(Part 2) Top products from r/investing

Fellow Tech grad here! I used to do exactly what you are doing, and found it to be a not so great system. After getting hammered I decided to do my homework and learn about investing from pros and peer reviewed material.

The first lesson I learned is just because a product is doing well does not mean it will be a good thing for investors. (PDF warning)

I'm not sure what degree program you are in or if you have to take statistics, but believe it or not that course had a large impact on how I decided to invest. Market price is essentially a collective prediction, and that is usually a very accurate prediction compared to the individual predictions that make up the collection.

When you have a little free time on your hand I'd recommend reading these two books.

Four Pillars of Investing

The Intelligent Asset Allocator

I found it really easy to read and very informative. I wish I had read them 10 years ago and not wasted all those years floundering away in the market.

Warren Buffett's shareholder letters are a great resource as well. I'd start with the essay entitled "How to minimize investment returns" in the 2005 letter, page 18.

Good luck! If you have any questions feel free to ask!

Here is a random article I found about stock simulators.

How do you like to learn things? There are tons of books, podcasts and blogs about investing. Here are some popular ones or ones that I have read and used

• Books
  
  • The intelligent Investor
    
  • A Random Walk Down Wall Street
    
  • Your Money Your Life
    
  • The Richest Man in Babylon
    
  • I Will Teach You to be Rich
    
    
• Blogs
  
  • Stock Series
    
  • Mr Money Mustache
    
  • Mad FIentist
    
  • dozens of others, Google is your friend
    
    
• Podcasts
  
  • Money Tree Podcast -- pretty poor production quality but good general stuff.
    
  • There are tons of others, Google it.
    
    Warren Buffett famously/supposedly read every book in the financial section at the library by age 12--I think the important thing to take from that is you are still young and have tons of free time and aside from starting to invest as soon as you can (you can usually start as soon as you have earned income) you should be investing in yourself...getting good grades, figuring out what you want to do after high school, trying out businesses, learning marketable skills (e.g., coding, good writing skills, good interpersonal skills, good organizational skills, etc).
    
    Good Luck!

I see that Intelligent Investor by Graham has already been posted but that's certainly a good one. However it can be a bit dry for most readers and if you would prefer something a bit fresher I would read Deep Value by Toby Carlisle. He discusses and critiques Graham's teachings along with the strategies of other notable value investors such as Buffet, Icahn, Greenblatt and many others all in a more modern tone. It's been the bible for my own value investing strategies.

Other books to look into are:

• Dhandho Investor by Monish Pabrai (lots of simple strategies and examples for small risk - big payoff investments)
  
• Education of a Value Investor by Guy Spier (good for understanding the discipline and mental state of a good value investor)
  
• Michael Lewis books such as Big Short and Flash Boys (These are less for learning investing and more for generating your own interest in finance with some fantastic writing. It's also good for learning what the reality of the markets and Wall Street are.)

No offense taken, although I am not sure communication went across on this one. I don't expect a return on commodities. They're volatile, but 50 years down the road, like most currencies, I'd expect them to retain some value. How much is uncertain, and it's not going to be the part of my portfolio that I expect to grow steadily.

Diversifying with indexes sounds like a good idea to compensate for the fact that I am best suited to evaluate a tech company's capabilities, and not so much other domains.

I'm just disappointed that you would tell me to stop researching and instead leaving me with the simplest of options when I want to put in the effort to learn the underlying concepts and mechanics of the markets and start doing sensible investments. I learnt my current profession by myself, reading books and creating my own projects, and it just happens that I'm now dabbling in finance, and if I happen to start liking it in the end as much as I like it now, it will surely end up more than just a side learning experiment.

If I'm not ready to invest, as you seem to mean, I won't do it right away. But some day, I will do it.\

NB: I'm currently reading this: http://www.amazon.com/Investments-Zvi-Bodie/dp/0073530700/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398779011&sr=1-1&keywords=investments+9th

Should you know other academical (i.e. not opinion pieces at this time of my learning, cause everyone's got one) books that may help me, I'd be happy to know about them.

