The Intelligent Investor by Bejamin Graham
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, is a book which characterized the way many people think about the stock markets like no other book ever did before. Warren Buffett once called it “The best book for investors which has ever been written”. Probably this book also shows his point of view and perhaps without it he wouldn´t be that rich today. The author Benjamin Graham was Buffett’s teacher on Columbia University and the things he though and wrote down have remained valid until today, which nearly resembles a little wonder in the permanent changing economic world.
But what is it that makes this book so unique, that even the richest man of the world calls it his favorite book? First of all we can say that the author was a really brilliant man who together with David Dodd. He discovered that markets are irrational and you can profit of it. Today this is also known as value investing and can, if you adopt it correctly, make you very rich.
The book is structured in 20 chapters, which respond to nearly everything you need to know to become a professional “intelligent” investor. Especially the difference between an investor and a speculator is one of the central points of the book. Other emphases are the margin of safety, and things which train you to make your own decisions and to build up the self-discipline you need for that. The only disadvantage of the book is that there isn´t said much about techniques of the share analysis, but for this area Benjamin wrote another book with the name “Security Analysis”.
So, I really suggest you to read this book, because it´s probably the best one which has ever been written about investing.
The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
This article is a book review about the book The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason. You can buy it on Amazon.com for $6.99 and we really recommend it, because it will teach you some important basics of personal finance and how to build financial wealth. In a nutshell, the book dispenses financial advice through a collection of parables set in ancient Babylon. Through their experiences in business and managing household finance, the characters in the parables learn simple lessons in financial wisdom. Nevertheless, modern people can easily understand and identify with the various situations and learn from the timeless wisdom about money, that is as relevant today as it was back then. Overall, this is a great book to learn how to deal with money and build wealth and how to bend streams of wealth flowing towards you. If you have an income, you can build wealth and get rich.
According to the book cover, more than two million copies have been sold.
Some lessons you will learn in the book:
- A part of all you earn is yours to keep. It should not be not less than tenth, no matter how little you earn.
- Counsel with wise men. Seek the advice of men whose daily work is handling money. Let them save you from such errors.
- Learn to make your treasure work for you, make it your slave. Make its children and its children’s children work for you.
- Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared.
There will be also some articles on WorldFinancialBlog.com about the lessons of this book soon, because in our opinion the book provides valuable lessons which are worth to learn. They worked for a lot of people, so why not for you too? We can adopt the philosophy of ancient Babylon one to one to our own lives today. The eons of time have crumbled but the wisdom of Babylon endures.
Recommended:
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Learn how to invest by reading books
One of the most valuable things on earth are books. For hundreds of years books where the best source of information and this still applies today. Even the invention of the Internet and unlimited access to information can not substitute books. You can choose from a variety of books matching your skill. There is a variety of investing books, from basic to advanced.
I am a very web savvy guy and I work a lot on my computer, but I also read books. Personally, I made a big mistake by not reading a lot of books the last years. But then in the last six months I started to read again, and guess what, I have learned so much about investing since then. Just try it yourself, it works.
There are a lot of reasons why you should read investing and money books. The good ones do not get out of date, actually most of them do not. For example, Benjamin Grahams “Intelligent Investor” about value investing is an all time classic written in 1949. It is a masterpiece of investing literature and although it is 59 years old, you can use most of the techniques described in it even today and surely even for the next 50 years. So, unlike books about computer languages etc, investment and money books do not get out of date so fast. Search for books about general investing methods and you get valuable information that you can use for a long time. If you need specific information on a certain topic like ETFs for example, books are also the best source.
Stop watching TV, start reading
You will probably not learn anything valueable on TV. Sure, there are nice documentations even about finance. But mostly finance TV shows report about things when everybody already knows them, just like investing in gold when everybody just bought gold for two years. The daily stock report is also not interesting, unless the market crashes or one of the companies in your portfolio brings out a new earnings report. But you should really not waste your time on watching TV that tells you that the market went down 1% or something. Go read a book and do not waste your time on TV.