip Fisher - Manuel of Ideas – John MIhaljevic - The Outsiders – William Thorndike

Finance: - Equity Research: Exile on Wall Street – Mike Mayo; Confession of a Wall Street Analyst – Daniel Reingold - Private Equity: King of Capital: The Remarkable Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Steve Schwarzmann and Blackstone; King Icahn: The Biography of a Renegade Capitalist; The Predators’ Ball : The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and the Rise of Junk Bond Raiders - Investment Banking: Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle - Hedge Fund: When Genius Failed – Roger Lowenstein; Fooling Some of the People All the Time, A Long Short Story – David Einhorn; Confidence Game: How Hedge Fund Manager Bill Ackman Called Wall Street’s Bluff – Christine Richard; The Greatest Trade Ever - Greg Zuckerman; The Big Short - Michael Lewis - Banks: Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World – William Cohan; House of Morgan - Ron Chernow - Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron – Bethany McLean - Sales and Trading: Liar’s Poker – Michael Lewis; The Buy Side – Turney Duff; Straight to Hell: True Tales of Deviance, Debauchery, and Billion-Dollar Deals – John LeFevre

 

Fantastic list! I'd add The Accidental Investment Banker, The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co., Blue Blood and Mutiny: The Fight for the Soul of Morgan Stanley, and The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group (overwrought with conspiracy theories, but provides an excellent view into the early/formative stage of Carlyle) on there, too.

Also, on the textbook front, you don't always need a book; you can watch Coursera classes instead. The Wharton Financial Accounting Class and Intro to corporate finance can be very helpful and are free. If you're committed to books, Rosenbaum & Pearl is the way to go. I liked Vernimmen's book, too.

 

Option Volatility & Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques by Sheldon Natenberg (read that first).

and secondly,

Options, Futures, and Other Derivative Securities by John Hull.

These two are the best you can have, and should be required to trade I feel.

 

I actually felt the same way about The Logical Trader. When I made that list I literally was just looking over on my bookshelf and listing.

The books that really hit home for me are those that emphasized psychology of trading and anything regarding money management/position sizing.

What type trading do you want to learn about? what product? Are you talking about market making? Arbitrage? Directional speculative Bets? Short Term Investing? Long term investing?

"Oh the ladies ever tell you that you look like a fucking optical illusion" - Frank Slaughtery 25th Hour.

"Oh the ladies ever tell you that you look like a fucking optical illusion" - Frank Slaughtery 25th Hour.
 

Chim Chim is definitely right specifically John Hull's book, one of the later versions, as it's been extended.

Also another classic one is the Inside the Yield Curve, by Leibowitz & Homer. Was for a long time the required reading for all incoming S&T classes.

 
Best Response
  • The Millionaire Next Door
  • How to Win Friends & Influence People
  • The Art of War
  • 48 Laws of Power
  • Extreme Ownership

A bit more abstract to apply, but still useful. - 33 Strategies of War - A Book of 5 Rings (I would read the book then look on YouTube for a few different videos breaking down the lessons into practical applications. Jocko's podcast does a great analysis.)

A lot of the books on here get a bad rap for cultivating an environment of office politics, manipulation, etc., especially Robert Greene's stuff, but I've found that they are more useful than just for becoming a sociopathic asshole.

I've found these have books taught me the following: - The importance of having a strategy: The multiplied impact of deliberate, directed actions versus simply grinding toward your next annual review. - How to be a better communicator: Being able to see the situation from other people's perspectives to collaborate more effectively toward a win-win scenario. - Understanding people's needs and motives: This can help you deal with prickly colleagues and figure out who the backstabbers are from straight shooters. - Being more confident and assertive: Through practice picking up on the subtle cues to press your hand or hang back. - Marketing yourself more effectively: Your reputation is all that you have left to fall back at the end of the day.

 

Let me start out by asking a few basic questions so that we can help you better.

At what kind of school did you study (non-target/semi-target/target)? What kind of previous work experience do you have? Why are you out of a job at the moment? Do you know how to model? Do you have a network within PE?

Without answers to these questions, it will be hard to assess your chances of landing a PE gig. If you are asking for a blanket recommendation, I can vouch for the PE guide from WSO which helped me tremendously to 1) understand the history of the industry, 2) develop my technical skills and 3) strengthen my answers to fit questions

 
kinghongkong:

Let me start out by asking a few basic questions so that we can help you better.

At what kind of school did you study (non-target/semi-target/target)? What kind of previous work experience do you have? Why are you out of a job at the moment? Do you know how to model? Do you have a network within PE?

Without answers to these questions, it will be hard to assess your chances of landing a PE gig. If you are asking for a blanket recommendation, I can vouch for the PE guide from WSO which helped me tremendously to 1) understand the history of the industry, 2) develop my technical skills and 3) strengthen my answers to fit questions

I graduated from UCLA a few years back. I was working for an engineering firm but wanted to try something new, so I worked at a small startup thinking that it might be something I wanted to get into. The hype about joining startups appealed to me at the time, but then I got bored and the interest died so I decided to leave, and then from there I started studying for the CFA because I didn't have any relative finance background. I was always into the stock market and knew I wanted to get into something with investing opportunities... Although, I'm still tinkering with ideas on exactly where in the finance world I want to be in, but I currently do have a strong interest in Private Equity.

I've been reading a few posts and people always mention LBO, so I think that's something I'm going to tackle first in the next couple of days. I have the CFA test tomorrow so after that I'm going to be laser focus on my path towards PE.

I haven't done any networking because I've been studying for the CFA, everyday. But I'm planning to get a move on that as well, shortly. Any suggestions/tips on this?

 
 

Good advice Swagon. Haha.