I'm in a similar situation though my internship will last about 10 months and I plan on saving ~30k of it. I've already read this and started reading this and plan on reading this. I plan on adding to my reading list indefinately. I will have a decent amount of free time since I won't be in school for nearly a year, I'll only be working (a lot admittedly) but I know I want to actively invest as I've found the market very interesting. I've already been doing a good amount of research into the industry I'm going in and I think just from my job I'll get new perspective.

Could someone recommend a good simulation site/program where I can start practicing? Also if any other more active traders have any tips on how to get started that would be appreciated too.

There are a lot of good starting points, but I recommend this book:


http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Asset-Allocator-Portfolio-Maximize/dp/0071362363/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314488130&sr=1-1


The salient points are:

1. Over 90% of investing success is linked to proper choice of asset class composition within your portfolio
   
   
2. Knowing the coefficient of correlation between your asset classes will help you maximize returns at your preferred risk tolerance.
   
   

Read this First - This is an infograph that summarizes every financial blog/book I've looked at.

Books I've read that have been very helpful

1. I will teach you to be rich - I've reread this multiple times. Covers almost all things finance that you'll need to know in your 20's + 30's. Totally worth the money!
   
   
2. Beginners Guide To Investing - Breaks down investing in a very straightforward way
   
3. Rich Dad Poor Dad - Very Cheesy, but hits some great thoughts on how rich ppl perceive money, are willing to talk about it, and how they grow money faster than the poor and middle class
   
4. Your Money or Your Life - Haven't finished (feels a little dated, but hits some really good points on how to think of money and why you should change your habits)
   
   Books I haven't read but ppl reference:
   
   
5. A random walk down wall street - Why investing in single stocks is foolish
   
6. Possum Living - How to live cheaply
   
7. Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman - Both have very popular philosophies and spending strategies that are referenced all the time.
   
   Sites to Reference:
   
   
8. Mr. Money Mustache - All Financial Independence websites reference this site.
   
9. Money Under 30 - All things Personal Finance for our age group
   
10. Investopedia - Helps with the basics
    
    Reddit: (Search Top Posts All Time)
    
    /r/financialindependence
    
    /r/Personalfinance
    
    /r/FinancialPlanning

This is a good accounting book for someone with no background, but a regular university text would do the job better. As for as "stock research," here's a list of really good value investing books I'd recommend, after you're comfortable with reading and understanding the statements.

Well you won't become financially literate if you don't keep reading and "the Intelligent Investor" is a pretty good place to start. It's not a particularly hard read in my opinion but there are of course financial vocabulary that is not well known to non-native speakers and not explained in the book. You might want to skip the sections on various bond series and railroads and what not, that part is kind of outdated and not really relevant for non-US investors. You don't need to understand everything to get the message of the book which is very simple: stocks are companies and you should think of and value them as such and ignore the day-to-day movements of the stock market. To do that you need to understand basic accounting. I really liked "Financial Statements" by Thomas Ittelson, it's a very easy to read book with great simplified examples.

I'm not sure how /r/investing feels about this particular book, but being that I was new to how the more complex aspects of managing your money work, it helped me get an idea of what what trajectory I should follow and the steps to take.

I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi was an easy, funny, and overall great read. It's aimed at people who know very little about managing their finances and/or investing.

If you want to get an idea for the format of the book, he does a lot of videos online about the same content in the book. You can find them here. They're all very easy to consume and understand and the book follows this same format for the most part.

I agree you should diversify into foreign ETFs. I think you should also consider other asset classes (commodities and real estate). I wouldn't worry about dividend yield either with your timetable, you want price appreciation more than dividends (plus dividend stocks are overvalued now since people have been piling into those in lieu of bonds). I'd keep VTI or SPY for your US holdings.

Some ETFs for other asset classes (not necessarily these in particular, may be substitutes with better fees, etc.):

GCC for commodity exposure

VEU for broad global equity exposure

RWO - broad diversified global real estate (both US and international)

I wouldn't touch bonds now for anything (way overpriced), but on your 15 yr+ timetable you probably wouldn't want to weight them too heavily anyway.

For your extra ETF I'd vote for ARGT (Argentina) - they're just starting a new bull market.

