Do you want to learn about investing but aren’t sure where to start? What are the best investing resources to learn from?
Investing can be a daunting subject. There are so many investing gurus pitching their advice and “winning formulas” on the web. Their advice is varied and often contradictory. No wonder, many wannabe investors are at a loss. If you feel like you don’t even know where to start, you’ve come to the right place!
We’ve scoured the web for the best resources to learn investing including books, blogs, and podcasts. It’s not an exhaustive list by any means, but it’s a great place to start!
Why Learn Investing?
Investing is the most powerful way to grow your money because it offers a higher rate of return than even the best savings accounts. On average, the stock market’s annual net return is about 8% (after accounting for inflation). That number is an average from decades worth of data, which means that your money will earn an average of 8% per year over the long term, even if that rate fluctuates in the short term.
Here’s our roundup of the best resources to learn investing, including blogs, books, and podcasts.
Best Investing Blogs
There are many investing bloggers who churn out content daily, but how do you know whom to trust?
We’ve scoured the web for the best investing blogs to help you make sense of the confusing jungle of investing concepts and to teach you how to invest smartly!
A Wealth of Common Sense is a blog by Ben Carlson, a portfolio manager at Ritholtz Wealth Management. He blogs about investing, wealth management, and financial markets. He writes from his vast experience in investing, often illustrating his points with diagrams.
Jim Collins is a published author (The Simple Path to Wealth) and financial blogger who professes a simple investment strategy that is based on buying and holding. His blog is best known for the Stock Series, a series of posts breaking down Collins’ advice on building wealth slowly but surely by investing in index funds.
Financial Samurai is run by an investing veteran Sam, who blogs from his firsthand experience. He delves deep into investing, retirement planning, passive income streams, and a variety of other money matters. His posts are always informative, in-depth, and fluff-free.
Crossing Wall Street is run by Eddy Elfenbein, who is a speaker and portfolio manager at The AdvisorShares Focused Equity ETF. He is also a proponent of the buy-and-hold investing strategy. Over the last 16 years, his Crossing Wall Street Buy List outperformed the S&P 500 by 61%!
Collaborative Fund is an investment firm run by Craig Shapiro (the founder) and Morgan Housel (a journalist and the author of the bestseller The Psychology of Money). On the blog, they take the big-picture perspective of investing for the shared future and discuss the psychological side of things when it comes to wealth building.
Oblivious Investor is a blog by Mike Piper, a CPA, and a popular personal finance author. He professes “simple, low-maintenance investing,” focusing on index funds. His blog is not just about investing though; he delves deep into other related money matters including tax planning, retirement planning, social security, and more.
Vested Capital is hosted by Yaro Starak, an entrepreneur, investor, and blogger on the mission to educate people on how to make money through entrepreneurship and investing. Every episode is an interview with an esteemed figure from the world of business and/or investing, focusing on how they made money and put their capital to work.
At Sure Dividend, Ben Reynolds blogs about dividend investments. The goal is to educate his readers on how to build an investment portfolio that pays rising dividend income over time. In addition to the free blog articles, there is also some paid content including his flagship The Sure Analysis Research Database, which contains reports on over 700 securities so readers can compare potential investments in terms of risk and expected returns.
The We Talk Trade blog is dedicated to all things Forex trading. They break down complex currency exchange trading concepts, share tips, and analyze trading strategies. They also offer paid access to their signature PipBreaker Indicator for MT4/MT5 trading platforms.
Best Investing Podcasts
Listening to investing podcasts is great if you like consuming content on the go (e.g., during your morning run or while driving to work). Here is our collection of the best investing podcasts to follow in 2022:
Invest Like a Boss with Sam Marks, Johnny FD and Derek Spartz covers all forms of investing, from real-estate to fine wine. They invite and interview successful investors, financial insiders, and entrepreneurs on their go-to strategies, stock picks, and general tips on all things investing.
InvestED is “the podcast that teaches you to invest with your values.” The hosts Phil Town, an author, and hedge fund manager, and his daughter Danielle discuss investing strategies, share tips, and make sense of the current financial climate.
The Rich Dad Radio Show is hosted by investor, author, and financial guru Robert Kiyosaki. He invites authors, speakers, and entrepreneurs and interviews them on the lessons they’ve learned on their path to financial and business success. Past topics vary widely, from getting started with real estate investing to retirement planning.
Peter Schiff is an economist, stockbroker, author, financial commentator, and the CEO and chief global strategist of broker-dealer Euro Pacific Capital Inc. On his podcast, he takes a big-picture view of the financial markets by discussing how world events influence the global financial climate.
On the We Study Billionaires podcast, Stig Brodersen and Trey Lockerbie interview and analyze billionaires such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates to learn the secrets behind their success. If this sounds good to you, check out their Starter Pack—a list of podcast episodes curated for newcomers.
