The Investor's Manifesto: Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between

The Books You Need … Aged Like Fine Wine

Concision has its price. I designed this book to illustrate how investors should respond to today’s scary markets, and those who are just beginning their investment education will need to continue the learning process. As outlined here, there are four areas that every investor has to master: the theory, the history, the psychology, and the business of finance. I have provided what I hope is a reasonable taste of all four areas, but if you are serious about your investment future—and you would be insane not to be—you have much further to travel. The good news is that all of the reading I recommend is a genuine pleasure, crafted by writers whose prose goes down like fine claret.

Theory: Burton G. Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Best and Latest Investment Advice Money Can Buy (W.W. Norton & Co., 2006) will walk you through everything you need to know about exactly how stocks, bonds, and portfolios behave and how you should approach them. Now in its ninth edition, you would do well to reread each new one as Professor Malkiel cranks them out.

History: Edward Chancellor’s Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (Plume, 2000) remains the classic narrative on bubbles and panics. One day—it might be next year or in 30 years—you will watch the financial markets go completely bonkers—either up or down—and say to yourself, thanks to Mr. Chancellor, “I’ve seen this movie, and I know how it ends.” You just might leave ...