This is a good read for building a relatively low-maintenance portfolio: http://www.amazon.com/The-Ivy-Portfolio-Endowments-Markets/dp/1118008855

Do your own due diligence of course too. I'm just some guy on reddit. Good luck!

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns (Little Books. Big Profits) - Jack Bogle - Vanguard Founder. No gimmicks. Simple, low-cost, and passive indexing for buy and hold investors.

One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market Peter Lynch was a fund manager of one of the most successful actively managed funds. Active investing. Buy companies that are really successful at getting you to buy their product. Observe the world around you type of investing.

While I agree that the intelligent investor is probably the top single book, it's advanced and longer than most will ever read. 'The beginners guide to investing' is a short and to the point book that I found was really good. It paints the picture early in the book that investing is a long game, then it proceeds into types of investments, asset allocations etc. I particularly utilized the idea of a lockbox vs sandbox. Lockbox is the main nest egg and you only add to that over time, sandbox is a active trading account if you enjoy the game, but with an amount you can handle losing. All my wsb-type fun is happening there, no true yolos, but can still hit some smaller home runs for enjoyment. For $8 this book has everything you need. https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Investing-Money-Smart/dp/1477463992?ref=silk_at_search

Here's some advice you didn't ask for.

I retired early at age 54 in 2006. Had a military pension, life-long medical care, nice retirement accounts, owned a home, and so on.

Two things upset my calculus.

First, I didn't realize how boring it could be. And I'm a guy who's lived by the adage, "An educated man never gets bored waiting for a train." That's me. I had lists of things to do, books to read, hobbies to start, etc. But fundamentally it was boring, and after a couple of years I resumed working as a consultant, and now I'm back in graduate school.

Second, along came the 2008 crash. It did not have much of an effect on us financially, but that was just because we were luckily completely out of the market. It did, however, have a significant psychological effect. It made me realize that in the 30 or so years I hope to continue on, there's no telling what can happen. I mean, who ever dreamed the housing market would collapse? (A few people actually did, apparently.)

So I just toss it out there: don't burn any bridges. And by that I mean, don't get so completely divorced from work that you'll have a hard time getting back in the work force should you decide to do so. I was very, very lucky in that the stars aligned just right for my consulting gig, which led to other good things. But again, that was not planned for.

Anyway, good luck in whatever you decide to do!

I worked at the CME in Chicago as a broker and the books the guys told me to get when I first started were Options Pricing and Volitility and Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets. Learn options is the best advice, you will get WAY more return for your buck plus learn to protect yourself in your various positions using various strategies.

Very dry reading but its worth it. Good luck!

Two excellent titles on the subject are Option Volatility and Pricing: Advanced Trading Strategies and Techniques, 2nd Edition by Natenberg and Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives (10th Edition) by Hull.

The former is lighter, more entertaining read that is easier on math and touches on applied trading. The latter is a more thorough, academic title.

A number of other helpful resources are available. The Ally Invest Options Playbook provides a handy reference for various option strategies. The Interactive Brokers Probability Lab (free version linked at the bottom of the page) provides a modeling tool to visually explore option strategies by modifying expectations of volatility and price. CBOE offers a complete course on the subject. Finally, Tastytrade offers a long running set of shows, tutorials and discussions covering many aspects of options and option trading.

Firstly, you are right to be paranoid. DO NOT enlist the services of a financial advisor. Their performance almost never justifies their fees in the long run. Also beware of high expense ratio mutual funds. Below are two good options. One requires some study (but perhaps less than you may fear). The second is very easy and hands-off.

Option 1: Sit in cash and learn about investing, then invest intelligently. *see details below

Option 2: If you don't want to take a bit of time to learn how to invest, open a brokerage account (Fidelity and Vanguard are both good). Put 80% of the money in a low expense-ratio S&P ETF (such as IVV or SPY) and 20% in a low expense-ratio short-term bond ETF (BSV). The S&P ETF will simply perform as the overall US economy does over the long term. The bond ETF acts as a sort of 'ballast' for the equities (S&P / stock market) portion of your investment. As opposed to long-term bond funds/ETFs, short-term bonds are less interest-rate sensitive. This will do better than most mutual funds long term. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOS4wAsBnvM

With either option, you should be contributing to an IRA to the maximum allowed amount every year. Whether you use the money yourself or give it away, you will pay less taxes.

