The Books That Shaped How I Think About Markets
25 books on risk, compounding, and thinking clearly under uncertainty.
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Every investor has a handful of books that genuinely changed how they see the world.
Not the ones that sit pretty on a shelf to impress visitors.
The dog-eared ones. The ones with margins full of scribbles and pages folded at the corners.
These are mine.
I’ve tried to organise them into categories, though the best books tend to bleed across boundaries.
Some taught me how to value businesses. Others taught me how to think. A few did both.
The Taleb Trilogy
These three books rewired my brain. If I could only recommend one author to any investor, it would be Nassim Taleb.
Fooled by Randomness — The book that made me realise most of what I thought was skill was probably luck, and most of what looked like luck was probably skill going unrecognised.
The Black Swan — Taught me that the events we dismiss as impossible are often the only ones that truly matter.
Antifragile — The concept that some things gain from disorder changed everything about how I construct portfolios and think about risk.
Value Investing Foundations
The classics exist for a reason. I return to these constantly.
The Intelligent Investor — Graham’s margin of safety concept is the bedrock everything else builds upon. Chapter 8 and Chapter 20 alone are worth the price of admission.
Essays of Warren Buffett — Buffett’s shareholder letters organised by theme. Pure, unfiltered wisdom on capital allocation, management, and business quality.
Poor Charlie’s Almanack — Munger’s mental models framework fundamentally changed how I approach problems. The inversion principle alone is worth hundreds of hours of saved mistakes.
One Up on Wall Street — Peter Lynch made investing feel accessible. His emphasis on understanding what a company actually does before buying remains underrated.
University of Berkshire Hathaway — Decades of annual meeting Q&As distilled into one book. The closest thing to sitting in Omaha without buying the plane ticket.
The Most Important Thing Illuminated — Howard Marks explains why being right isn’t enough; being different and right is what matters.
The Dhandho Investor — Mohnish Pabrai distilled the essence of low-risk, high-reward investing into something anyone can understand. Heads I win, tails I don’t lose much.
The Multi-Bagger Playbook
100 Baggers — Chris Mayer’s masterpiece on what it actually takes to hold a stock long enough to see it multiply 100 times.
100 to 1 in the Stock Market — Thomas Phelps wrote this in 1972 and somehow it’s still the best study of what makes a company compound for decades.
The Outsiders — William Thorndike profiles eight CEOs who massively outperformed by thinking differently about capital allocation. I try and look for these traits in every management team.
Learning from the Masters
No amount of theory replaces studying those who’ve actually done it.
The Snowball — The definitive Buffett biography. Understanding how he evolved as an investor - from cigar butts to quality compounders - is essential.
The Alchemy of Finance — Soros’s reflexivity framework is uncomfortable because it’s probably right. Markets aren’t just discounting machines; they’re participants in the outcomes they’re supposedly predicting.
Investing for Growth — Terry Smith’s approach is deceptively simple: buy good companies, don’t overpay, do nothing. The execution is where most fail.
Decision Making & Mental Models
Investing is applied decision-making under uncertainty. These books made me better at it.
Thinking, Fast and Slow — Kahneman maps the systematic errors wired into human cognition. Once seen, they’re everywhere. Especially in markets.
Thinking in Bets — Annie Duke’s poker-trained framework for making decisions when the information is incomplete and the feedback is noisy.
Seeking Wisdom —The closest thing to a thinking toolkit. I keep it within arm’s reach.
More Than You Know — Michael Mauboussin connects investing to fields most ignore: biology, psychology, complexity science. Always makes me think differently.
Timeless Wisdom
Scale — Geoffrey West reveals the mathematical laws that govern growth, from cities to companies. Changed how I think about sustainable growth rates.
Against the Gods — Peter Bernstein’s history of risk. Understanding where our tools came from makes clear where they might fail.
The Success Equation — Mauboussin again, this time unpacking the skill-luck continuum. Essential for knowing when results are meaningful.
Same as Ever — Morgan Housel’s meditation on what never changes. In a world obsessed with predicting the future, focusing on constants is a genuine edge.
Financial Intelligence — Shows that accounting is less science than language, and like any language, it can be used to clarify or obscure.
Final Thoughts
Reading these books have shaped how I think about uncertainty, value, and decision-making in ways that compound over time.
The best investment books aren’t really about investing at all.
They’re about understanding the world clearly and acting accordingly. Everything else follows from that.
I’ll keep adding to this list as new books earn their place. In the meantime, if there’s one category to start with, it’s Taleb. Understand randomness and fragility first. Everything else will make more sense after.
Dom
Schwar Capital
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Disclaimer: The content provided in this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or other professional advice. The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Schwar Capital. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The author may or may not hold positions in the stocks or other financial instruments mentioned. Always do your own research or consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. To read our full disclaimer, click here.