Best Stock Market Books for Every Level
The stock market is an incredibly overwhelming place. That is even to those who have been working with the market intimately for years. Beginners and experienced entrepreneurs and investors reach similar struggles whenever they dive into the market depths, and it can be hard to navigate back to the surface.
When I first jumped into the stock market, I felt myself floundering, barely treading the rough waters around me. Even today, I find that I still rely on the lessons I learn from my life preserver: the best stock market books around.
From asset allocation to managing risks, there is a lot to be learned about the stock market. Sure, spending years and lots of money on my own experimentation would guide me to these same lessons, but why would I skip out on the valuable information that is already out there?
The industry is teeming with experts, and many of them are ready to share their ideas, knowledge, and inspirations with willing minds. That is why plenty of stock market books have been written, covering a wide variety of topics within this massive industry. Some of them include:
- History of the stock market
- Crashes and what effects they had
- Trading advice
- How the market functions and fluctuates
- Investor secrets to looking at the market
When considered more broadly, it’s clear that there is no limit to the number of topics that can be covered. All of those topics can provide something useful to you and I. Despite having thousands of books out there about the stock market, I still cannot possibly read them all.
Today, it would be ideal for us to rely on this list of the best stock market books as recommended by valuable members of the CEO Library community. These members have shared their talent through their recommendations.
Best Stock Market Books

Psychology of the Stock Market

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns

Fiasco: The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader

The Intelligent Investor

Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business
Bull!: A History of the Boom, 1982-1999
Maggie Mahar had the courage to take a look at what was behind all of this religious belief in markets. Clearly I do not understand how she was able to work as a journalist when she has the attitude and mindset of a truth-seeker. I spent some time looking at the difference between her book and Lowenstein's: not even possible to start comparing. One needs to be a trader to value her work.
Read this book now; wait a while then read it again.

One Up On Wall Street: How To Use What You Already Know To Make Money In The Market

Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington

Why the Rich Are Getting Richer

The Blank Swan: The End of Probability
I am relieved to finally find a book that deals with Black Swan Events in a new way. Ayache brings a reverse-probabilistic perspective: instead of considering that a price is the result of probabilistically derived expectation, he reverses the issues and investigates these artificial constructs as probabilities and expectations as secondary, derived, fictitious concepts that we bring about to explain prices, decisions, and other things.
This, of course, is just the beginning, so one has to be understanding about the speculative aspect of the effort --so view this as a gutsy look at the end of probability and how we will need to envision the world once we get rid of this artificial, antiquated tool. I am also glad to see that those of us trained in the trading of options can have views original enough to influence the philosophy of probability and the philosophical understanding of contingency.
The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google

The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

How Nature Works: The Science of Self-organized Criticality
This book is a great attempt at finding some universality based on systems in a critical state, with departures from such state taking place in a manner that follows power laws.
The sandpile is a great baby model for that. Some people are critical of Bak's approach, some even suggesting that we may not get power laws in these sandpile effects, but something less scalable in the tails. The point is :so what? The man has vision. I looked at the reviews of this book. Clearly a few narrow-minded scientists do not seem to like it (many did not like Per Bak's ego).
But the book is remarkably intuitive and the presentation is so clear that he takes you by the hand. It is even entertaining. If you are looking to find flaws in his argument his pedagogy allows it (it is immediately obvious to us who dabble with simulations of these processes that you need an infinite sandpile to get a pure power law). Another problem. I have been ordering the book on Amazon for ages.
Copernicus books does not respond to emails. I got my copy at the NYU library. Bak passed away 2 years ago and nobody seems to be pushing for his interest and that of us his readers (for used books to sell for 99 implies some demand). This convinces me NEVER to publish with Springer.