*Resources for learning to invest wisely (the much better option!):

https://www.ruleoneinvesting.com/podcast/

https://www.amazon.com/Essays-Warren-Buffett-Lessons-Corporate/dp/1611637589/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1611637589&pd_rd_r=49H5XWEBE322MGN21T9A&pd_rd_w=4BiWA&pd_rd_wg=h8HSo&psc=1&refRID=49H5XWEBE322MGN21T9A

https://www.amazon.com/Dhandho-Investor-Low-Risk-Method-Returns/dp/047004389X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524885124&sr=8-1&keywords=the+dhandho+investor

https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524885145&sr=8-1&keywords=the+intelligent+investor+by+benjamin+graham

• A John Bogle Indexing Book or any book that covers indexing and why its more prudent than active management. I know this isn't what you asked, but the rest of the points on my list will fall apart without a solid foundation.
  
  
• Index Fund Advisors website For an introduction to both indexing and academic investment factors. An absolute ton of videos and articles, and even a Risk Capacity survey (if you fill out the survey, they will email you about wealth management, but there is a ton of free information on the site).
  
  
• Paul Merriman's website for factor based investment strategies and portfolios. He also has a weekly podcast.
  
  
• Larry Swedroe's website and his books for more factor-based investment advice. My favorite book is this one
  
  
• Vanguard video webcasts for coverage on a myriad of investing, economic, and financial planning topics, with CFAs, CFPs, and other professionals.

If you're looking for somewhat of a comprehensive textbook, this has quite a bit of information you may be looking for. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0073530700/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1415848966&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40

As other users suggested, you may want to look into basic accounting / financial reporting as well. It puts some of the ratios into perspective and it's pretty essential for someone interested in finance. If you can get your hands on some CFA material, that could help as well.

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits By Joel Greenblatt There are a lot of great suggestions on this board. This book gives a lot of great common sense advice for special situations investing. Also, The Ivy Portfolio by Mebane Faber is a good read.

For what it's worth, if anyone's interested in the topic of portfolio diversification, this is the best book I've read in the topic: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Asset-Allocator-Portfolio-Maximize/dp/0071362363.

It's not too long, easy to read, and makes a compelling case for the benefits if diversification via incorrelated assets.

There's a great book called the Triumph of the Optimists and there's an extremely curtailed summary of it available in pdf form online.

I'd recommend the full book

here's the pdf
http://www.econ.uniurb.it/materiale/2781_triumph_of_the_optimists.pdf

edit: here's the book
http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Optimists-Global-Investment-Returns/dp/0691091943/

You are all wrong... :-)

The best book by far is "unconventional success" by David Swensen.

https://www.amazon.com/Unconventional-Success-Fundamental-Approach-Investment/dp/0743228383

I suggest reading these books:

"Retire Early, Sleep Well" by Davis
http://www.amazon.com/Retire-Early-Sleep-Well-Retirement/dp/0966343646

"Asset Allocation for Investing Adults" by Bernstein
http://www.amazon.com/Rational-Expectations-Allocation-Investing-Adults-ebook/dp/B00KSPCY24

"Intelligent Asset Allocator" by Bernstein
http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Asset-Allocator-Portfolio-Maximize/dp/0071362363

Only as much as seatbelts and airbags encourage bad driving.

Seatbelts won’t stop your car from crashing but they will help you, the squishy human. Similarly having some % of your investments in bonds and CDs won’t stop the stock market from crashing, but will help human beings make it through without selling their stocks. Especially if they lose their job, get hit with a surprise expense, or they or a family member gets really sick.

You can try to take the emotion out of humans, or you can accept them as they are and give them appropriate advice. Check out the book by the economist who won the novel price last year, Richard Thaler, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics for more about the differences between humans and rational robots.

I read the following, in roughly this order:

• A whole lot of Investing for Beginners, lots of bite-sized articles that explain a huge breadth of topics in very approachable but detailed terms for beginners.
  
