I’ve Read Over 100 Investing Books. These 9 Changed How I Invest.
Nine books that shaped my approach to business fundamentals, market psychology, charts and risk.
An investment in knowledge can repay itself many times over.
I’ve probably read well over 100 books on investing over the years, but the nine below are the ones that have had the biggest influence on how I think about investing.
And I think they could repay their cost many times over during an investing career — both through improved returns and, perhaps more importantly, avoiding costly mistakes.
If I were starting again today, this is the order I’d recommend reading them.
There is a danger in starting with advanced trading books before you understand the bigger picture — why invest in equities in the first place, what actually drives long-term returns, and what kind of investor you want to be.
Only then does it make sense to start zooming in. Chart patterns can help with entries and exits, but they cannot tell you whether a business has a moat, whether management allocates capital sensibly or the strength of the balance sheet.
There is another reason to read these books: the authors do not all agree. Some are investing for the long term, potentially forever, while others are swing trading over daily, weekly or monthly timeframes.
And I think that’s important. There is no single right way to invest. You eventually have to figure out what suits your temperament and objectives, the time and capital you have available, your tolerance and capacity for risk, and your prior experience of market cycles.
The value in reading different investors is taking the bits that make sense to you and gradually building your own approach.
None of the links below are affiliate links. These are simply books I own and recommend to anyone serious about becoming a better investor.
The 9 Books at a Glance
| # | Book | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth | Investor behaviour and philosophy |
| 02 | Free Capital | Finding your own investing style |
| 03 | One Up on Wall Street | Finding and classifying ideas |
| 04 | 100 Baggers | Identifying exceptional compounders |
| 05 | Reminiscences of a Stock Operator | Market psychology |
| 06 | The Art of Execution | Managing winners and losers |
| 07 | How to Make Money in Stocks | Relative strength, price and volume |
| 08 | Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard | Setups and entries |
| 09 | Think & Trade Like a Champion | Risk, position sizing and expectancy |
Select a book to jump to its review.
1. Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth — Nick Murray
Start with the philosophy
Nick Murray’s book applies more to global equity funds than stockpicking. It was written largely for financial advisers to give to clients, and its central subject is investor behaviour.
Murray makes the case for being an owner rather than a loaner — owning equities rather than bonds — and argues that, over the long term, owning “the great companies of the world” is the key to building inevitable wealth.
He also explains that volatility is different from risk. A temporary fall in a diversified equity portfolio may feel dangerous, but the bigger long-term risk is failing to grow your capital and income fast enough to maintain its value against the ever-increasing cost of the goods and services we all need.
One of Murray’s central arguments is that the vast majority of your lifetime investment return will not come from agonising over Fund A versus Fund B. Far more important is getting the big decisions right — owning equities in the first place, staying invested and, crucially, behaving properly when markets inevitably fall.
And avoiding the “Big Mistake”: mistaking a temporary market decline for a permanent loss, panicking and selling, and in doing so turning a temporary decline into a permanent loss.
He explains all of this in his own wonderfully pithy style, with sayings and phrases that have stuck with me ever since I first read it. He also makes a strong case for pound cost averaging and allowing time and compounding to do the heavy lifting.
The main lesson: own equities, stay invested through temporary declines and don’t let your own behaviour interrupt the long-term process of compounding.
The book is written primarily from an American perspective, but the underlying ideas are just as relevant to UK investors. Murray has a wonderful way of reducing complicated investment ideas to simple phrases you actually remember and use.
He is one of my favourite authors of all time.
Availability can be patchy and older copies sometimes command silly prices, so I wouldn’t overpay for one.
Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth — Amazon UK Amazon search
2. Free Capital — Guy Thomas
There isn’t one correct way to invest
Guy Thomas built this book around interviews with 12 highly successful private investors.
What makes it so useful is how different they all are. Some hold concentrated portfolios like me. Others trade more actively. Some build networks and speak to management. Others care far more about price action.
Thomas explains free capital as money surplus to immediate living expenses.
The main lesson: don’t copy another investor’s portfolio. Understand why their method works for them, then build a process suited to your own temperament, skills, capital and time.
The book also captures some of the genuine advantages we have as private investors, particularly at the smaller end of the market. We can own companies too small for most funds, hold cash when nothing looks attractive and take advantage of opportunities that would barely move the needle for large institutions even if they doubled.
There is obviously some survivorship bias here. The book starts with a group of highly successful investors and looks backwards at how they made their money. We don’t hear from all the investors who may have followed similar approaches and failed, and Thomas himself acknowledges that it is impossible to completely eliminate the influence of luck.
But I don’t think that detracts from the book. The value is seeing how 12 successful investors approached the market in completely different ways and taking the ideas that might improve your own process.
3. One Up on Wall Street — Peter Lynch
Learn how to find and classify ideas
There is a good reason to listen to Peter Lynch. During his 13 years running Fidelity’s Magellan Fund, he produced average annual returns of around 29%, making him one of the most successful fund managers of his generation.
And of all the books on this list, One Up on Wall Street might be the most directly applicable to small-cap investing.
Lynch’s philosophy is often reduced to “buy what you know”, but that is only the starting point.
