No matter your level of experience – whether you’re a beginner or a professional trader – there’s a trading book out there that can help you hone your skills or gain a market edge. Indeed, the best traders never stop looking to learn. We’ve put together a list of some of our favourite books about trading and investing as well as some recommendations from our CEO interviews.
The Art of Execution, The Art of Execution by Lee Freeman-Shor
The Art of Execution by Lee Freeman-Shor is a fantastic read and succinctly captures the flaws in most people’s investment strategies. And most amazingly, does it using hundreds of millions of dollars and some of the world’s best investors as guinea pigs.
Most investors who lose money have terrible execution and post-investment strategies. The main issue is that they take profits too early and run losses too long.
Obviously, the book can’t tell you what stocks to buy – that’s up to you. But that’s the easy bit, the hardest bit is knowing what to do after you’ve bought them…
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, Edwin Leferve
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is a great book for new traders. First published in 1923, this is a fictionalised biography of the great market speculator Jesse Livermore, who won and lost millions of dollars trading the US stock market in the early 1900s and is speculated to have been a key contributor to the great crash of 1929.
This book is not only a gripping read, but you’ll also find many similarities between some of the early trades Jesse Livermore used to place at trading shops around the US in the early 1900s and many forex brokers today, especially those who run market maker models.
This book won’t necessarily teach you relevant strategies or detailed technical analysis, but will certainly quench your thirst if you have an interest in trading.
High-Performance Trading, Steve Ward
Any seasoned trader will tell you that mastering your trading psychology is perhaps one of the biggest battles in becoming a successful trader over the long term. I always say that you trade yourself first, and the market second.
This is because when you are in the trade and prices are moving fast, its easy to forget your rationale and react in the moment, abandoning your trading plan along the way.
This is when your emotions take control. This becomes an even more important point today with the advent of mobile trading apps, meaning you can monitor prices wherever you are at any time.
High Performance Trading, by Steve Ward, the world famous trading psychology expert, is one of the best around on how to control your emotions when trading. So if you’re making ‘impulse trades’ or struggling to control yourself in the heat of the markets, this could be the perfect place for you to start.
The Trading Game, Gary Stevens
The Trading Game is a book about a guy who hates his job earning loads of money betting on the end of the economic world.
It’s a true story and one of the closest representations of what trading for a bank is actually like.
If you’re interested in making money from trading you should definitely read this, it will show you how smart you need to be to succeed.
Diary of a Professional Commodity Trader, Peter Brandt
Professional trader Peter Brandt shares his experience of live account trading over a period of 21 weeks.
What sets this book apart from the rest is that it provides a much more realistic view of what trading is actually like; the highs, the lows and the constant battles of self doubt when in the trade.
This book is also slightly different than others on the basis that it tracks the progress of a commodities trader, where as many books focus on stocks.
So if you are looking for a truthful tale into the beginnings of a trader’s journey, this could be the book for you.
The New Market Wizards – conversations with America’s top traders, Jack Schwager
This is the second book of Jack Schwager’s Market Wizards series and whilst I do wholeheartedly also recommend the inaugural book, the sequel just tips it as it contains interviews with America’s top traders, so you’ll start to understand the true diversity of successful trading strategies and thinking.
What stands out in this book is that there isn’t a well trodden path to successful trading. Every trader is different.
So if you are looking to gain a broader understanding of how professional traders work, this is a good book for you.
Pit Bull: Lessons from Wall Street’s Champion Trader, Martin ‘Buzzy’ Schwartz
Pit Bull: Lessons from Wall Street’s Champion Trader centers on Martin Schwartz, who in his first year trading on the American Stock Exchange turned $100,000 into $600,000.
This book is perfect for those who want to be short-term speculators, with Schwartz gaining a reputation as one of the best day traders around.
But unlike just a simple success story, this book tracks how Schwartz had to adapt his style as he progressed and shape his trading around his lifestyle to be successful over the long term. This is a thoroughly good read.
The Financial Spread Betting Handbook: A Definitive Guide to Making Money Trading Spread Bets
, Malcolm Pryor
, Malcolm Pryor
It’s the uneducated and inexperienced that with lose money before anyone else…
As with anything spread betting is something you need to be good at to make money. Having natural talent will only get you so far, but in order to beat the markets you need to understand how they work. Not just the economic indicators and events that push a market one way or another. But, instead the mechanics of how the product is operated, the historic trends that can predicate future moves and most importantly know how to learn from experienced traders mistakes.