CHItizen:
^Hahahaha

Why exactly does meeting someone senior entail that you must read a book? Do you want to discuss it with him or do you want to get a better grasp of what he does?

It's not exactly a 5 minute coffee break meeting. I'll be spending quite a few hours with this person in a non-formal environment. I just want to appear as smart as humanly possible and get a better grasp of what he does.

Competition is a sin. -John D. Rockefeller
 
Connor:
Have you read Barbarians at the Gate? That's a really good one, but I'm sure you've read it.

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to it yet. I was hoping for something a little more technical for this occasion, but then again since this is a non-formal event, discussing valuation metrics may not be the best idea. I was also hoping to find something a little more obscure, in the hope of uncovering something he hasn't heard of yet. However, Barbarians at the Gate still remains on the list of candidates.

Competition is a sin. -John D. Rockefeller
 

The Accidental Investment Banker gives a good history of investment banking through the eyes of a senior banker at GS/MS, but it's a little dense. You Can Be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt is a good value investing book that reads very quickly.

All that being said, I'm still not sure reading a book is the best way to go about this. Articles and papers can be very helpful and insightful as well.

 
CHItizen:
The Accidental Investment Banker gives a good history of investment banking through the eyes of a senior banker at GS/MS, but it's a little dense. You Can Be a Stock Market Genius by Joel Greenblatt is a good value investing book that reads very quickly.

All that being said, I'm still not sure reading a book is the best way to go about this. Articles and papers can be very helpful and insightful as well.

I've heard that as well about Greenblatt's book. Right now it remains one of the front runners and it is a hell of a lot quicker to read than any of Graham's work, not to mention much more up to date.

As far as articles and papers go, that is something I usually do anyway.

Competition is a sin. -John D. Rockefeller
 

The (mis) Behavior of Markets

This is one of the best books about the unpredictability of markets. I doubt most investment bankers have read it. Plus, it actually makes for an interesting discussion.

 

Honestly, I would just read the WSJ and FT cover to cover everyday until you meet. You can never go wrong having an intelligent discussion about current events in the industry. Pick their brain about whatever they seem most interested in.

EDIT: Or (and?) read "Currency Wars" by James Rickards. Absolutely phenomenal book that has made the rounds in the finance community. All about competitive devaluations, reserve currencies, central banking, etc. It was written recently and is extremely relevant to events happening now. http://www.amazon.com/Currency-Wars-Making-Global-Portfolio/dp/15918444…

 

I'm gonna encourage "The Accidental Investment Banker" as well, it was well worth the read (and wasn't too long).

"When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is." - Oscar Wilde "Seriously, psychology is for those with two x chromosomes." - RagnarDanneskjold
 

Too Big to Fail is a book about characters, not really about finance at all. Sorkin tells a great story but it is much more the "who" of the financial crisis than the "why".

The Big Short is a quick read and Michael Lewis paints one of the best pictures about how/why everyone was an idiot in the lead-up to the financial crisis.

Barbarians at the Gate is longer but a great read about business generally and LBO's specifically.

 

Keyword:Enjoyable. This takes out The Alchemy of Finance and The Intelligent Investor.

Boomerang truly wasn't that good of a book, especially when compared to Michael Lewis' other books. Its decent for a airplane ride since its so short and written on a 6th grade reading level. It's just a collection of a series of Vanity Fair Articles.

Too Big to Fail=Too Big to Read. All these financial crisis books are the same story, different author, same message and cast of characters.

Second The Zeroes.

My recommendation is Street Freak by Jared Didion. It's about a Delta-1 trader for Lehman brothers spanning the 10 years before 9/11 and ending the day they went under. Fascinating account of trading lifestyle, thought process, money and culture as well as entertaining

 

If you like investment banking rather than the markets / investing, The Accidental Investment Banker by Jonathan Knee is fabulous.

It's written by an experienced banker who has seen banking change over the years at GS & MS from the inside. Talks about the actual work of a VP / MD and has a few good stories of deals / internal politics / banking history.

 

When genius failed is a tough read if you don't have a basic understanding of HF. My favorites have been:

-The accidental Investment banker (talks about the evolution of IB from the 80's-recent) -King of Capital (all about blackstone and how PE became to be) -Monkey business (quick fun read)

XX
 

The Most Important Thing - Howard Marks

Serious soft spot for that book at the moment.

"After you work on Wall Street it’s a choice, would you rather work at McDonalds or on the sell-side? I would choose McDonalds over the sell-side.” - David Tepper
 

im looking for books that provide information on trading as well as an insiders view on the industry (think fiasco by frank portnoy and Liars Poker)

any suggestions?

 

yeah liar's poker gets re written every decade or so. honestly, from reading FIASCO you get the sense the author didn't really understand the products that well. and i think it's Partnoy.

 

Books are too general. Go to local events for the schools you're interested in and network your ass off. Also, go visit the schools and do the same. Stay in touch with Alum, current students, and if possible the admissions staff. Some schools will give you sample essays from admitted students so you can get a feel for the content in a successful essay. The admissions literature is too general and won't be very helpful. Each school has it's own niche and you need to sell the school on how their particular strengths cater to your short and long term goals. While attending various events, I found two alum and two current students to review (AKA trash) my essays but they were extremely helpful. Get it directly from the horse's mouth, not some yo-yo who couldn't get into a top school but decided to start a business "giving advice" on how to get in. How many ex bankers or consultants do you think are sitting around writing these books? You'll run into a lot of dead ends, but all you need is a couple of people to review your essays. I got well over 200 business cards and I told you how many people actually reviewed my essays, but that was all I needed...

Although there are books with sample essays of accepted students, those would probably be helpful if they are in fact actual essays...

 

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