One of his central ideas is that private investors can sometimes spot something in the real world before the market does — a successful new product, a busy shop or something changing in an industry they work in or understand particularly well.
That advantage can be even greater in small caps, where analyst coverage and institutional ownership are limited and small changes can have an outsized impact on the value of the business.
Another Lynch idea I particularly like is his attraction to boring and overlooked businesses.
He wasn’t necessarily looking for the company with the most exciting story. In fact, he often preferred the opposite: dull company names, unglamorous industries, simple businesses and situations that the market was largely ignoring.
That feels particularly relevant to UK small caps and AIM. Some of the best opportunities can be businesses doing something incredibly boring, with little analyst coverage and almost no wider investor interest, but growing earnings year after year.
If everybody already loves the story, there is a good chance plenty of that optimism is already reflected in the valuation.
Lynch also divides companies into six categories — slow growers, stalwarts, fast growers, cyclicals, turnarounds and asset plays.
Each classification requires a different approach.
This is particularly useful in small caps because they are full of all of them. A profitable niche software business, a highly leveraged cyclical and a distressed turnaround might all sit on AIM, but they require completely different research, expectations and sell disciplines.
The main lesson: keep your eyes open for ideas in the real world, particularly in boring and overlooked corners of the market, then do the work.
For me, this is probably the most useful book on the list for finding and classifying small-cap companies.
4. 100 Baggers — Christopher Mayer
Learn the ingredients of an exceptional winner
Christopher Mayer updated the work of Thomas Phelps and identified 365 US shares that 100 bagged between 1962 and 2014.
The first thing the study makes clear is that a 100-bagger is usually not a quick trade. The average took roughly 26 years. A share compounding at around 21% a year for 25 years gets you there — simple maths, but extraordinarily difficult in practice.
Mayer focuses on the twin engines of big winners: growth in the underlying business and an increase in the valuation investors are willing to place on it.
The more dependable part is the business itself: high returns on capital, a long runway to reinvest, a defensible competitive position and management that thinks like an owner. Starting small also matters — a £30 million company has far more room to multiply than a £30 billion one. Elephants don’t gallop!
I particularly enjoyed the case studies. Monster Beverage is a great example. Long before it became the company we know today, it was called Hansen Natural Corporation, a relatively obscure drinks business. The launch and extraordinary growth of Monster Energy were transformational.
That’s what fascinates me: looking back at these businesses before they became obvious winners and asking what could you have seen at the time? What ingredients might help me identify the next one while it is still small and largely overlooked?
Then the hard part: holding it for long enough to matter. Even exceptional long-term winners experience setbacks along the way.
Unsurprisingly, this book had a fairly significant influence on starting Smallcaps Big Bags. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll be lucky enough to find a genuine 100-bagger of my own.
The main lesson: look for the ingredients that allow a small company to compound value per share for decades — and if you are lucky enough to find one, give it enough time to become something truly exceptional.
5. Reminiscences of a Stock Operator — Edwin Lefèvre
Learn how markets exploit human nature
First published in 1923, Edwin Lefèvre’s classic is a fictionalised account based on the extraordinary life of Jesse Livermore, told through the character Larry Livingston.
I’ve always been fascinated by Livermore. He made fortunes, lost fortunes and made them back again, taking enormous speculative positions along the way. He became one of the most famous traders of his era, but it all ended tragically when he took his own life in 1940.
That alone makes this a fascinating read.
It took me a little while to get into this one. The old-fashioned language and writing style can feel a bit strange, but once you get used to it, what is remarkable is how the psychology of investing remains the same today as it was back then.
Fear, greed, tips, AIM bulletin boards, overconfidence, chasing prices, cutting winners too early and refusing to admit when you are wrong — very little has changed.
One of the great lessons in the book is learning to sit tight when you are right. As Livingston famously puts it,
“It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting.”
Spotting the move was only part of the job. The real money came from being right and then having the patience to stay with it.
I’m also fascinated by Livermore’s later thinking around what he called Pivotal Points, which he set out more explicitly in his own book How to Trade in Stocks. I own that one too, and it goes much deeper into his trading methods, timing and money management.
The basic idea of waiting for an important level and then letting the price action confirm the move still feels completely relevant today, and was part of the inspiration behind the KEY Level concept I use in OnlyCharts.
The main lesson: big money is made by being right on the major move and then having the patience to sit with it.
This is probably the most enjoyable book on the list to read purely for pleasure, but there are investing lessons throughout it.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator — Amazon UK Amazon search
6. The Art of Execution — Lee Freeman-Shor
Stock selection is only the beginning
Lee Freeman-Shor analysed thousands of trades made by professional investors and found even their highest-conviction ideas were often wrong.
What separated the better investors was what they did after buying.
When losing, Rabbits freeze, Assassins cut the position and Hunters add when they believe the thesis has actually improved.
When winning, Raiders take the quick profit, while Connoisseurs allow the winner to become meaningful.
That framework is what makes this such an easy and enjoyable read. You quickly start asking yourself: which one am I?
I’d like to think I’m naturally more of a Connoisseur — happy to let a genuine winner run — although the harder part is making sure you don’t turn into a Rabbit when something goes wrong.