A quick look on Amazon shows there are around 600 books that cover spread betting. Around 167 of these are in the investments category. However, when educating yourself it pays dividends to do it properly and avoid the fluff. We’ve put together a short list of the best spread betting books, which will give differing perspectives on the product.
One of the most popular books on spread betting, Malcolm Pryor takes the reader on a journey “climbing the spread betting mountain”. It covers all aspects of the learning to spread bet profitably as though the reader were an absolute beginner from what computer to buy, a history of spread betting and what strategies and research tools are best utilised.
The Naked Trader’s Guide to Spread Betting: A guide to making money from shares in up or down markets, Robbie Burns
, Robbie Burns
A humorous and insightful 224 pages from Robbie Burns (AKA the Naked Trader) about his experiences spread betting. Robbie is widely regarded as a successful trader and this collection of entries from his diary and a good overview of the spread betting industry provides some good insights in to how the trader has made his own profitable bets in the past.
Recommended to us by Jonathan Hufford, founder of Spreadex
ADVFN Guide: 101 Charts for Trading Success, Zak Mir
, Zak Mir
No spread betting book list would be complete without at least one entry from the indisputable king of the charts, Zak Mir. Zak has been providing commentary for brokers, fund managers, websites, blogs, TV shows and the entire financial media for over two decades.
The book focuses on charts, which although are not exclusive to spread betting are an essential element. Spread betting is all about short-term trading and short-term trading is all about market timing, market timing is all about technical analysis and technical analysis is all about charts.
Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
The bible for any career ought to be Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. We actually have posters in the back up here because these are the principles we want to live to as a business, and I just think that’s a fantastic place for anyone.
In terms of money, I often find there’s no one book that really does it because books go out of date, and it’s almost something you can’t teach yourself from a book.
Recommended to us by James Roberts, Founder of Partners Wealth Management
Happy Money: The New Science of Smarter Spending, Elizabeth Dunn & Michael Norton
Happy Money has got nothing to do with financial services really. It’s how to get the maximum return in terms of happiness from every pound you have to deploy. It’s a scientific book but written with a lot of humour. But it’s little bits of wisdom. Make everything a treat, rather than having treats the entire time, by experiences, not money.
Recommended to us by James Roberts, Founder of Partners Wealth Management
The Seven Stages of Money Maturity by George Kinder
This book is more to do with understanding if you’re focusing on better money habits or better financial plans for yourself. Where you need to understand your money values, your money habits, because often, it’s said you’ve learnt your money habits by the time you are six.
So somewhere within you, you already have the DNA for how you will be around money. It’s taken on board unconsciously from your parents typically. There is a book called The Seven Stages of Money Maturity by George Kinder. It’s been around a few decades but it makes you very aware of some of the unconscious habits of how you spend money or how you think about money. The first few chapters are great around that.
This is really about improving your own relationship with money.
Recommended to us by Anna Sofat, Addidi founder
Smarter Investing by Tim Hale
For those who want to understand investments particularly and the investment world, there’s a book called Smarter Investing by Tim Hale, and it’s a very easy, down-to-earth read. It talks about the basics of investments. And actually, if you just do that, if you like the Vanguard approach, that’s all you need in some ways.
Recommended to us by Anna Sofat, Addidi founder
Richard is the founder of the Good Money Guide (formerly Good Broker Guide), one of the original investment comparison sites established in 2015. With a career spanning two decades as a broker, he brings extensive expertise and knowledge to the financial landscape.
Having worked as a broker at Investors Intelligence and a multi-asset derivatives broker at MF Global (Man Financial), Richard has acquired substantial experience in the industry. His career began as a private client stockbroker at Walker Crips and Phillip Securities (now King and Shaxson), following internships on the NYMEX oil trading floor in New York and London IPE in 2001 and 2000.
Richard’s contributions and expertise have been recognized by respected publications such as BusinessInsider, Yahoo Finance, BusinessNews.org.uk, Master Investor, Wealth Briefing, iNews, and The FT, among many others.
Under Richard’s leadership, the Good Money Guide has evolved into a valuable destination for comprehensive information and expert guidance, specialising in trading, investment, and currency exchange. His commitment to delivering high-quality insights has solidified the Good Money Guide’s standing as a well-respected resource for both customers and industry colleagues.
