My Book List & Blog List

Many books and article have been written about Warren Buffett on his success and philosophy in investment, but less on his partner or Vice President of Berkshire Hathaway i.e Charlie Munger.

In1959, Warren Buffett met Charlie Munger, the beginning of a partnership that has spanned decades and created billions in corporate and personal wealth. Since their fateful meeting, they have built Berkshire Hathaway into one of the world’s most successful company.

In multiple speeches, and in the book Poor Charlie's Almanack, Munger has introduced the concept of "Elementary, Worldly Wisdom" as it relates to business and finance. 

Munger's worldly wisdom consists of a set of mental models framed as a latticework to help solve critical business problems.

Charlie Munger, as an investor, lawyer and philanthropist always inspired people to read and gain knowledge.

Below are the quotes from him on what he thinks about reading:

1.   “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.”

2.   “You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads – at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.” 

3.   “As long as I have a book in my hand, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time.”

4.   “I’ve gotten paid a lot over the years for reading through the newspapers.”

5.   “I don’t think you can get to be a really good investor over a broad range without doing a massive amount of reading. I don’t think anyone book will do it for you.”

6.   “For years I have read the morning paper and harrumphed. There’s a lot to harrumph about now.”

7.   “We read a lot.  I don’t know anyone who’s wise who doesn’t read a lot.  But that’s not enough: You have to have a temperament to grab ideas and do sensible things.  Most people don’t grab the right ideas or don’t know what to do with them.”    

8.   “By regularly reading business newspaper and magazines I am exposed to an enormous amount of material at the micro-level.  I find that what I see going on there pretty much informs me about what’s happening at the macro level.”  

9.   “Warren and I do more reading and thinking and less doing than most people in the business. We do that because we like that kind of life. But we’ve turned that quirk into a positive outcome for ourselves. We both insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think.”

10.“If you get into the mental habit of relating what you’re reading to the basic structure of the underlying ideas being demonstrated, you gradually accumulate some wisdom.”

Munger, along with Buffett, is one of the main inspirations behind the book "Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger". Author Peter Bevelin explained his key learning from both Munger and Buffett in a 2007 interview: "How to think about businesses and investing, how to behave in life, the importance of ethics and honesty, how to approach problems but foremost how to reduce the chance of meeting problems."

This book is about searching for Wisdom and focus on how our thoughts are influenced, why we make misjudgment and tools to improve our thinking. Also according to this book “ we can’t eliminate mistakes, but we can prevent those that can really hurt us.

Let me quote one of the phrases on " Effect of regression" :

"pg 183: Regression to mean " is a notion worked out by Sir Francis Galton ( Charles Darwin's first cousin).  It says that, in any series of events where chance is involved, very good or bad performances, high or low scores, extreme events, etc. tend on the average, to be followed by more average performance or less extreme events. If we do extremely well, we are likely to do worse the next time, while if we do poorly, we are likely to do better the next time. But regression to mean is not a natural law. Merely a statistical tendency, and it may take a long time before it happens."

So, we need to be careful in using this for individual stock analysis, always remember that regression is just a statistical phenomenon and will need to use it together with other tools like the fundamental analysis.

My book list :

I like reading and have bought many books throughout the years. I have more than 600 books in my collection and is kind of my own small library.

In my opinion, it might not be wise to spend thousands of dollar to attend courses to learn on how to trade and make a quick profit in the short term, but if spending a few hundred dollars to set our mind-set right, on the philosophy of investment as long term and part of our retirement planning, it should be fine.

< The biggest problem is when we are shifting house,,, where I would have to fork out an additional few hundred dollars to the movers just because of these books. L >

Below is the list of books I would recommend to my friends and fellow investors who would like to learn more about investing by DIY.  It is a selection of books from Finance & Investment, Psychology, History and Economic.

My blog list :

Of course, we can gain knowledge in investing not only from books nowadays, there are many good bloggers in Singapore and around the world where we could also learn from them. They are the one, sharing their knowledge and experience relentlessly and selflessly in our blog sphere, cultivate the interest in learning among young investors.

Please refer to the sidebar on the list of blogs I frequently visit to get information and learn from them. Some of them have done a very good analysis of the particular company in great detail in term of the financial and business aspect.

E.g.

http://foreverfinancialfreedom.blogspot.sg/ : on company’s financial analysis.

http://investmentmoats.com/ : on REIT & Yield stock analysis

http://singaporeanstocksinvestor.blogspot.sg/ : aka AK  on REITs and CPF and other financial / retirement planning.

http://sginvestbloggers.blogspot.sg/  and http://thefinance.sg/ : both are very good blog aggregator in compiling the blog post for easy reading

http://sgshareinvestor.blogspot.sg/ : on analyst report from different stock brokerage firm on various company and also fellow blogger’s article as well as News Feed.

And the list goes on …..

Other sources of info :

Also, below are few websites I follow and need to check their content each day when I have time...

http://abnormalreturns.com/

http://awealthofcommonsense.com/

http://blog.alphaarchitect.com/#gs.xMc5gp4

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/

http://www.validea.com/blog/

http://www.valuewalk.com/

http://www.pragcap.com/

For those reading Chinese :

http://www.stockfeel.com.tw/

http://cj.sharesinv.com/

http://cpleung826.blogspot.sg/

http://www.cmoney.tw/notes/?bid=22814&p=1

TGIF , enjoy your weekend and do check out the webs and books listed above if you do have time …

Cheers!

image credit to chendulvshis.com

子曰：“三人行，必有我師焉。擇其善者而從之，其不善者而改之。”

How a man may find instructors for himself.
The Master said, "When I walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teachers. I will select their good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities and avoid them."