Recommended reading

Buffettology

Review reproduced from Investing for Growth newsletter, February 1998

Published by Free Press
3rd edition, published in 2002

The Wisdom Of Fools

Review reproduced from Investing for Growth newsletter, January 1988

Published by Boxtree
3rd edition, published in 2002

Super Stocks by leading American investor, Kenneth Fisher, is a superb guide to buying high-technology stocks that have experienced a setback and are due for a massive recovery in their share prices. In particular, Fisher explains in detail the use of price-to-sales and price-to-research and development ratios. This is the book to help you make really big profits in the technology sector.

Published by Irwin
published in 1990

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by the father of Kenneth Fisher, Phillip Fisher, is a classic work on growth stocks first published in 1958. Even Benjamin Graham recommended it to growth stock investors. Worth buying for one chapter alone - the 15 points to look for in a common stock. To whet your appetite, point 1 is, 'Does the company have products or services with sufficient market potential to make possible a sizeable increase in sales for at least several years'.

Published by John Wiley & Sons Inc
published in 2003

Winning on Wall Street by American investment guru Martin Zweig, outlines his investment philosophy and stock selection and market forecasting measures.

Published by Time Warner
3rd edition, published in 1997

How to Make Money in Stocks by the American investor William O'Neill, contains many good investment ideas and is worth reading, if only for his CANSLIM formula for stock selection.

Published by McGraw-Hill Professional
3rd Revised edition edition, published in 2002

Accounting for Growth by Terry Smith, is an excellent book on accounting practices that should help you to detect when creative accounting has been at work. In the second edition, the author once again puts company accounts under the microscope.

Keep an eye open too, for Corporate Pathology another book by Terry Smith due to be published in 2002. As its name implies, the author analysis the reasons for a number of well-known corporate deaths.

Published by Random House
2nd edition, published in 1996

Interpreting Company Reports and Accounts by Geoffrey Holmes and Alan Sugden, is a must for active private investors who want to understand fully the mysteries and complexities of company accounts. The book is constantly being updated, so make sure that you buy the most recent edition.

Published by Pearson Higher Education
8th edition, published in 2002

Investment Biker by Jim Rogers, is an account of Soros's original partner's trip around the world by motor cycle. In addition to being an interesting and amusing account of his adventures in Russia, China, South America, Africa and the like, it is also interlaced with a great deal of basic investment wisdom.

Published by Random House
published in 2003

What Works on Wall Street by Jim O'Shaughnessy was published in September 1996. As the first outsider to gain access to the vast Standard & Poors Compustat database, he had a unique opportunity to study the performance of thousands of American shares during the 40 years 1954-1994. His conclusions are fascinating and highlight in particular the importance of high relative strength and low price-to-sales ratios as very effective investment measures.

Published by McGraw-Hill Professional
2nd edition, published in 1998

The Money Masters and The New Money Masters, by John Train, together with Market Wizards and The New Market Wizards by John Schwager, give very readable accounts of the highly successful strategies of investment giants like Soros, Lynch and Rogers. John Train concentrates more on stock market investors whereas Schwager also covers option, commodity and currency traders. The key point to learn from these books is that almost all of the investors profiled have a method and a discipline that has been honed and tempered by experience.

Investment Gurus by Peter Tanous is an American book describing interviews with 18 investment stars including many of Wall Street's top money managers. His key questions are how do they do it, is past investment performance any guarantee of future performance and what are the new tools used by the top managers to succeed in today's volatile markets. The common threads are bound to be helpful to all investors.

Article on Investment Gurus in the Financial Mail On Sunday

Published by NYIF
1st edition, published in 1999

Global Guide to Investing by James Morton, is based on a series of interviews with leading investors on a worldwide basis including contributions from investment giants like Dr Marc Faber, Sir John Templeton, Mario Gabelli and Peter Cundill.

Published by FT Prentice Hall
published in 1995

Investing with the Grandmasters by James Morton is based on a series of interviews with many of Britain's greatest investors including Anthony Bolton, Nils Taube and Colin McLean. Well worth reading to pick up a few helpful ideas to hone your own approach.

Published by FT Prentice Hall
1st edition, published in 1996

The Motley Fool UK Investment Guide by David and Tom Gardner. The Gardner's approach is surprisingly similar to my own. They are very keen on small market capitalisation shares, low PEGs, strong cash flow, high relative strength, strong balance sheets, EPS growth in excess of 25% and constant or rising margins. In my view, their criteria and their approach is very unfoolish indeed.

Published by Boxtree
3rd edition, published in 2002

Contrarian Investment Strategies by David Dreman. The best book on contrarian investing by an American fund manager who has produced consistently excellent returns for his clients since 1988. In this book Dreman explains the logic of his approach which can be summed up as: buy shares in good companies when they are temporarily out of favour. For private investors, it's attractive because it provides a safe way of investing in blue-chip stocks, with household names, but without paying excessive prices for their shares.

