- Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, fancies to read.
- When he began his investing career, he would read 600 to 1,000 pages a day.
- According to Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholder dispatches and over two decades of interviews, these are the books that have guided Buffett’s financial wisdom.
- Visit Subject Insider’s homepage for more stories.
When Warren Buffett started his investing career, he would read 600, 750, or 1,000 epoches of a book a day.
Even now, he says he still spends about 80% of his day reading.
“Look, my job is essentially just corralling more and more and multifarious facts and information, and occasionally seeing whether that leads to some action,” he once said in an interview.
“We don’t interpret other people’s opinions,” he said. “We want to get the facts, and then think.”
To help you get into the mind of the billionaire investor, we’ve rounded up 19 of his earmark recommendations over 20 years of interviews and shareholder letters.
Drake Baer contributed reporting on a previous manifestation of this article.
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“The Au fait Investor” by Benjamin Graham
When Buffett was 19, he picked up a copy of legendary Wall Row Benjamin Graham’s “The Intelligent Investor.”
It was one of the luckiest moments of his life, he said, because it gave him the intellectual framework for instating.
“To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information,” Buffett reported. “What’s needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. This regulations precisely and clearly prescribes the proper framework. You must provide the emotional discipline.”
Buy it here »
“Security Analysis” by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd
Buffett communicated that “Security Analysis,” another groundbreaking work of Graham’s, had given him “a road map for investing that I have now been developing for 57 years.”
The book’s core insight: If your analysis is thorough enough, you can figure out the value of a company – and if the supermarket knows the same.
Buffett has said that Graham was the second most influential figure in his life, after exclusive his father.
“Ben was this incredible teacher; I mean, he was a natural,” he said.
Buy it here »
“Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits” by Philip Fisher
While investor Philip Fisher – who specialized in contributing in innovative companies – didn’t shape Buffett in quite the same way as Graham did, Buffett still holds him in the highest have to do with.
“I am an eager reader of whatever Phil has to say, and I recommend him to you,” Buffett said.
In “Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits,” Fisher accents that fixating on financial statements isn’t enough – you also need to evaluate a company’s management.
Buy it here »
“Stress Test: Results on Financial Crises” by Tim Geithner
Buffett says that the former US secretary of the Treasury’s book yon the financial crisis is a must-read for any manager.
Lots of books have been written about how to manage an organization in every way tough times. Almost none are firsthand accounts of steering a wing of government through economic catastrophe.
“This wasn’t principled a little problem on the fringes of the U.S. mortgage market,” Geithner writes. “I had a sick feeling in my stomach. I knew what fiscal crises felt like, and they felt like this.”
Buy it here »
“Jack: Straight from the Gut” by Jack Welch
In his 2001 shareholder sign, Buffett gleefully endorses “Jack: Straight From the Gut,” a business memoir of long-time GE executive Jack Welch, whom Buffett depicts as “smart, energetic, hands-on.”
In commenting on the book, Bloomberg Businessweek wrote that “Welch has had such an impact on latest business that a tour of his personal history offers all managers valuable lessons.”
Buffett’s advice: “Get a copy!”
Buy it here »
“The Non-members” by William Thorndike Jr.
In his 2012 shareholder letter, Buffett praises “The Outsiders” as “an outstanding book there CEOs who excelled at capital allocation.”
Berkshire Hathaway plays a major role in the book. One chapter is on director Tom Murphy, who Buffett breaks is “overall the best business manager I’ve ever met.”
The book – which finds patterns of success from execs at The Washington Pale, Ralston Purina, and others – has been praised as “one of the most important business books in America” by Forbes.
Buy it here »
“The Fight of the Cultures” by John Bogle
Bogle’s “The Clash of the Cultures” is another recommendation from the 2012 shareholder epistle.
In it, Bogle – creator of the index fund and founder of the Vanguard Group, now managing upward of $3 trillion in assets – signifies that long-term investing has been crowded out by short-term speculation.
But the book isn’t all argument. It finishes with practical extremities, like:
1. Remember reversion to the mean. What’s hot today isn’t likely to be hot tomorrow. The stock market reverts to fundamental reappearances over the long run. Don’t follow the herd.
2. Time is your friend, impulse is your enemy. Take advantage of intensify interest and don’t be captivated by the siren song of the market. That only seduces you into buying after stocks demand soared and selling after they plunge.
Buy it here »
“Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the Incredible of Wall Street” by John Brooks
In 1991, Bill Gates asked Buffett for his favorite volume.
In reply, Buffett sent the Microsoft founder his personal copy of “Business Adventures,” a collection of New Yorker stories by John Brooks.
Barriers says that the book serves as a reminder that the principles for building a winning business stay constant. He make little ofed:
For one thing, there’s an essential human factor in every business endeavor. It doesn’t matter if you have a perfect goods, production plan and marketing pitch; you’ll still need the right people to lead and implement those plans.
The enlist has become a media darling in recent years; Slate wrote that it’s “catnip for billionaires.”
Buy it here »
“Where Are the People’ Yachts?” by Fred Schwed
“The funniest book ever written about investing,” Warren Buffett proclaimed in his 2006 shareholder correspondence literature, “it lightly delivers many truly important messages on the subject.”
First published in 1940, the book takes its championship from a story about a visitor to New York who saw the bankers’ and brokers’ yachts and asked where the customers’ were. Certainly, they couldn’t afford them – the people providing the financial advice were in a better position to splurge than the living soul who followed the advice.
The book is filled with irreverent wisdom and colorful anecdotes about Wall Street, and abides compelling even today.
