Recommended books on investing?

mightbedave

Having followed the advice on this website over pretty much all its 18 years, plus plenty of hard work, and some luck, I have suddenly found myself in (early) middle age in a very comfortable financial position. Including my company pension (where I have full control over investment choices) plus other bits I've invested in a SIPP/ISAs/Lifetime ISA/Junior ISAs for the kids, I now have control over a lot of invested money but am increasingly uncomfortable with my lack of knowledge about what I am doing. It's worked out reasonably well so far but I feel it's more luck than judgement. I am considering getting an IFA but have the feeling they will just tell me stuff I could easily figure out for myself. The question is how do I start learning more about investing? I know the basics about all the tax efficient wrappers, active vs. passive but don't really know how to properly diversify nor when I should switch from one type of investment to another.

Can anyone recommend any good books to give me a more detailed understanding?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Bobziz

I'd also be interested in any good reads, and feel that I'm in a not too dissimilar position. I'd also be interested to know how much time people spend establishing and managing their portfolios. Great to be able to beat world trackers, but what's the time cost in doing so ?

mightbedave

Bobziz said:

I'd also be interested in any good reads, and feel that I'm in a not too dissimilar position. I'd also be interested to know how much time people spend establishing and managing their portfolios. Great to be able to beat world trackers, but what's the time cost in doing so ?

Yes, I'm often tempted to put it all in something like Vanguard Life Strategy or Target Retirement or just a bunch of trackers but so far the small number of managed funds I have picked have performed significantly better. Could just be a fluke because everything I read suggests index trackers should win in the long run. I just don't like it when what I read doesn't fit with my direct experience.

JohnWinder

There are several such enquiries recently here, but better luck finding them than I had. Here's one:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4752194/books-on-investing/p1

Almost anything by William Bernstein, despite the reservations of some here on the usefulness of USA origin books.

Time spent on portfolios? Could be a year or two if you're starting from scratch and have a normal life to lead as well; but after that, about two hours/year.

Not comfortable with passive, having won out with active? I don't think anyone need feel guilty, apologetic etc. As long as you know the arguments and the evidence, for one or the other, then one should make up one's own mind. In health care over the last few decades we moved from paternalism to informed consent, the patient decides what's best for themselves after being informed of the alternatives and pros/cons instead of the doctor choosing without what's relevant being disclosed. So it's probably good enough in financial management as well, which is perhaps where a lot of the criticism of financial advisors comes in: should they educate clients about their options and help them decide, or direct them this way or that while giving them no better understanding?

dunroving

John Bogle's Little Book of Common Sense Investing. Best £10 I ever invested.

maxsteam

My advice would be to simply google for "investing for beginners" and see if you can find decent advice from a reputable site. I am sure that you already know some reputable investment havens and there will be some well-qualified people working there who, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, have nothing better to do than share their wisdom through the medium of their employer's web site. The bad sites will say "send us your money, we'll do the rest" or they might say "gold - it's the only solution" while the good sites will offer more information than you could possibly digest. In particular, the good sites will tell you not to invest unless/until you understand what you are doing and the good sites will not pretend that they are the best or only place to invest.

Your title suggests that you prefer books. Other people prefer YouTube. Here are a few web addresses, but I am sure you can find some better ones:
https://www.youinvest.co.uk/new-to-investing/beginners-guide
https://www.lloydsbank.com/investing/understanding-investing/investing-for-beginners.html
https://www.fidelity.co.uk/investing-for-beginners/
https://www.halifax.co.uk/investing/understanding-investing/investing-for-beginners.html
https://www.bankofscotland.co.uk/investing/understanding-investing/investing-for-beginners.html

Thrugelmir

To quote Warren Buffett,     "If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians".

An excellent book to start with , that you can dip in and out of is 

HARRIMAN'S NEW BOOK OF INVESTING RULES

The do’s and don’ts of the world’s best investors

Contrasting views from across the investment world spectrum. Will enable you to start to formulate your own strategy.  Here's the contents. 

