By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-31 15:21:42 | Updated at 2025-01-07 22:32:02
1 week ago
Investing legend Warren Buffett has long extolled the benefits of lifelong learning, and in particular being well-read.
Buffett, and his late business partner Charlie Munger, have always been focused on holding stocks over a long period of time - rather than trying to time the market, and have achieved great returns as a result.
Over the decades the 94-year-old investor's company, Berkshire Hathaway, has become one of the most followed companies by Wall Street watchers and retail investors alike.
Many eagerly follow his investing advice while others will defer to his personal finance advice, such as his recent warnings about creating a will.
Here are five of the Oracle of Omaha's most-recommended books that speak to his philosophy, and that could spark your business acumen in 2025 too.
1. Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd
Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, first read Security Analysis when he was a student at Columbia University.
Its authors, Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd, where among his professors at the time.
Buffett once said 'together, the book and the men changed my life,' and he has recommended it to others since.
Indeed, he even wrote the forward for the book's newest edition.
2. The Great Crash of 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith
Galbraith's masterful account of the 1929 stock market crash analyses the events that led up to the event and how modern investors can learn from those mistakes.
Buffett publicly recommended the book at the 2020 Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting as the Covid-19 pandemic was rapidly changing the financial landscape.
The CEO told investors the book was an essential read in uncertain times.
3. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
'I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was nineteen,' Buffett said of the Intelligent Investor in his preface to its fourth edition.
'I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written. I still think it is.'
Buffett recommends the book because he believes sound investment only requires having the proper intellectual framework for decision-making and the book 'precisely and clearly prescribes the proper framework.'
4. The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America by Lawrence A. Cunningham
Buffett's own annual letters to the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway were first compiled in to a book of essays by Lawrence A. Cunningham in 1997.
The book reveals the investing genius' own insights, principles, philosophies and strategies.
The essays have been hailed as a key resource by industry leaders for decades, with particular note being made of Buffett's straightforward and accessible revelations about the world of investing.
5. The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson
Walter Isaacson's The Innovators has been recommended by Buffett for revealing how technology has transformed various industries.
The 2014 book marches through the history of technology and some of its most notable figures such as Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs.
However, the book is not without criticism of the technology revolution as it also examines some of the key challenges such as issues of privacy and security.
