After the fact, I realized another common denominator to most of those books. The author had spent a long career in finance, in other cases, a lifetime in poker. Many financial books are written by people with no professional experience in the field, others by people who worked at entry-level jobs for a few years. You don't have to love finance to be qualified to write about it, but it's important that some finance lovers communicate their ideas, for balance if not for expertise. Similarly, many poker books are written by people with only casual interest in the game (the ones above are notable exceptions). Some of these authors are card players or gamblers, some are mathematicians, some are good writers, some have no qualifications at all. Most of the serious players who do write books are full-time professional tournament players, and for the most part I think they do a poor job of communicating the nature of the game. They may teach you how to play, but seldom why.
Another book you have to read:
Take an interactive journey that will introduce you to some of the world's most talented and successful investors. Bulls, Bears and Brains: Investing with the Best and Brightest of the Financial Internet interviews twenty successful investors-an assortment of fund managers, economists, professors, executives, statisticians, strategists, traders and technicians who put their money and prowess on the line in the pages of this text. These top financial minds have made themselves available to the investing public via the Internet, and are willing to share their strategies, successes, failures, and philosophies in open online forums. This unique book will help you connect and make money with them, giving you twenty powerful allies in the complicated game of investing.
The book includes candid interviews with company founders and expert advisors, such as:
- Don Luskin: The Luskin Report. Ex-CEO of Barclays Global Mutual Funds
- Ed Yardeni: Yardeni.com. Chief Investment Strategist at Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown
- Kris Skrinak: ClearStation. Co-founder of E*TRADE's community investment site
- Jeremy Siegel: JeremySiegel.com. Wharton professor of finance and bestselling author
- Brandon Goyette: ActiveTrader. Hedge fund manager and ex-Wall Street analyst
- Aaron Brown: eRaider. Yeshiva University professor of finance and prominent shareholder activist
- David Gardner: Fool.com. Bestselling investment author and co-founder of The Motley Fool
- Bill Ginsberg: Shortboy.com. Columbia Business School dropout and "the baddest short-seller on the planet"
This book will help you interpret these individuals' theories in light of your personal investment needs and develop your own investment strategy with a top-notch team that never leaves your side. Don't rely on market pundits and analysts to shape your investing strategies. Instead, make use of the global research team that the Internet places at your fingertips to identify profitable opportunities long before the rest of the world takes notice. Bulls, Bears and Brains will guide you to the virtual doorstep of the most valuable information available on the Internet and provide you with the background and theories to interpret this information in the correct context once you arrive.