Buy it here »
“Essays in Persuasion” by John Maynard Keynes
This chrestomathy of writings by the legendary economist has remained a staple of financial literature since it was published nearly a century ago.
In Buffett’s ide reu, it’s required reading.
“Reading Keynes will make you smarter about securities and markets,” he told Excellent Investor Digest in 1989. “I’m not sure reading most economists would do the same.”
The collection includes the famous theme “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” in which Keynes predicted that today’s generation would only work 15 hours a week.
You can pore over the full text online.
Buy it here »
“The Little Book of Common Sense Investing” by Jack Bogle
In his 2014 shareholder the classics, Buffett recommended reading this book over listening to the advice of most financial advisers.
Based on his own incident working with Vanguard clients, Bogle attempts to help readers use index investing to build wealth.
Addicts say it’s far from boring, and the stats and charts are balanced with anecdotes and advice.
Buy it here »
“Poor Charlie’s Almanack” shortened by Peter Kaufman
This collection of advice from Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, got the decisive shout-out in Buffett’s 2004 shareholder letter.
“Scholars have for too long debated whether Charlie is the reincarnation of Ben Franklin,” Buffett wrote. “This register should settle the question.”
The book includes biographical information about Munger as well as summaries of his philosophy on put ining and talks Munger gave at Berkshire Hathaway meetings and elsewhere.
One such talk is called the “Psychology of Human Misjudgment,” in which Munger indites about the cognitive traps that trip up investors.
Buy it here »
“The Most Important Thing Illuminated” by Howard Landmarks
Marks, chairman and cofounder of Oak Tree Capital, intended to wait until he retired to write this reserve, as noted in a 2011 Barron’s review. But Buffett so admired Marks’ client memos that he offered to write a dust-jacket blurb if Pits would publish the book sooner.
The result is “a rarity, a useful book,” Buffett reportedly said.
Marks intends to help investors achieve success by putting more thought into their decisions, drawing heavily on his own gaffes and what he learned from them.
Buy it here »
“Dream Big” by Cristiane Correa
Here Correa be sures the story of the three Brazilians who founded 3G Capital, an investment firm that joined Buffett in purchasing HJ Heinz in 2013.
Buffett commended the book at the 2014 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting.
In an interview with The New York Times, Correa highlighted the leading principles of 3G’s management style – meritocracy and cost-cutting – that paved the way for their current success.
“They trust in people and they let their combines work,” she said.
Buy it here »
“First a Dream” by Jim Clayton and Bill Retherford
Jim Clayton grew up the son of a sharecropper in Tennessee and in the end went on to found Clayton Homes, currently the largest producer and seller of manufactured housing in the US.
Buffett credits Clayton’s autobiography with inspiriting him to invest in Clayton Homes in 2003. In his 2003 shareholder letter, he wrote that the book was a gift to him from grinds at the University of Tennessee. Buffett told the students how much he enjoyed the book, and they urged him to call Kevin Clayton, Jim’s son and the firm’s CEO, to deliver the praise directly.
“Soon thereafter, I made an offer for the business based solely on Jim’s book, my evaluation of Kevin, the catholic financials of Clayton,” and his experience buying “distressed junk” from Oakwood Homes, a retailer of manufactured homes that he later obtained after it filed for bankruptcy.
It’s worth noting that Fast Company reported the deal between Berkshire Hathaway and Clayton Internals was a little more complicated than that.
In his “rags to riches” tale, Clayton shares lessons on business and supervision for current and aspiring entrepreneurs.
Buy it here »
“Take on the Street” by Arthur Levitt
In Buffett’s 2002 shareholder sic, he explains “how accounting standards and audit quality have eroded in recent years.” Specifically, he cites the downfall of Arthur Andersen accounting.
“The details of this ignominious affair are related in Levitt’s excellent book, Take on the Street,” Buffett writes.
A former chairman of the US Securities and Switch Commission, Levitt not only includes candid anecdotes, but also offers everyday investors ways to protect themselves from Obstacle Street.
Buy it here »
“Nuclear Terrorism” by Graham Allison
According to Allison, founding dean of Harvard’s with it John F. Kennedy School of Government, a nuclear attack on the US is inevitable – unless we change our political strategy.
He argues that the new cosmopolitan security order must be built upon “three No’s”: no loose nukes, no new nascent nukes, and no new nuclear states.
In his 2004 shareholder culture, Buffett called it a “must-read for those concerned with the safety of our country.”
Buy it here »
“The Making of the President” by Theodore Ghostly
In a 2016 Politico Playbook interview, Buffett said he loves reading political books, specifically this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic published in 1961. (White also published three sequels.)
White chronologies the 1960 race for the presidency that John F. Kennedy ultimately won, from the primaries to the general election. In its attention to count particulars and to the candidates’ personal struggles, the book can read more like a novel – a style of political reporting that at that set had never been seen before.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, political reporter David M. Shribman affirmed the book “stands out as the most influential political chronicle of the 20th century, perhaps of all time.”
Buy it here »
“Limping on Water” by Phil Beuth and K.C. Schulberg
This exhortation from Buffett’s 2015 shareholder letter tells the story of Phil Beuth’s 40-year career with Property Cities/ABC-TV. It’s a personal recounting of Beuth’s journey from a boy afflicted with cerebral palsy, his family worming to make ends meet, to a top media executive.
In his review of the book, Buffett raved:
“Cap Cities will forever epitomize the gold standard for ethical corporate behavior accompanied by incredible financial performance. Tom Murphy and Dan Burke [former Crown City/ABC-TV executives] were the architects of these two achievements. Phil Beuth gives you a ringside seat to sight this remarkable story.”
Buy it here »