• The Intelligent Investor (the latest revision, annotated by Jason Zweig, who did an incredible job bringing each chapter into the modern day)
  
• Watch Prof. Aswath Damodaran's Corporate Finance lectures
  
• Watch Prof. Aswath Damodaran's Valuation lectures
  
• The Millionaire Next Door, by Drs. Thomas Stanley and William Danko
  
• The Most Important Thing Illuminated, by Howard Marks
  
• The Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders

Much of the below text is based on personal opinion and reading many articles and books such as "Ivy League Portfolio" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Ivy-Portfolio-Endowments-Markets/dp/1118008855). I lack sources for majority of the comments below, so feel free to call my bluff just know that I know I have read everything below in multiple locations.

Stocks are more risky than bonds over a short duration, however they have a higher expected return over a long duration. A "balanced" portfolio will include both stocks and bonds to be able to both decrease volatility (ups and downs) but also so that you can rebalance between the 2 and sell stocks to buy bonds when stocks are high and bonds are low or the opposite.

Within stocks there are different things you can hold. One example if REIT, another (this is maybe not actually within stocks but it is not within bonds) is commodities. Or, you can focus on the size, small cap versus large cap. So you can hold all of the equity or you can hold (domestic: small cap, large cap, REIT, commodity, bonds), (international: small cap, large cap, REIT, bonds). You can also add in actively managed mutual funds as those also can act as diversification.

Now, most people will simply suggest a 3-fund portfolio (domestic equity, domestic bonds, international stock). Some research such as displayed within "Ivy League Portfolio" suggests a 5-fund portfolio (domestic equity, domestic REIT, domestic bonds, commodities, international stocks) and holding those 5 gives better volatility control as well as better gains from re-balancing. Other people are quite lazy and simply invest 100% U.S.A. equity such as S&P 500 index. To make matters worse, there have been studies which suggest that re-balancing actually provides no benefits other than decreased volatility.

So, let me try a different track. https://personal.vanguard.com/us/insights/saving-investing/model-portfolio-allocations According to Vanguard, historically speaking, having the ability to re-balance between stocks and bonds has provided worse return than 100% stock. The only historic benefit of being able to re-balance between domestic stock and domestic bonds is significantly reduced volatility. Now, you are asking whether or not you should add more complexity to your portfolio. More complexity means that you need to pay slightly more attention to your asset allocations, more work involved with re-balancing, if this is a taxable account more paperwork due to dividends even without re-balancing, and potentially slightly worse return. Worse return specifically is due to historically speaking real estate has had slightly lower return than the U.S. stock market as a whole.

If you are most concerned with trying to decrease volatility and the actual return is secondary then fine, add a REIT fund. If you are more concerned about long-term growth and prefer to be more hands-off and passive then just go with the U.S. equity fund.

I liked that book, but it is somekind similar to TII. What I remembred about that book is that a stock tend to be undervalued if the bonds pays the same rate, since the stock tend to have fewer investors who would invest assuming risk, they will prefer the bonds, but they overlook the stock potential growth. Off course, this is waaay oversimplified. And our market have P/E throught the roof now. Too much volability and speculation IMO.

I'm keeping my IPCA+ till the end of election and wait to make some good investment then. Maybe I'll hold some WEG stocks, since they are pioneering bus electrification in the country, they may get a spurge in the near future.

edit:grammar

Meus dois centavos,
Sucesso pra ti!

This was a pretty good book on the subject. Similar conclusion to OPs.

https://www.amazon.com/Ivy-Portfolio-Invest-Endowments-Markets/dp/1118008855

Amazon

It's a book about behavioral economics. I just got past a point where he argues against efficient market and price-is-right by looking at closed-end funds vs the sum of the positions in them. Long story short, efficient price-is-right would dictate the prices be the same, but you can often get a closed-end fund that is cheaper than the sum of its parts. Moreover over time the delta tends to decrease, so someone could reasonably point at a deeply-discounted closed end fund and expect it to rise closer to parity with the sum of its parts.

An ETF that does this for you would be a great way for me with no time to get in on that action.

