A Random Walk Down Wall Street, by Burton Malkiel, is an excellent investment primer. It explains the basics of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, and will reinforce the efficient market concept.

 

 Asset Allocation, by Roger Gibson, covers much of the same ground as my own book with more emphasis on the qualities of individual assets. Oriented towards the financial advisor.

 

 Value Averaging, by Michael Edleson. An extremely useful how-to guide on deploying a lump sum of money among multiple assets. Finally back in print as a Wiley Classic Edition.

 

The Intelligent Investor, by Ben Graham. A popularized and more readable version of his earlier classic, Security Analysis, written with David Dodd. Although it has great relevance to the markets in general and should be read by any serious investor, it is particularly pertinent to those who feel compelled to buy individual stocks. Many of today’s most successful money managers obtained their original financial inspiration from these two books. It is always fun to look at excesses in the marketplace and ask, "What would Ben say about this?" This 2003 edition benefits from annotation by one of finance's most brilliant observers, Jason Zweig. (By the way, if you get bitten by the Graham bug and decide to do Security Analysis, make sure you read the original 1934 edition, recently reprinted by McGraw-Hill.)

 

Stocks for the Long Run, Jeremy Siegel

 

Analysis for Financial Management, by Robert Higgins

 

The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing, by Pat Dorsey

 

Why Smart People Make Dumb Money Mistakes, by Gary Belsky and Thomas Gilovich

 

Making of an American Capitalist, by Roger Lowenstein

 

The Intelligent Investor, by Benjamin Graham

 

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, by Phil Fisher

 

Beating the Street, Peter Lynch

 

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius, by Joel Greenblatt

 

Money Masters of Our Time, John Train

 

Margin of Safety, Seth Klarman

 

The Aggressive Conservative Investor, Marty Whitman

 

Contrarian Investment Strategies, David Dreman

 

Reminiscences Of A Stock Operator by Edwin LeFevre

 

Intermarket Analysis by John J. Murphy

 

How to Make Money in Stocks by William J. O'Neil

 

What Works on Wall Street by James P. O'Shaughnessy 

 

Technical Analysis Power Tools for Active Investors by Gerald Appel

 

Bollinger on Bollinger Bands by John Bollinger

 

Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets by John J. Murphy

 

Intermarket Analysis by John J. Murphy

 

Investor's Guide to Active Asset Allocation by Martin J. Pring