Readings & Websites
Young Money – Kevin Roose (If you want a career in finance)
A journalist follows two students for two years who just started a career at a large investment firm. Everyone shares his or her personal experiences about the world, what happens and what is expected.
Liar’s Poker – Michiel Lewis (Must Read)
A trader wrote this book after his personal experience in the world. It tells the story from the perspective of a trader, pros and cons.
Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World – William D. Cohan
Thorough report on the existence of Goldman Sachs and its growth. It goes through the highs and lows of bank. Personal experiences from within the bank are especially interesting.
Swimming with the Sharks – Joris Luyendijk
A book written from hundreds of interviews Luyendijk conducted while writing a blog about banking for the guardian. A stunning report from an outsider, Luyendijk is an anthropologic by training and has spend years in the middle east, as he tries to understand the city and talks about the unpopular middle office.
The Big Short – Michiel Lewis
Book about the financial crisis and the trading of mortgage backed securities and accompanying swaps.
FlashBoys – Michiel Lewis
Explains how High-Frequency Trading really works, how people make money with it and the effect on the general market. It tells how people with zero knowledge of investments make on the stock market.
Too Big to Fail – Andrew Sorkin
A book about the financial crisis with a focus on governmental action. Especially the FED and Paulsen are discussed. A good book to read to get an understanding about the behind the scenes of bail outs and how solutions are thought up.
A Random Walk Around Wall Street – Burton Gordon Malkiel (Highly recommended)
Good introduction into investing in general. Fundamental analysis is discussed along with academic research about the market. Lots of clichés but teaches healthy approach to investing. The book can also be found online for free.
The Market Maker’s Edge Josh Lukeman
The book tries to combine fundamental and technical analysis, teaches timing and shows you how to keep control over your investments. A great book to start with!
The Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham
The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham’s philosophy of “value investing” — which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies — has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949.
Margin of Safety – Seth Klarman
Margin of Safety explains the philosophy of value investing, and perhaps more importantly, the logic behind it. It demonstrates why it succeeds while other approaches fail. The blueprint that Klarman offers, if carefully followed, offers the investor the strong possibility of investment success with limited risk.
You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits – Joel Greenbatt
A comprehensive and practical guide to the stock market from a successful fund manager—filled with case studies, important background information, and all the tools you’ll need to become a stock market genius. This book focuses especially on special situations.
Investment Analysis & Portfolio Management – Frank Reilly and Keith Brown
Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management teaches how to manage their money to derive the maximum benefit from what they earn. From asset allocation to selecting investments in a global market, this book gives readers a solid foundation in personal finance and presents the same tools used extensively by professionals, organizations, and schools across the country. Filled with real-world illustrations and hands-on applications, this book takes a rigorous, empirical approach to modern topics such as investment instruments, capital markets, behavioral finance, international investing, globalization, the impact of the 2008 financial market crisis, and changes in rating agencies and government agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Practical and up-to-date, the book is an excellent resource for those with both a theoretical and practical need for investment expertise.
Asset Management: A Systematic Approach to Factor Investing – Andrew Ang
Professor Andrew Ang presents a comprehensive, new approach to the age-old problem of where to put your money. Years of experience as a finance professor and a consultant have led him to see that what matters aren’t asset class labels, but instead the bundles of overlapping risks they represent. Factor risks must be the focus of our attention if we are to weather market turmoil and receive the rewards that come with doing so.
Exotic Options and Hybrids: A Guide to Structuring, Pricing and Trading – Mohamed Bouzoubaa and Adel Osseiran
Exotic Options and Hybrids is a practical guide to structuring, pricing and hedging complex exotic options and hybrid derivatives that will serve readers through the recent crisis, the road to recovery, the next bull market and beyond. Written by experienced practitioners, it focuses on the three main parts of a derivative’s life: the structuring of a product, its pricing and its hedging.
FINANCIAL DERIVATIVES: Pricing and Risk Management – Robert W. Kolb and James A. Overdahl
If you want to understand derivatives without getting bogged down by the mathematics surrounding their pricing and valuation, Financial Derivatives is the book for you. Through in-depth insights gleaned from years of financial experience, Robert Kolb and James Overdahl clearly explain what derivatives are and how you can prudently use them within the context of your underlying business activities.
The Alchemy of Finance – George Soros
The Alchemy of Finance, Soros presents a theoretical and practical account of current financial trends and a new paradigm by which to understand the financial market today. This edition’s expanded and revised Introduction details Soros’s innovative investment practices along with his views of the world and world order. He also describes a new paradigm for the “theory of reflexivity” which underlies his unique investment strategies. Filled with expert advice and valuable business lessons, The Alchemy of Finance reveals the timeless principles of an investing legend.
Higher Probability Commodity Trading – Carley Garner
In its quest to guide traders through the process of commodity market analysis, strategy development, and risk management, Higher Probability Commodity Trading discusses several alternative market concepts and unconventional views such as option selling tactics, hedging futures positions with options, and combining the practice of fundamental, technical, seasonal, and sentiment analysis to gauge market price changes.
Barbarians At the Gate – Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
This book tells the story of the biggest deal in Private Equity of all time: RJR Nabisco. The deal has gone down in history as the biggest example of corporate greed which makes the book that more interesting. It gives a good overview of an M&A deal and how the industry functions.
King of Capital
This book tells the story of the rise of Blackstone, one of the largest private equity companies in the world. Blackstone has a fascinating and turbulent history making it a worthwhile read.
Fooling Some of the People All of the Time – David Einhorn
The story of a successful value-orientated hedge fund manager who made lots of money on the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. It shows how short-sellers are viewed in the financial world, how people deal with it and the consequences.
Leveraged Trading - Robert Carver
Step by step introduction to building a simple and more complex trading strategy looking at different assets, risk limits and more.
Smart Portfolio - Robert Carver
This book is about building and maintaining smart investment portfolios. At its heart are the three key questions every investor needs to answer: 1. What to invest in. 2. How much to invest. 3. When to make changes to a portfolio.
Systematic Trading - Robert Carver
A more advanced read on systematic strategies building going deeper in analyzing market patterns and strategy considerations.
Advanced in Financial Machine Learning - Marcos Lopez de Prado
An advanced book on applying statistical techniques specifically statistical learning to finance problems and requires some mathematical understanding.
This Blog is Systematic - Robert Carver (Blog)
Great articles and recent posts by Robert Carver on setting up a system and other considerations around systematic trading including to some of his code.
Investment Banking: Valuation, Leveraged Buyouts, and Mergers and Acquisitions
A must-read for up start banker. It deals in dept with valuations of companies and gives good practial scenario’s.
Technical Analysis Explained: The Successful Investor’s Guide to Spotting Investment Trends and Turning Points – Martin J. Pring
Whether you’re trading cornerstone commodities or innovative investment products, observing how investors responded to past events through technical analysis is your key to forecasting when to buy and sell in the future.
Fibonacci Trading: How to Master the Time and Price Advantage – Carolyn Boroden
Fibonacci Trading provides a one-stop resource of reliable tools and clear explanations for both identifying and taking advantage of the trade setups naturally occurring in the markets that will enable you to reach the highest rate of profitable trades. Inside, you’ll find a unique trading methodology based on Fibonacci ratios, and the author’s personal experience analyzing and setting up the markets in real time, which makes this practical volume invaluable to the self-directed investor.
Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google – William Poundstone
This books deals with job interviews, what is to expected and how to prepare. A good and useful read.
Recommended websites
Moody’s : credit rating agency
Standard and Poor’s : credit rating agency
Stockcharts.com : technical analysis for the US
Wikiwealth : collaborative research
Financial sense