I think this book would be invaluable

https://www.amazon.com/Will-Teach-You-Be-Rich/dp/0761147489/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485217701&sr=1-1&keywords=i+will+teach+you+to+be+rich

And the guys web site

http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com

And this

https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance/stock-and-bonds

And this

https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-finance

If you master this information at your age you will have compiled the basics that many people twice your age have no working knowledge of. I buy a copy of I will teach you to be rich for every 18 year old kid any of my friends have.

I would definitely read Howard Marks.

Might be easiest in book form. Amazon.

Some light reading to get you started on your way to be a quant:

Stochastic Calculus for Finance: The Binomial Asset Pricing Model

Stochastic Calculus for Finance: Continuous-Time Models

Stochastic Implied Volatility: A Factor-Based Model

Methods of Mathematical Finance (Stochastic Modelling and Applied Probability)

Pairs Trading: Quantitative Methods and Analysis

Alpha Trading: Profitable Strategies That Remove Directional Risk

The Encyclopedia of Trading Strategies

Evidence-Based Technical Analysis

I just started reading A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkel (latest edition is 2019), and it's pretty good so far. I've also seen several recommendations for John Bogle's The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, though I haven't read it yet.

There are also free courses on Coursera to get your feet wet (e.g. Robert Shiller's Financial Markets class, Yale Unv). These aren't always designed for your everyday retirement investor, but Shiller's course is still really informative.

Assuming you're newer to the topic--or else why else would you be asking for books to understand it--I would start with one of "The Little Book of..."

I recommend for value investing types: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470624159/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ZmsUBbTG4X8NJ

And index investing types: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119404509/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_1psUBbBD9SS81

Financial Statements: A Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding and Creating Financial Reports

How to Read a Financial Report: Wringing Vital Signs Out of the Numbers

I will just suggest you to see an inflation graphic from the 70s. Back then, the dollar was the reserve currency of the world...


There is an awesome book called "This time is different" it goes on showing several times in history when people thought that debt/easy money was ok and backfired resulting in inflation, bank runs, or sovereign defaults.

But who knows, maybe this time really is different and the US can keep printing money to pay debt without any consequences.

In order to avoid Day-Trading rules, your account must maintain a value above 25k: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_day_trader

I would suggest you start off with a paper money account as it's typical for novice traders to lose pretty much everything in their first go.

I'm a really big fan of this book for learning the basics: http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Analysis-Financial-Markets-Comprehensive/dp/0735200661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324186087&sr=8-1

In the long-term it seems like rebalancing leads to higher returns.
I can't find the precise info I mentioned in the book through Amazon reader, so it may have been a different book. Have a look here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0743228383/ref=rdr_ext_sb_ti_sims_2#reader_0743228383

yes, but they didnt steal money. theres a world of difference, and if you had even a passing knowledge of why LTCM blew up, it had very little to do with scholes' option pricing model, or even how they were pricing bonds, but because they drifted far away from their core strategy (https://www.amazon.com/When-Genius-Failed-Long-Term-Management/dp/0375758259) is a great proxy.

to think that a criminal is in the same class as them is laughable.

https://www.amazon.com/This-Time-Different-Centuries-Financial/dp/0691152640

Good book. This Time Is Different: 8 Centuries of Financial Folly

https://www.dough.com/

https://www.tastytrade.com/tt/shows/wdis-season-1-tom-case?locale=en-US
(I recommend doing doughjo first. You will have to watch WDIS videos to get the certificate)

http://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/1k6481/sheldon_natenbergs_option_volatility_and_pricing/

NEW VERSION: http://www.amazon.com/Option-Volatility-Pricing-Strategies-Techniques/dp/0071818774/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420568538&sr=1-1&keywords=sheldon+natenberg


OLD VERSION: http://terredegaia.free.fr/ppics/Trading/Mcgraw-Hill%20-%20Option%20Pricing%20And%20Volatility%20-%20Advanced%20Strategies%20And%20Trading%20Techniques%20-%20Sheldon%20Natenberg%20-%20(1994).pdf

I'm currently reading the Misbehaving by Richard Thaler. It's a very engaging read. He has a nice writing style.
https://www.amazon.com/Misbehaving-Behavioral-Economics-Richard-Thaler/dp/039335279X#

>Have you read Satan's Bible?

