The Investment Bankers Reading List

I just wanted to start a thread where people could add their favorite books related to finance and investment banking. Also, include books that you think would give us knowledge that would be useful in this career we have chosen.

I'll start:

The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs - Charles D. Ellis

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine - Michael Lewis

48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene

The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli

 

Monkey Business - John Rolfe, Peter Troob Too Big to Fail - Andrew Sorkin

and seeing as I'm just starting to get into this stuff, I have a book arriving today from amazon that I have yet to read -- a reference book rather than a narrative -- but it has 5 stars across the board, for the most part:

Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions - Josh Rosenbaum, Josh Pearl, Joseph Perella

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is interesting, as well.

 
LA_Duc:
Monkey Business - John Rolfe, Peter Troob Too Big to Fail - Andrew Sorkin

and seeing as I'm just starting to get into this stuff, I have a book arriving today from amazon that I have yet to read -- a reference book rather than a narrative -- but it has 5 stars across the board, for the most part:

Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions - Josh Rosenbaum, Josh Pearl, Joseph Perella

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is interesting, as well.

i could never fini a Malcom book, like after reading half of it, you lose interest... but the 10,000 hour theory is really interesting, that is like a 2 year analyst stint (100 hr x 100 weeks)

 
toiysam:

i could never fini a Malcom book, like after reading half of it, you lose interest... but the 10,000 hour theory is really interesting, that is like a 2 year analyst stint (100 hr x 100 weeks)

Wow, I've read Outliers and have never noticed how perfectly applicable that rule is to Banking. Good catch, man.

"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars." - J. Paul Getty
 
Gloomberg:
Anything written by Machiavelli is a must for prospective chimps

Lol. Most of Machiavelli's works were contemporary and have no relevance to the modern day at all (unless you dig reading profiles of Italian city states). You're probably referencing The Prince, because you think it teaches you the bad ass secrets of how to manipulate people.

You do realise that the Prince is, in many respects, a work of satire don't you?

Also, even if it were a blueprint for gaining political influence, it has no relevance for chimps. Analysts / Associates are plebs, not princes.

“I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are.” - Hicks
 

Greene's books are a huge letdown. How the fuck is some story about some 14th century french barron supposed to help me get promoted?

If you want real banker philosophy read Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche. It's all about creating value, and just generally being a badass.

You know you've been working too hard when you stop dreaming about bottles of champagne and hordes of naked women, and start dreaming about conditional formatting and circular references.
 
Best Response

My favorites for monkeys are, in this order

  • "Liar's Poker" (a great education on the history of mortgage trading and structuring, and a fascinated look at the frat house trading culture of the 80s)
  • "Monkey Business" (read before you start - gives you a real life taste of what investment banking is actually like)
  • "Bank" (a hilarious satire of analyst life - read after you've started working, you'll empathize)
  • "The Four Hour Work Week" (for when you're burnt out and ready to quit, this book will tell you how)

You can read all these Sun Tzu or Machiavelli books for fun if you want, but it's certainly not going to help you with work as an analyst/associate. You're a worker bee, not a captain of industry. Skip the textbooks too - once in a blue moon they'll be useful as a reference, but you'll learn everything you need to in training.

- Capt K - "Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, bait the hook with prestige." - Paul Graham
 
rubenharris:
Oh, I forgot to add "The Secrets of Mental Math: The Mathemagician's Guide to Lightning Calculation and Amazing Math Tricks"...it's pure gold..
Ha! Just bought this book actually and it came in yesterday. I've never heard anything bad about it.
 

@camondo

We are in a cutthroat industry. Machiavelli's ideas and teachings represent that. Being aware of some of the tools used by corrupt individuals to take advantage of people and to get power help us to avoid getting a knife in our back.

 

@camondo

We are in a cutthroat industry. Machiavelli's ideas and teachings represent that. Being aware of some of the tools used by corrupt individuals to take advantage of people and to get power help us to avoid getting a knife in our back.

 
rubenharris:
@camondo

We are in a cutthroat industry. Machiavelli's ideas and teachings represent that. Being aware of some of the tools used by corrupt individuals to take advantage of people and to get power help us to avoid getting a knife in our back.

Thank you

 

I don't understand how "The Prince" helps at all. If you are going to throw Machiavelli in, I am surprised you didn't put the Art of War by Lao Tsu in there as well. The only takeaway I ever really think about from the Prince is "Its better to be feared than loved." Lets get over the delusions of grandeur guys, we are competing on an individual level, not governing a city state.