Investing Insights is a podcast from Morningstar, the world’s leading provider of investment research. In the podcast, Morningstar analysts offer stock, fund, and ETF picks and share their insights on what to expect in financial markets in the context of the current economic and political climate.
The Judgment Call Podcast is run by Jeff Cornwall, an author and a Professor of Entrepreneurship. In each episode, he invites and interviews entrepreneurs, investors, and “simply mind bogglers” on a wide range of topics, with a focus on entrepreneurship and investing.
Best Investing Books
Investing books vary dramatically in the scope of the material they cover. At the most basic level, you’ll learn the elementals of investing (e.g. asset classes, types of stocks, types of brokers) and wealth management. Some books take it further and teach more advanced material such as different trading and portfolio diversification strategies.
Here is our selection of the best investing books from our library.
In The Simple Path to Wealth, Collins offers a simple road map to achieving financial independence and a secure retirement: Spend less than you make, avoid debt, save “F-You Money,” and invest in stock index funds. He demystifies stocks and bonds, as well as a plethora of investment plan options. In addition to explaining basic concepts such as asset allocation, Collins answers key questions such as how to live on your investments and how to avoid major tax hits.
Whether you’re in the wealth accumulation stage of life where you’re growing your investments, or in the wealth preservation stage where you’re living on them, Collins tells you how to use your money to achieve freedom and a more fulfilling life.
The world’s greatest investor Warren Buffett read this book when he was 19 years old, and he still calls this “by far the best book about investing ever written.” Written by the father of value investing Benjamin Graham (1894-1976), it remains an inspiration for many of today’s most successful business people.
The book covers timeless ideas of how the market behaves, how investment is different from speculation, and how to identify profitable investments. You’ll learn whether you’re a defensive or an aggressive investor, why most trading strategies don’t work, and how to maintain control of your psychology in any type of market condition.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a Lebanese-American essayist, mathematical statistician, former options trader, risk analyst, and aphorist whose work concerns problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty. Fooled by Randomness is one of the books in his landmark Incerto series (the other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes).
In Fooled by Randomness, Taleb examines the outsized role luck plays in success, how and why people don’t generally understand luck, and how we can accommodate randomness in our lives once we’re aware of it. Taleb primarily focuses on examples from the world of investing, but his principles are applicable to any field ruled by unpredictability (such as economics or politics) and demonstrate how we’re fooled by randomness in many aspects of our lives.
Annie Duke is a decision strategist and a former professional poker player. She merges her poker expertise with her cognitive psychology graduate work at UPenn. Her book Thinking in Bets became a Wall Street Journal bestseller.
In Thinking in Bets, Duke discusses how her decades-long poker career helped her develop decision-making strategies based on the idea that all decisions are bets. Being immersed in the game enabled her to observe how people make decisions in a setting where every choice leads to a clear outcome—winning or losing money. That’s what a bet is: a decision with quantifiable risk. You’ll learn how to work around your biases, objectively evaluate your beliefs, learn from your past, and ultimately get better at making good decisions.
In The Automatic Millionaire, author David Bach argues that financial freedom doesn’t come from how much you earn, but how you manage your earnings-if you’re not saving your money with your current income, you’re unlikely to save it in the future. This is because people often increase their spending in line with their income and always have an excuse to avoid saving for the future. In the book, he provides a simple but powerful action plan for you to quickly automate your finances, build your wealth, and achieve financial freedom.
In The Barefoot Investor, Scott Pape offers guidance and a 10-step plan for how to manage your money so that you eliminate debt and build wealth. Though the plan is written for an Australian audience, the basic principles are universally applicable. Starting with establishing regular date nights with your significant other to discuss finances, then covering reducing debt and buying a home, the steps in this book will help you make informed money decisions.
In The Millionaire Fastlane, multimillionaire entrepreneur and investor MJ DeMarco challenges conventional wisdom about how to create wealth and offers a simple formula to shortcut your path to riches and early retirement.
According to DeMarco, all financial strategies follow one of three formulas—Insatiable Consumption, Hopeful Accumulation, and Active Production. Each formula represents a distinct attitude and approach that determines both the amount of money you can accumulate and the speed at which you can achieve your financial goal.
A Random Walk Down Wall Street
A massive bestseller now in its 12th edition, Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street provides a comprehensive and entertaining introduction to the world of finance. Malkiel leverages his experience as an academic economist and former Wall Street portfolio manager to explain for the lay reader the intricacies of security analysis, asset valuation, and investment theory. He also offers a wealth of practical investment principles that will be useful for novice and seasoned investors alike.
Final Words
Investing your hard-earned money is a big decision, so you’ll need a lot of advice to make it worth it.
We hope these resources will help you get started with investing. Did we miss your favorite investing blog, book, or podcast? Let us know in the comments!