Frank Armstrong - Investing from the Cockpit
Glen Arnold - Investing Tenets of the Private Investor Who Trained the Professionals
Martin Bamford - Britain's Bestselling Financial Planner on Dealing with Risk and Reward
John Baron - Insights of an Investment Trust Expert
Andy Bell - How to Be a Successful DIY Investor
Alistair Blair - Eleven Quick Tips for Time-Limited Private Investors
Michael van Biema - Concentrated Value Investing in Six Simple Steps
John C. Bogle - Investing Insights of the $4 Trillion Man
Anthony Bolton - Long-Term Lessons from a Legendary Run
Jeroen Bos - How to Go Deep Value Diving for Bargain Shares
Jonathan Boyar - Patience Makes Perfect
Ashton Bradbury - Go Top-Down and Bottom-Up for Better Investing Outcomes
Kathleen Brooks - Five FX Fixes to Trade Like the Best
Mike Brooks - How to Be Genuinely Diversified
David Buik - Reflections on a Life in the City
Robbie Burns - The Naked Trader Laid Bare
Richard Buxton - The Hard But Rewarding Art of Investing
Tobias Carlisle - Zig When the Investing Crowd Zags
Robert Carver - How to Invest Systematically
Jonathan Clements - Nine Ways to Think Differently About Money
Michael Covel - Ten Tenets of a Trend Follower
Andrew Craig - How to Invest So That Crashes Don't Matter
Sandy Cross - Six Tips for Talent-Spotting Active Fund Managers
Lawrence A. Cunningham - Warren Buffett's Investing Rules
Job Curtis - Successful Equity Income Investing
Mark Dampier - Investing, Warts and All
Elroy Dimson, Paul Marsh and Mike Staunton - Five Factors that Influence Investment Returns
Stephen Eckett - How to Profit from Stock Market Anomalies
Alexander Elder - Comments on Futures
Scott Fearon - Stock Picking 101
Ken Fisher - Invest By Knowing What Others Don't
Anthony Garner - How to use ETF Trading Systems to Outperform the Experts
Wesley Gray and Jack Vogel - Axioms of the Alpha Architects
Tren Griffin - Charlie Munger's Investing Rules
Robin Griffiths - Rules Beat Judgement: Trend Following With Technical Analysis
Tim Hale - Four Simple Steps to Smarter Investing
Ian Heslop - Five Bright Ideas for Taking the Bias out of Investment
Andrew Hunt - Two Mice Fell in a Bucket of Cream - The Art of Contrarian Value Investing
James Inglis-Jones - How Practising Your Process Makes Perfect
Niels Jensen - Absolute Returns and the End of Indexing
John Kingham - Dictums of a Defensive Value Investor
Lars Kroijer - How to Invest Without Speculation or Sleepless Nights
John Lee - Twelve Golden Rules for Making a Million - Slowly
Nick Louth - Make Meaningful Returns with the Help of a Marvellous Mathematical Principle
Yoram Lustig - Eight Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Investing
Chris Mayer - Four Simple Things You Should Do to Succeed in the Stock Market
Tim Morgan - Risk and Return in an Age of Abnormality
Charlie Morris - Everything is Connected: An Investor's Guide
Ned Naylor-Leyland - The Wheel of History - and a Golden Future
Matthew Partridge - What I Learned From Studying the Greatest Investors in History
Jacob Rees-Mogg - Investing in Emerging Markets with Veins of Ice and Nerves of Steel
David Schneider - Before You Invest in Businesses, Start a Business
Edmund Shing - Know Thyself! And Pick a System to Suit You
Peter Spiller - In Investing, Only the Short Term is Random
Greg Steinmetz - Value Investing in the Age of Leonardo
Tom Stevenson - Don't Lose Money - It's Hard to Replace
Van K. Tharp - You Don't Trade the Markets: You Trade Your Beliefs About Them
Nick Train - The Seven Pillars of Investing Wisdom
Eoin Treacy - Investing in Explosions Waiting to Happen
Pertti Vanhanen - Nine Home Truths of Property Investing
Edgar Wachenheim - Learn to Love Common Stocks
Todd Wenning - How to Keep Your Dividend Edge
Gervais Williams - Make the Most of the Market Environment
Craig Yeaman - Good Ideas Are Finite

Linton

mightbedave said:

Bobziz said:

I'd also be interested in any good reads, and feel that I'm in a not too dissimilar position. I'd also be interested to know how much time people spend establishing and managing their portfolios. Great to be able to beat world trackers, but what's the time cost in doing so ?

Yes, I'm often tempted to put it all in something like Vanguard Life Strategy or Target Retirement or just a bunch of trackers but so far the small number of managed funds I have picked have performed significantly better. Could just be a fluke because everything I read suggests index trackers should win in the long run. I just don't like it when what I read doesn't fit with my direct experience.

Dont believe everything you read about investing, especially from US sources where the circumstances are different.  Always check out things for yourself.   It can be worthwhile finding the source of the data which can be rather different or nuanced to what some  guru or website claims it says.

mightbedave

Thanks all. I have gone for these to start with. I'm a slow reader so will report back in a few months on how I got on with them.

• The Little Book of Common Sense Investing - John C. Bogle
• Smarter Investing - Tim Hale
• The Long and the Short of It: A guide to finance and investment for normally intelligent people - John Kay
• Harriman's New Book of Investing Rules

JohnWinder

You might get the first one, indeed all, free from a library. But the first looks free at https://www.pdfdrive.com/little-book-of-common-sense-investing-e34879627.html, or search 'little book of commonsense investing bogle pdf'.

Free or not, don't miss Hale's. It's comprehensive, coherent, systematic, practical and UK based for the Anglophiles.

ChilliBob

Interesting thread, I've considered the Tim Hale one a few times, does it differ much from Lars' Investing Demystified? I read a recent revie suggesting Hale's book could do with an update, but it might just be one semi disgruntled review.