Top 5 Best Value Investing Books

Last Updated March 26th 2021
5 Min Read

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."

- Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

... and maybe the more money you will make if you are reading the books that can make a difference to your life, work or play. The majority of successful people love to read about their business, their passion and their life. Successful investors are no different.

In short, it is vital to learn to be successful and reading is a crucial element of that learning, and this holds true for those experienced or new to value investing or value investing books.

Here at Trading Education, we thought we'd put together a list of the books that will give you the best platform for investment success. These are classics in the field and anyone interested in maximising their returns or learning how to become a successful value investor should get these under their belts as soon as they are able.

"The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment" by Guy Spier

The Education of a Value Investor by Guy Spier

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One of the fundamental reads that helps to create and develop the correct attitude and successful mindset to be an effective value investor. It may not provide all the technical details that other books provide, but its focus on the behavioural elements of investing shows how these are crucial to success. The book also includes Spier's Tools of Investing, an instrument for successful investment that he created to perfect his own investment system. There are a few common rules such as "stop checking the stock price" and "don't talk to management and others less well known". A book that should be read by everyone in the field.

See also: How to Think Like an Investment Guru?

"The Art of Value Investing: How the World's Best Investors Beat the Market" by John Heins and Whitney Tilson

The Art of Value Investing by John Heins and Whitney Tilson

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Created from interviews with globally successful value investors, "The Art of Value Investing" provides answers to the key questions anyone interested in value investing should be asking themselves. Questions like: What are the market inefficiencies I need to exploit? What is my geographic focus? What methodologies should I apply? This is an excellent resource for the new or time-served investor. The former will discover a sound guidebook for creating a winning investment strategy; the latter will enjoy and benefit from the challenges of some very successful peers.

"Security Analysis: sixth edition" by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, Foreword by Warren Buffett

Security Analysis: sixth edition by Warren Buffett

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"A roadmap for investing that I have now been following for 57 years". This excerpt is taken from the foreword by Warren E. Buffett - a pretty powerful recommendation for this book. Anyone diligently reading this book will realise that even though it would be considered an old textbook it still is a definitive piece of work that provides a relevant toolkit for the contemporary investor. The 1940 edition of "Security Analysis" is the bible of value investing. McGraw-Hill continues its honoured tradition with this sixth edition that will serve as a yardstick for the next generation of value investors.

People also read: 5 Smart Ways to Invest $1,000

"The Manual of Ideas: The Proven Framework for Finding the Best Value Investments" by John Mihaljevic

The Manual of Ideas by John Mihaljevic

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An essential source of pioneering research and ideas from some of the world's top investment companies and money managers, "The Manual of Ideas" boasts a list of subscribers that reads like a who's who of high finance and describes itself as an "idea funnel" for the world's top money managers. These include Joel Greenblatt and Guy Spier, and for the first time, John Mihaljevic uncovers the framework behind this elite group's pursuit of unexploited investment ideas.

"The Dhandho Investor: The Low-Risk Value Method to High Returns" by Mohnish Pabrai

The Dhandho Investor by Mohnish Pabrai

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Mohnish Pabrai is an Indian-American entrepreneur and investor who set up a partnership modelled on that run by Warren Buffett in the 1950s. This partnership fund has beaten the S&P 500 returns consistently since its inception. The core tenet of this book is that high business investment returns have to co-exist with high-risk opportunities. Something that many academics have been telling us for years and something that one Warren Buffet would concur with. Pabrai admits in the book that he is a bit of a "cloner", and he could have done a lot worse (in fact he did very well) than cloning Buffet.

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