Finance Books

Zac has asked for some books on investing and finance. I've given some recommendations to a few people, so I figured I'd just post it for everyone (please jump in if you have others).

Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki: gives a good overview on how to think about money. Should be everyone's first book on finance.

One up on Wall Street, Peter Lynch: the best finance book ever written in my opinion

The Motley Fool Guide to Investing, Mark Goodson: explains P/E ratios, etc

All three of these are relatively old which makes them better in my opinion because they held true before and after the tech bubble - which many books and theories didn't.

Periodicals: Financial Times, The Economist, Wired (for tech), and Fast Company

I also recommend reading Berkshire Hathaway annual reports. Buffett is truly a master of investing and any long-term investor should try to understand what makes him great.

And lastly, of course, the greatest words regarding finance were said by Francisco d'Anconia:

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality — the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants; money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?"

http://compuball.com/Inquisition/AynRand/danconiaspeech.htm