List: Finance reading

So you wanna be the next BSD at a bulge bracket bank? (or are boutiques the new bulge bracket?) Want to avoid becoming equities in Dallas? Are you a straight-shot to being the youngest M&A MD the world has ever seen? You better start reading these books now, as they are a small fraction of the legendary books read by everyone in the financial services.

• Liar's Poker: Written by a current Berkeley resident, Michael Lewis, this recounts the rise and fall of Salomon Brothers, an investment bank whose heyday was in the 1980's. The man wrote the book to try to expose the utter absurdity and childishness of working on Wall Street, but it drove college students to the investment banking industry like no other. I spoke with an Executive Director in Fixed Income at Morgan Stanley who quoted this book as his reason for joining the industry. Funny how things work out...
• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator: Released in 1923 (not a typo), the lessons of this book remain relevant to this day. Before the modern computer was even thought of by Alan Turing, the markets were completely manual, recorded with pen and paper, but speculative trading was in full force in the 1920's, with little regulation and obscene amounts of leverage (2x leverage is maximum for retail investors today, 10x leverage was not uncommon then). I haven't read this book, but it's on the list.
• The Black Swan: This book, by Nicholas Nassim Taleb, was released in 2007 and partially "predicted" the market crash of 2008. Taleb argues that we cannot predict anything other than what color socks we wear in the morning, we falsely believe anything said by an analyst in a suit, and other sorts of logical fallacies. This book gives you a lot to think about, and it's material is applicable to more than financial forecasting. One of my statistics professors delivers a good PhD-esque analysis of the book, and while he agrees with many factors, there are also plenty of logical fallacies in Taleb's arguments.
• The New Market Wizards: As stupid as this sounds, this book contains direct transcriptions of the author's interviews with some of the most successful, seasoned investors on the planet. I read the old 1980's version, though the investing and speculating tips inside are timeless. However, I think this guy has a bent towards futures and commodities traders, which ain't really my gig. Perhaps this has changed in the more recent revision.
• Intelligent Investor: Written by Benjamin Graham, this book is the canonical text on value investing. Well, I lied, the true canon of value investing is Security Analysis, but that's a 1000 page textbook meant for graduate students in finance or MBA programs. Intelligent Investor is meant to provide broad guidelines for average human beings trying to maximize the return on their savings. I think this should be a required read for anybody who is going to trade stocks. This book was originally released in 1949, further proving that true investment know-how is timeless.

I want to get some sleep so I'm going to stop here. Perhaps I'll continue later, my budding rainmakers. Read More......