The main lesson: you don’t need to be right all the time. You need to cut or reassess losers quickly and decisively, while giving your winners enough room to make a real difference.
For small caps, I think the distinction between a Hunter and a Rabbit is particularly important. Averaging down because the evidence has improved is one thing. Averaging down simply because the share price is lower is something else entirely.
This is one of the books on the list I’d recommend to almost anyone. It’s short, easy to read and gives you a very useful way of thinking about your own investing behaviour.
7. How to Make Money in Stocks — William J. O’Neil
Add relative strength, price and volume
As of September 2026, this was a recent addition to my bookshelf, but it comes highly recommended by a lot of successful traders, e.g. Kristian Qualmaggie.
William O’Neil developed the CAN SLIM methodology after studying the characteristics of major US stock-market winners before their biggest moves.
The book is very US-focused and quite chart-heavy, with lots of annotated examples of previous market winners. If you enjoy studying charts, there is plenty to get stuck into.
The key takeaway is the importance of relative strength — looking for stocks that are already outperforming the wider market rather than automatically gravitating towards whatever looks cheapest or has fallen the most.
It is also one of the principles I now use in OnlyCharts. Relative strength feeds into the weighted calculation behind a stock’s Technical Health score, alongside other measures of price and trend strength.
O’Neil combines that strength with earnings growth, something new or changing in the business, institutional demand, price and volume, and the direction of the wider market. The aim is to find situations where the fundamentals and the market action are beginning to confirm each other.
That is particularly useful for me in small caps. I can love the story, valuation and management team, but if forecasts keep falling and the share price is continually making new lows, I increasingly ask:
What is the market seeing that I’m not?
A case in point for me in September 2026 was Transense Technologies. I can see the blue-sky potential in the SAWsense story, but the persistent weakness in the share price still forces me to ask what the market might be seeing that I’m not.
However exciting the upside looks, I don’t think you can completely ignore what price is telling you.
The main lesson: don’t just look for a good company. Look for improving fundamentals that are also being supported by relative strength, price and volume.
8. Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard — Mark Minervini
Learn to recognise the setup
This is where the list moves much more firmly into trading and technical analysis.
I would describe Minervini as much more of a swing/growth trader than a traditional long-term investor. His focus is on finding strong companies already showing strong price action, then waiting for a very specific entry where the potential upside is large relative to the risk.
His SEPA methodology combines fundamentals, catalysts, relative strength, trend and timing.
The two ideas I’ve taken most from the book are pattern recognition and risk management.
Minervini wants stocks already in established uptrends, trading near their highs and outperforming the wider market. He then looks for periods where the price action contracts, like a bouncy ball before the next potential move.
The Volatility Contraction Pattern (VCP) is probably the concept most associated with him. Successive pullbacks become smaller, volatility contracts and volume often dries up as the supply of willing sellers diminishes.
I also became much more interested in classic base patterns such as the cup with handle, and in the idea that the quality of the setup can materially improve your entry.
This book probably did more than any other to change how I actually look at a chart.
I still want the business first, but I would much rather buy an improving business when the price action is confirming the story than spend months averaging down because I think the market is wrong.
The main lesson: don’t just find a company you want to own. Wait for a setup where the chart technicals are aligned and where you can define your risk before you buy.
9. Think & Trade Like a Champion — Mark Minervini
Turn the setup into a process
If the first Minervini book teaches you what to look for and where to buy, the second is much more about what happens afterwards.
This is where he gets deeper into risk management, position sizing, expectancy, selling and analysing your own results.
That has probably been the biggest influence Minervini has had on me.
A high win rate on its own means very little. You can be right most of the time and still lose money if your occasional losses are enormous. Equally, you can be wrong surprisingly often and still do very well if losses are kept small and your winners are allowed to become much larger.
That forces you to think in terms of risk and expectancy.
How much am I prepared to lose if I’m wrong? How large should the position therefore be? What is my average winner versus my average loser? Which setups actually work for me?
For small caps, I don’t apply his hard stop-loss rules. AIM shares can gap 20–30% on a bad RNS and liquidity is poor so you can take a big loss and then the share can bounce right back in quick succession.
That makes position sizing even more important, because your true risk may be much larger than the distance to a stop on a chart.
The book also pushed me towards keeping better records and reviewing my own decisions rather than relying on memory. Another reason why I continuously update my public record.
The main lesson: Long-term results come from controlling losses, sizing positions properly and knowing whether your process actually has positive expectancy.
In a way, it brings the whole list full circle. Murray starts with investor behaviour. Minervini finishes by showing how you can build discipline into every position taken.
And perhaps that is the biggest lesson I’ve taken from reading all of them.
None of these books gives you a silver bullet when it comes to investment, because I don’t think one exists. Over time, you keep the bits that work for you, discard the bits that don’t, and gradually build a process of your own.
Originally published on Substack · Read the original
Personal investment writing, not financial advice or a recommendation. Small-cap and AIM shares can be illiquid and you may lose all your capital. Past performance is not a guide to future returns. Positions, prices and examples are historical unless explicitly stated otherwise. Full disclaimer.