Anyway, here are my recommendations that haven't been mentioned yet:

Barbarians at the Gate- Bryan Burrough (?) Reminiscences of a Stock Operator- Edwin LeFevre Predator's Ball Den Of Thieves A Random Walk Down Wall St - Burton Malkiel The Intelligent Investor- Graham The Smartest Guys in the room.

Note: Its entirely possible I butchered the spelling of author's or got them completely wrong.

 

As is often mentioned in these book threads, The Alchemist is a fantastic book especially for all the bankers who feel like they've been "shepherding" too long. Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov is still my favorite book, although not a light read.

I've read many of the banking/trading and ultimate downfall (LTCM, Drexel) books; many are accurate and often hilarious, but I find it more refreshing to read books that have nothing to do with finance these days.

 

In honor of the coming developed world debt crisis: -"The Chastening", Paul Blustein -"And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out)", Paul Blustein and of course, "This Time is Different", Reinhart and Rogoff

Anyone read Roubini's new book?

 

For interview questions, the M&I/Breaking into Wall Street 400-question guide is easily the best imo, but some people like the WSO guides and the Vault guide.

If you want to understand investment banking more in depth, "Investment Banking" by Rosenbaum and Pearl is a good book.

That said, investment banking is not investing. If you want to learn how to trade equities or whatever, none of this is really going to help you. As an analyst, ibanking consists of making powerpoints and excel spreadsheets to try to a) sell or buy a company or b) issue debt or equity securities. It's not a position where you invest. If investing is what interests you, try looking into investment management, hedge funds or private equity. Spending time in investment banking can help you break into "buy-side" roles though (buy-side refers to firms that actually invest in companies/stocks/bonds/etc to make a return) which is why a lot of people want to do it out of college.

People will probably post on this thread and make fun of you so I wanted to give you the straight answer. The best thing you can do as a kid in high school to break into ibanking is to get the highest possible GPA/SAT you can and do impressive extracurricular activities so you can get accepted to a top college. Knowing particulars about technical investment banking stuff at this point won't really help you. You can learn all of that during your sophomore or junior year of college with ease. However, if you can't get into a top school, it will be much, much, much harder to break into the field (although certainly not impossible).

Hope this helps.

 
[quote]The HBS guys have MAD SWAGGER. They frequently wear their class jackets to boston bars, strutting and acting like they own the joint. They just ooze success, confidence, swagger, basically attributes of alpha males.[/quote]
 

First, you need to understand that an investment banker is not the same thing as a stock picker or an investor or a sales and trader for that matter. But I commend your enthusiasm given you are still in high school and have a long way to go. It's never too early to learn about the markets, but make sure you don't go overboard - keep things balanced and enjoy the next couple of years.

For starters, I highly recommend reading Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor - he was Warren Buffet's professor and mentor at Columbia, and Graham is widely regarded as the father of fundamental analysis. The book is a relatively easy read even if you have no prior experience in finance.

Two other books I strongly recommend are One Up on Wall Street and A Random Walk Down Wall Street.

If you really want to learn what investment bankers do, then read Rosenbaum and Pearl's Investment Banking book. More of a how-to, but this covers the basic methodologies investment bankers use to value companies.

Lastly, if you want to learn more about the culture and lifestyle in Wall Street, I suggest you look into Liar's Poker and Monkey Business.

Cheers.

Capitalist
 

This is perfect, thanks and I will look into those books. So is it really true that it is hard to get into wall street from like NYU, Georgetown, Emory, other schools on that level? what should i look for in markets? like trends wise

 

theres a lot of books you can get at barnes and nobles that talk specifically about finance/wall street stuff, but if you want general reading about the atmosphere and wall street 'feel' you should check out Liars Poker or Monkey Business, something along those lines

 

Yea ive read basic ones, of course Liars Poker, Im looking for more specific ones. Ive walked through those sections at book stores and there are tons of books, I dont want to waste my time reading some useless information

 

Barbarians at the Gate, while it does cover histories of RJR Nabisco, KKR, and the like, it does a good job of showing to some degree what bankers do. The hours spent negotiating on a Friday night, getting called in at 3-4 AM. Of course, it won't help you with what its like to be an analyst. As far as being compared to Liar's Poker, I would say Barbarians is much more relevant.

 

Confessions of a Wall Street Analyst - Dan Reingold Greed Merchants - Philip Auger

When asked in interviews how I'd gone about learning about IBanking, I said I'd gone out to find critiques of the industry - book of praise will undoubtedly have more bias than a critique (which can honestly tell the awful truths of the industry). Anyway, one MD called to give me an offer, stating that my questioning approach to life had struck a chord with him....I can only assume he meant reading these books before applying.

 

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