6 Investing Books Every Stock Picker Should Read

One of the best ways to take your investing skills to the next level quickly is to learn from the masters. The insights and wisdom gleaned from the experts — all for the cost of a book — can help you fine-tune your stock-picking skills and venture beyond your usual hunting grounds.

The best investing books are those that have stood the test of time. That’s why the list below is dominated by some classic deep dives from the investing world’s titans, rounded out with a few breezier (but still meaty) reads.

These recommendations are primarily aimed at those who already have a good handle on the basics. If you need a refresher, check out our list of best investing books for beginners.

Best books for intermediate investors

1. ‘The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing’

Benjamin Graham is considered the father of value investing, an investing style where practitioners look to buy out-of-favor stocks trading at a discount compared to their current valuation.

Does the strategy sound familiar? It should: Graham was a key mentor for legendary investor Warren Buffett.

“The Intelligent Investor” is regularly featured on lists of the best investing books for good reason: In it, Graham shows you how to think sensibly about investing and avoid the mistakes that hurt your returns. It is considered a shorter, more readable version of Graham’s other famous book co-authored with David Dodd, “Security Analysis.”

Although “The Intelligent Investor” was first published in 1949, more recent editions with editor Jason Zweig include modern commentary that provides perspective on more contemporary events.

2. ‘You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits’

“You Can Be a Stock Market Genius” by Joel Greenblatt is a more modern classic, and it showcases how to find stocks that are hidden by superficial events, such as spin-offs.

First published in 1997, it continues to be a favorite of current investors due to its easy-to-read style, practical examples and humor. Yes, humor!

In his inimitable prose, Greenblatt gives you all the details on how to uncover hidden gems. For example, using the book’s approach, readers would have been able to track PayPal, before it spun off from parent eBay in 2015, and then proceeded to return 400 percent to investors over the next five years.

3. ‘Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings’

This classic investing book is another focused on practical examples that show readers how to find attractive stocks with the potential to deliver seriously huge returns. Author Philip Fisher is a giant in the investing world, and he reveals many of his secrets in this book, including the qualities to look for in an attractive business.

First published in 1958, “Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits” still offers so much wisdom that contemporary readers continue to cite Fisher’s work today. One of Fisher’s classic techniques is called the scuttlebutt method, in which he advises investors to see what a company’s rivals say about it, in order to assess the company’s competitive position.

Also worth noting, Warren Buffett says that his own investing approach is a combination of Benjamin Graham’s and Fisher’s — it’s hard to receive higher praise than that!

4. ‘Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor’

“Margin of Safety” is somewhat of a holy grail in the world of investing books. Author Seth Klarman, now a billionaire, published the book in 1991 and it has never been reprinted. The book is so scarce that sellers regularly ask more than $1,000 a copy.

Despite the eye-watering price tag, we included this oft-cited tome here because you can find excerpts from its pages online, often on academic websites. In it you’ll find a blueprint for Klarman’s conservative, value-based approach to investing, using the principle of margin of safety. That is, he advises you to buy an asset at such a sufficiently low price relative to its probable worth that it would be hard to lose money.

5. ‘Investing in REITs’

If you’re interested in investing in real estate in the public stock market, Ralph Block’s “Investing in REITs” (real estate investment trusts) is considered by some as the definitive reference guide.

REITs are among the most popular kinds of stocks because of their typically large dividends and attractive long-term record of returns. This book is quite popular among both seasoned REIT investors and those learning the field, and it’s already on its fourth edition, after first being published in 1998. Block distills his decades of investing in REITs into the key qualities you need to look for in the sector.

6. ‘The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns’

You don’t have to allocate a huge chunk of your portfolio to individual stocks to earn impressive returns. In “The Little Book of Common Sense Investing,” mutual fund trailblazer and Vanguard founder John Bogle makes the case for why index funds are the simplest, most effective way to build wealth.

First published in 2007, Bogle uses real-world examples to discuss returns and investor sentiment over time and builds the argument for investing in index funds, which offer instant diversification with low costs.

Bogle updated the book in 2017 to include new chapters on retirement investing and asset allocation.

Bottom line

Reading about investing is one of the highest-return activities you can do. Not only can you learn about how to approach investing smartly from some of the world’s best investors, you can avoid some of the pitfalls that can sink even the most seasoned investors. As Warren Buffett famously said, “Rule No. 1 is never lose money. Rule No. 2 is never forget Rule No. 1.”