In anything you do, there is nothing better than education to give you a better fighting chance against the other professionals in the arena. This is one of the reasons why I seldom recommend people to give money to a financial advisor without spending some of their own time doing reasearch on investments, and also research on the financial advisor.

These are some of the books I recommend people to buy or borrow and read when they want to be proficient in investments and growing their assets. It is also categorised into certain topics that people might have a particular interest for.

Biographies

Jesse Livermore: World's Greatest Stock Trader by Richard Smitten
This book is one of the most complete book I have ever read about Jesse Livermore. Jesse Livermore was one of the most famous stock trader in the early 1900s and up to the great crash of 1929. This book is one of the most concise reference of what went through his mind at the different periods of his life, how he developed the style that he had, and how his life eventually ended in depression and suicide. A really good book that shows the ups and downs in the life of a great trader.

Technical Analysis

Street Smarts: High Probability Short-Term Trading Strategies by Laurence Connors and Linda Raschke
In Technical Analysis, there is a group of people who likes to look for high probability entry signals. For such people, you don't have to look any futher than this book. In this book, Laurence Connors and Linda Raschke presents quite a number of high probability signals, such as 1-2 day reversals, failure of day highs/lows, volatility breakouts, etc. While there are actually many different types of strategies presented here, they do say that you only need to choose 1-2 that appeals to you and you would do fine. Provided are also their personal opinion and commentaries on the various strategies and how it might work out for you.

Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques, Second Edition by Steve Nison
Steve Nison was one of the earliest Americans to write a book on candlesticks. In fact, candlesticks originally came from Japan, and it was proven to be very successful over there. In this large reference book, Steve Nison gives a description of the common candlestick formations as well as the psychology behind each formation. Once you understand the psychology behind candlesticks and why it works, looking at charts will never be the same again.

Fundamental Analysis

One Up On Wall Street : How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market by Peter Lynch
Peter Lynch is one of the lead guys at the famous Fidelity Investments. One of the main themes in this book is that everybody already has enough inherent knowledge to be a good investor. The basis behind this is that in you life, you have experiences from  your surroundings, thus what you have to do is to take advantage of this. A fund manager might be good at doing research, but he would never know as much about the shipping industry as someone who has spent 15 years working in the shipping industry. He also talks about ideas such as you don't have to correctly predict the prices of stocks to make money, and that you have to keep your mind open to new ideas.

The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition) by Benjamin Graham
Benjamin Graham is known as the Father of modern security analysis and has his roots in value investing with a margin of safety. Being the teacher of billionaire Warren Buffett, he is also credited with providing concepts on sound investment frameworks in his books. In this book, one of the biggest takeaways is the concept of investing in sound companies with a large margin of safety in its price.

Psychology/System

How to Trade In Stocksby Jesse Livermore
This book is actually written by Jesse Livermore himself. In it, he talks about how he records the price of stocks, and from those recordings, how he determines the entry price of it. Though it is a little old in that he uses paper to record stock prices (not even using charting, just pure numbers), certain concepts such as his market key system and the pivots to determine reversals and change of trends, as well as continuation of trends can be useful if the psychology and concept behind it can be understood.

Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Tradersby Jack Schwager
This book is a MUST READ. In this book as well as New Market Wizards and Stock Market Wizards, Jack Schwager goes out to interview traders who have done extremely well in their activities. Only after reading this book, that it would dawn upon you that there are people making in excess of 50% per annum consistently for decades. Enough said, you gotta read these books!

Trading for a Living: Psychology, Trading Tactics, Money Management by Dr Alexander Elder
Alexander Elder is one of the most read author among people who want to do trading full time. In this book as well as his later book, Come Into My Trading Room, he covers topics such as individual psychology and how it can be destructive, mass psychology and how it drives the market, trading tactics, money management, as well as a sample of his own trading styles. For those who find the first book "Trading for a living" hard to read, the second book "Come into my trading room" is a little bit easier on the eyes.

Trade Your Way to Financial Freedomby Van K Tharp
This is one of the more recent books I have read. It in terms of risk management, it is definitely one of the best! One of the key concepts brough out by Dr Van K Tharp is the idea of position sizing. Earlier, we talked about trading is about taking as low a risk to obtain as high a profit as possible. Being typical traders, we spend a lot of time looking at entry signals, exit signals, cut loss points. But too little time is spent on analysing the risk involved and how that could affect position sizing. In one part of the book, he showed the impact of how using the typical X lots per $Y of cash available, compared to % risk per trade resulted in returns as different as 5.75% per annum, compared to 20.92% per annum. Do note, this is even when  you keep the entry signals, exit signals, cut loss points, for both systems the same. The only thing that is changed is how you approach position sizing. Simply astounding!

Way of the Turtle: The Secret Methods that Turned Ordinary People into Legendary Tradersby Curtis Faith
Turtle trading is a method that was conceptualised when 2 guys, William Eckhardt and Richard Dennis had a debate. The debate was if succesful traders were born, or can they be trained. Thus, in order to settle the debate, they decided to take up a group of traders, who were there on known as 'The Turtle Traders'. In the next 4 years, 'The Turtle Traders' became the most famous experiment in the trading industry, because they turned in an annualised compounded rate of return of 80% for 4 years. While it is better if you get the book mentioned, there are actually a free ebook available legally online. Go source for it if you are interested.

Personal Finance

The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
While this book is not about stocks investment or trading, it is a book that gives a general concept on personal finance and what it takes to be financially free. Concepts such as putting aside 30% of your income for investments and business purposes may seem simple and trival, yet it is small concepts like these that decides if a person will be financially free or financially broke at 60 years old. This is definitely a must read if you intend to retire sometime in you life.

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