Personal Wealth Management / Book Reviews

10 Books That Helped my Thinking About Markets Over the Last Decade

In no particular order, a handful of books that helped my thinking about markets over the last decade.

By Michael Hanson — 04/01/2021 icons/24/time@3x Time to read
  1. Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counter-intuition by Michael J. Mauboussin
  • Behavioral finance theory through the lens of a real money manager who rightly understands capital markets as complex adaptive systems.
 
  1. Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers by Mervyn King and John Kay
  • Eloquent and erudite, a veteran of central banking reveals just how badly statistical models break down in the complexity and chaos of real circumstance.
 
  1. Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible by William Goetzmann
  • If you don’t understand what money is, you don’t have much chance at investing well. Professor Goetzmann illustrates what money has been through civilization, and shows us what a catalyst it can be for human ingenuity.
 
  1. Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
  • A psychology scholar who made theories practical by becoming one of the best poker players in the world. Who better to learn from when making decisions in the face of incomplete information?
 
  1. The Model Thinker by Scott E Page
  • The way you think is as or more important than the data you have. Scott Page gives us a magisterial view of the best and worst mental models, and how/when to apply the
  1. The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
  • Markets are systems of people, not numbers. No social theory, no non-replicable experiments, Robert Greene draws his views from the best wisdom texts of the world. Markets evolve rapidly, but human nature persists.
 
  1. The Only Three Questions that Still Count by Ken Fisher
  • Unabashedly (Ken’s my boss!) the most practical and versatile system ever created for anyone taking on the challenge of beating the market.
 
  1. A First Class Catastrophe by Diana B. Henriques
  • The only worthy study of the 1987 crash—you’ll learn so much history, market structure, and the folly of crowd behavior in this vibrant story.
 
  1. The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
  • So simple and true most will ignore this wisdom for fancier ideas. This is straight down the middle, clear, simple advice anyone can use to make better investment decisions.
 
  1. Finance for Normal People by Meir Statman
  • From one who helped start it all, a complete picture of behavioral finance and its findings, written for “normal people” to enjoy.
 
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