Rob Ivanoff's  Instablog

“Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life.”
~ Jesse Lee Bennett

Last year I took the important ritual of making a list of most important books, released in 2008 on the topic of investing, trading of stocks and portfolio construction. The response from would-be-investors was overwhelming.  Privately, I received innumerable e-mails asking me to set together a new list, but this time - for the current year of 2009.  No worries. Armed with a quick computer, dark-roast Arabica coffee, and countless visits to the charming old bookstores around Cambridge and Boston - I managed to put together the golden list for 2009. The result is recommended reading exclusively for you, Seeking Alpha readers. And despite that in my rushed evaluation I might have skipped and leaped over important works of quality, the list is out - for you to use. Browse and click your choosings. Think and grow rich with wisdom. Most importantly, invest in your knowledge.

Sincerely,
Rob Ivanoff

Note: The list is split in two parts: Trading books and General Investing books. Publishers, send your new titles to robwallaston[at]gmail.com

Trading books:

1.        The Ivy Portfolio: How to Invest Like the Top Endowments and Avoid Bear Markets - Eric W. Richardson, JD (founder and President of Cambria Capital) and Mebane T. Faber
2.        Anatomy of the Bear: Lessons from Wall Street's Four Great Bottoms – Russell Napier
3.        The Truth About Day Trading Stocks: A Cautionary Tale About Hard Challenges and What It Takes To Succeed (Wiley Trading)  - Josh DiPietro
4.        Trading Options at Expiration: Strategies and Models for Winning the Endgame – Jeff Augen
5.        Trading Systems Explained: How to Build Reliable Technical Systems – Martin Pring
6.        Game Over: How You Can Prosper in a Shattered Economy – Stephen Leeb
7.       Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization – Jeff Rubin (chief economist and chief strategist at CIBC World Markets)
8.        Snap Judgment: When to Trust Your Instincts, When to Ignore Them, and How to Avoid Making Big Mistakes with Your Money  - David Adler (a behavioral finance expert)
9.       High Probability ETF Trading - 7 Professional Strategies to Improve your ETF Trading -  Larry Connors (CEO and Co-founder of TradingMarkets.com)
10.    Master Traders: Strategies for Superior Returns from Todays Top Traders – Fari Hamzei
    

List of general books on investments, capitalism or economic history:

1.    A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World -  William Bernstein
2.      The Crash of 2008 and What it Means: The New Paradigm for Financial Markets – George Soros
3.       The First Billion Is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future -  T Boone Pickens
4.        The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life – Alice Schroeder (former managing director at Morgan Stanley—and handpicked by Buffett to be his biographer)
5.       The Ultimate Depression Survival Guide: Protect Your Savings, Boost Your Income, and Grow Wealthy Even in the Worst of Times – Martin Weiss (Editor of the Safe Money Report and author of Crash Profits. Martin Weiss's father, one of the only economists in the modern era who not only advised investors during the 1930s Great Depression, but also predicted it)
6.        How a Second Grader Beats Wall Street: Golden Rules Any Investor Can Learn
7.      Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life  - John Bogle (the legendary founder of the Vanguard Mutual Funds)
8.    Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism  - from Nobel prize-winner George Akerlof and Yale economist Robert Shiller
9.       Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe -  Gillian Tett (award-winning Financial Times journalist Gillian Tett, who enraged Wall Street leaders with her newsbreaking warnings of a crisis more than a year ahead of the curve)
10.    The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street -  Justin Fox (Time magazine editor-at-large)