I have not! I can only assume it's full of divine knowledge. I keep telling myself I'm going to read this but I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it through without falling asleep.

(I just want to preface that I'm not a pro at this)

I think there might be a slight misunderstanding as to what a quant does, what algo developer does vs. what you seem to be interested in. Quants usually try to price derivatives or develop risk models. Although some algo promammers can be quants so there is some overlap, algos usually refer to High frequency trading which is very difficult and requires a lot of capital and knowledge that really isn't found in books (traditionally algo trading didn't refer to HFT but to trade execution such as vwap, iceburg stuff etc). You seem to be more interested in whats known as systematic trading.

Here's some resources you should check out:

Woodsheddar

Evidence based technical analysis

Bootstrap testing

I have some more info somewhere about pairs trading/cointegration, and statistical methods.

I strongly recommend this book for all beginning investors:
Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets
http://www.amazon.com/Technical-Analysis-Financial-Markets-Comprehensive/dp/0735200661

Thank me later:
https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Optimists-Global-Investment-Returns/dp/0691091943

Have you read this book? It talks a lot about the various errors that cause backtesting to produce better results than reality. Worth a look.

> understanding mortgage backed securities

The Big Short

This was recommended as one of the best books on investing in general by a blog on Forbes. Not a self proclaimed technical analyst (uses CAN SLIM), but uses a lot of chart reading, etc. Too bad it's by the founder of Investor's Business Daily and he spends quite a bit of pushing IBD (I'm currently reading it...). Regardless, it does have a lot of good insight about locating the correct buy points via charts.

There is a great book about that called "When Genius Failed"
http://www.amazon.com/When-Genius-Failed-Long-Term-Management/dp/0375758259

Less that $20 on Amazon right now (not an affiliate link, I'm not trying to hawk anything)

https://www.amazon.com/Unconventional-Success-Fundamental-Approach-Investment/dp/0743228383

Check out this book by William O' Neil, it will change your life!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0071614133/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524459229&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=william+oneil

hows this book btw: http://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Investing-Money-Smart/dp/1477463992/

https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Investing-Money-Smart/dp/1477463992

Here's the most introductory book on financial statements.

> Natenberg's book

The "advanced" one? I noticed there's a "basic" and also a "regular" version.

I have a recommendation that's not entirely software.

2 books.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0470382058

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0735200661

And I use this site for charting.

https://www.tradingview.com/

Here is the desktop version of your link

Barbarians at the Gate

The Box

And obviously The Big Short

yea you could do this. there is education involved. you have to learn about relative strength, trend following, and risk management.

here are some books for you to read

http://www.amazon.com/Trend-Following-Updated-Edition-Millions/dp/013702018X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414408329&sr=8-1&keywords=michael+covel

http://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Money-Stocks-Winning/dp/0071614133/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414408378&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+make+money+in+stocks

there are other books you will have to read but these will give you the right foundation to build on.

ignore when people tell you its not possible to beat the market or time the market. these are people who cant do it themselves so they think its not possible for anyone else. it is possible, in fact it is probable when you have the right knowledge.

https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Optimists-Global-Investment-Returns/dp/0691091943

This book has pretty graphs of 100 years of various investment returns that drives the point home.

Put a little bit of money each month in a low cost index fund and never sell. The second part is very hard because it requires psychological discipline. The market will go down by 40% or more in a single year a few times in our life time. Invest some money in a gym membership and work out everyday to build discipline through stress. Pick up a combat sport to experience the difficulties of being rational under stress. Go backpacking alone so you can experience being rational under solitude. These things will always make you live longer, so you can have more time to spend money rather than dying early.

Basically returns on risky assets grows faster than wedges but the rich never just get richer. This is because it is very difficult, if not impossible to maintain composure during a market crash. People always sell out at the bottom and buy at the top. Passive investing is very difficult. Example, education enrollment increase during recession while fund outflows increase. People always do the wrong thing at the wrong time. This is why wages is a much better source of income for most people.