Ballard Mudge Financial Group-Reading List

Investing Books

Security Analysis- Graham and Dodd

Warren Buffett often says that the best book on investing is the more accessible “The Intelligent Investor" but in our view Security Analysis is far superior. It is much more detailed and the classic value investment textbook.

The Outsiders- William Thorndike

This is the best book showing the importance of investment decisions that CEOs make and the impact these decisions have on the companies they run.

Thinking in Bets- Annie Duke

Why is a book by a professional poker player on the list? Annie does a fantastic job of describing “thinking in bets” and the risk reward trade-off investors face making decisions with incomplete information.

Little Book that Builds Wealth- Pat Dorsey

Pat Dorsey does a great job of clearly expanding on Buffett’s ideas of “Moats”. Moats are the competitive advantage that allows a business to achieve higher profitability and investment returns. This book is a simple enjoyable read and Pat also expands on these ideas in his podcasts episodes on “Invest Like the Best”.

Money Masters- John Train

This dated book offers a look into the investment styles and methods of the best investors of a previous generation.

Capitalism without Capital-Johnathan Haskel and Stian Westlake

The authors explore the implications of the new knowledge economy and the “Asset light” business model.

Thinking Fast and Slow- Daniel Kahneman

Daniel Kahneman and his long time collaborator Amos Tversky spend a lifetime studying human decision making and biases. Knowing your biases can help you make better decisions.

Podcasts

Invest like the Best- Patrick O’Shaugnessy

Patrick is the CEO of O’Shaugnessy Asset Management and hosts a long line of impressive investment guests. Patrick is a very able host with a quant investing slant. While most of his conversations are interesting, we found the below guests to be the best episodes. Access them wherever you get your Podcasts, we use the Apple Podcast App but have included the below list for reference.

Patrick also has an excellent reading list. Visit his page and you will be prompted to enroll for the list and updates.

Michael Mouboussin, Episode 2, 37, 126

Pat Dorsey, Episode 51, 77

Chuck Akre- Episode 135

Will Thorndike, Episode 36

Brent Beshore, Episode 10, 22, 100

Toby Lutke- Episode 173

Chris Bloomstran- Episode 141, 171

Annie Duke, Episode 125

Websites/Blogs

Sedar.com

This is Canada’s depository of public filings. All Canadian public companies are required to make their disclosures there. There is no end to the useful information that you can acquire here. We find it most useful to scan the “New Filings” each evening before the page is reset. Ignoring commodity companies speeds this work.

Edgar Online

This is the US SEC depository of filings. You can find information about all American companies here.

Memos- Howard Marks

Howard Marks is one of the founding partners of Oaktree Capital a credit focused institutional investment firm recently acquired by Brookfield Asset Management. Howard has also written several great books. We have focused on his memos on our reading list since they are released more frequently and they are often timely depending on market moves.

Berkshire Hathaway- Annual Shareholder Letters

Warren Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders. The letters going back to 1977 are posted there. You can buy books with the earlier letters. This is a great rabbit hole to go down.