Four Books on Investing Recommended by Warren Buffett

Four Books on Investing Recommended by Warren Buffett

A recent CNBC article recounts a conversation between legendary investor Warren Buffett and Better Booch Kombucha company founder and CEO Trey Lockerbie in which Buffett suggested that he reread Benjamin Graham’s books and “focus on the chapters about the psychology of investing.”

The comment was in response to Lockerbie’s question about whether Graham’s books were still relevant, given that they were penned in the 1930s and 1940s. Buffett also reportedly recommended books by the late economics commentator George Goodman, who wrote under the name Adam Smith.

Buffett recommended the following four books to Lockerbie:

Security Analysis, by Benjamin Graham. Buffett was so enamored of this book that he wrote to David Dodd (who was teaching at Columbia at the time) and requested to be admitted to his classes. Buffett earned his Master’s degree at Columbia.

Intelligent Investor, by Benjamin Graham. In Buffett’s 2013 letter to Berkshire shareholders he wrote, “my financial life changed with that purchase [of ‘Intelligent Investor’],” adding, “Ben’s ideas were explained logically in elegant, easy-to-understand prose.” 

The Money Game, by George Goodman. In the book (published in 1968), Goodman argued that the stock market should be viewed as a game and wrote of the frenzy of Wall Street in the ’60s as an example. Buffett noted, “He knew how to put his finger on things that nobody had identified before. [Goodman] stuck to the facts, but he made them a helluva lot more interesting.”

Supermoney, by George Goodman. The book highlights the stock market of the 1970s, including a profile of Buffett himself. In his foreword to the book, Buffett wrote, ““I will just describe this book as the equivalent of the performance of [New York Yankees’]Don Larsen on October 8, 1956. For the uninitiated, that was the day he pitched the only perfect game in World Series history.”