Published by Simon & Schuster
1st edition, published in 1998

Money Makers by Jonathan Davis. Fascinating profiles of Britain's leading money managers: Anthony Bolton, Nils Taube, Ian Rushbrook, Michael Hart, Colin McLean, John Carrington and Mark Mobius - men who account for billions of pounds of pension fund money between them. Apart from providing absorbing studies of men at the top of their profession, what Jonathon's book communicates so well is that the methods they rely on overlap so much and include many features that will be very familiar to most private investors.

Published by Orion Publishing Co
1st edition, published in 1998

Devil Take the Hindmost by Edward Chancellor. Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. This is as true of investing as any other field of human endeavour, and it is therefore essential for investors, particularly young investors, to read at least one book of stock market history. As this fascinating book demonstrates, stock market history is lively, tumultuous stuff, with all the foibles of human life represented. Edward Chancellor starts his analysis with a vivid account of stock speculation in the 17th Century, and moves forward through the years to the Gold Rush, the railway stock mania, the Crash of 1929, the junk bond era, and the wild speculation of the 1990s. Different as they were in context, and distant as they are from the present day, all these episodes had two things in common with current investing behaviour: fear and greed.

Published by Penguin Group USA
1st edition, published in 1999

Technical Analysis Plain and Simple by Michael Kahn. A practical guide to key charting techniques with an explanation of how you can use them in real life investing. So many TA books are abstract or academic in style and completely unsuited to ordinary investors. This one is different. It explains the key concepts simply and clearly. Useful for people who want to know what charting is and get started quickly.

Published by FT Prentice Hall
1st edition, published in 1999

Magic Numbers by Peter Temple. Many books on investment describe a methodology which requires you to calculate one or more financial ratios. If only all those important ratios were collected in one place, defined, and separately illustrated with a worked-through example. Well, now they are! Peter Temple has done investors a great service by putting together a reference manual of all the key ratios, including those covering income statements, balance sheets, cash flow, share price ratios, and risk/volatility.

Published by John Wiley & Sons Inc
New title edition, published in 2001

The Essays of Warren Buffett by Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett's annual letters to the shareholders of his investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, enjoy cult status in the USA. Until recently, it was impossible to get hold of them, except by writing to the company and requesting a package. So great was the demand that they decided to have a collection of the best letters published. What makes this book so special? It is not just that Buffett's long-term track record is so impressive and his methodology so appealing to ordinary investors. It is also that the man himself emerges as a gifted communicator. He explains dry concepts with sharp metaphors, never loses the opportunity to loose off an anecdote, and his writing style is brisk and light. If you are remotely serious about investment, this is a 'must' buy.

Published by John Wiley & Sons
Revised edition edition, published in 2002

Trading Online by Alpesh Patel. The latest edition of Alpesh Patel's bestselling book on using the internet for investing. He tells you where to find the best financial news, data, commentary and analysis, where the best tools are, how to get quality information at minimal cost, and what to avoid. In general his advice is commendably practical and realistic, with lots of do's and don'ts. Bear in mind that Patel is not just a journalist on assignment, but an active investor who practises what he preaches. That gives his book a credibility, and a liveliness, that you do not always get in other books.

Published by FT Prentice Hall
New title edition, published in 2001

Irrational Exuberance by Robert Shiller. When the internet mania was in full flight and dotcom companies were trading at high multiples of their miserably small sales (no profits of course), the voices urging caution were drowned by those who asserted that "this time it's different". Robert Shiller's voice was heard, but too late for some investors. If you want to now how and why the Dow Jones Industrial Average tripled between 1994 and 1999 - this is the book to read. Shiller looks at the cultural factors behind the stock boom, the institutional pressures on banks to support the crazy valuations, and the inevitability when prices go up so fast for it all to end in tears.

Published by Princeton University Press
1st edition, published in 2001

The Book of Investing Rules edited by Philip Jenks and Stephen Eckett. The Book of Investing Rules is a interesting collection of original 'rules' written by 150 well known investors, fund managers, analysts, and financial commentators. Each has chosen a particular theme - e.g. share valuation, biotech stocks, turnarounds, surviving bear markets, the luxury goods sector, spotting acquisition targets, investing in gold, common mistakes, and so on - and provided ten rules on each. Most rules consist of two parts: firstly, the basic observation or statement of opinion, and secondly an elaboration which explains why it applies, with examples. There is so much in this book, that it is best treated as something to dip into, or to use as an essential reference source, rather than something to read from cover to cover.

Published by Harriman House
1st edition, published in 2002