No Bull: My Life In and Out of Markets
As a speculator I learned to take the best from books and ideas without arguments (many readers seem to be training to be shallow critics)--good insights are hard to come by. One does not find these in the writings of a journalist. There are some things personal to the author that might be uninteresting to some, but I take the package. The man is one of the greatest traders in history. There are a few jewels in there.
The man did it. I'd rather listen to him than read better written but hollow prose from some journalist-writer.
WTF?: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us
An important examination on how technology can shape a better future by one of the smartest thinkers on the subject.
Quit Like a Millionaire: No Gimmicks, Luck, or Trust Fund Required
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams

The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

Startup Boards: Getting the Most Out of Your Board of Directors

Entering StartUpLand: An Essential Guide to Finding the Right Job

Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

What You See Is What You Get: My Autobiography
I'm currently reading a biography of Alan Sugar, a U.K. entrepreneur who created Amstrad from scratch. I'm trying to get my creative juices flowing on launching a new product and this very much sets that tone.

Thinking, Fast and Slow
This book is amazing—it didn't change my mind, so much as it has changed the way I think. It helps to understand the difference between the way you make quick decisions, versus considered decisions—it takes different mechanisms in the brain. Understanding which you're doing at any given time can have a profound impact on what you ultimately decide.

Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days

Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice

A Random Walk down Wall Street: The Time-tested Strategy for Successful Investing
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – but Some Don’t
The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams
Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery
Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966-2013

The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio
If You’re Not First, You’re Last: Sales Strategies to Dominate Your Market and Beat Your Competition

Islamic Branding and Marketing: Creating A Global Islamic Business

One Good Trade: Inside the Highly Competitive World of Proprietary Trading
Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets
Question: What five books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path & why?
Answer:
I know this is sounds self-serving but I’d recommended both of my books, the soon to be released,- “Niche Down: How to Become Legendary by Being Different”
- Harper Collins’ “instant classic,” “Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets”
- The Effective Executive, by Peter Drucker
- The E-Myth, by Michael Gerber
- Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott
- Back from the Dead, by Bill Walton
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, by Al Ries and Jack Trout

The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself
Rule #1: The Simple Strategy for Successful Investing in Only 15 Minutes a Week

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Middle Market M & A: Handbook for Investment Banking and Business Consulting

Marketing in the Groundswell

Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers

Content Machine: Use Content Marketing to Build a 7-Figure Business With Zero Advertising
Question: What books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path?
Answer:
- Rework, Getting real and Remote - The combo from Fried and DHH.
- Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso
- From Impossible To Inevitable by Aaron Ross & Jason Lemkin
- How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross
- Content Machine by Dan Norris
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
- Contagious by Jonah Berger

The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business
For business, I've read Influence by Robert Cialdini 3 times, and Traction by Gabriel Weinberg twice, so if number of times read indicates favor, then those are it. There are a whole bunch of others, like The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman, Confession of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy, The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, and Running Lean by Ash Maurya, that I've also enjoyed and recommend to people.

Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is about Help Not Hype
Sell More Faster: The Ultimate Sales Playbook for Start-Ups (Techstars)

Purple Cow
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!

Principles: Life and Work

Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
For Immediate Release: Shape Minds, Build Brands, and Deliver Results with Game-Changing Public Relations

The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World

Powerhouse Principles: The Ultimate Blueprint for Real Estate Success

Invisible Selling Machine

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Ask.
Badass Your Brand: The Impatient Entrepreneur’s Guide to Turning Expertise into Profit

Perfect Pitch: The Art of Selling Ideas and Winning New Business

Hot Seat: The Startup CEO Guidebook

Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies
When the Wolves Bite: Two Billionaires, One Company, and an Epic Wall Street Battle

Contagious: Why Things Catch On
One book that actually helped me a great deal in the way I was communicating with my products and marketing, is Contagious by Jonah Berger, in which he describes “why things catch on” or “how to create viral content”. I did apply lots of his ideas and even inspired my team to work on those principles both online and offline. I remember reading it and taking notes (things I actually rarely do when I read, I like to be in it and absorb without being distracted by nothing) and really trying to soak in those principles. and I think I did.

Perennial Seller
Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
Engage!: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web

Badass: Making Users Awesome
How to make amazing products. Super fun to read too.

Branding Basics for Small Business
Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization (Que Biz-Tech)

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth

Take on the Street: How to Fight for Your Financial Future

From Impossible To Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue
Question: What books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path?
Answer:
- Rework, Getting real and Remote - The combo from Fried and DHH.
- Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso
- From Impossible To Inevitable by Aaron Ross & Jason Lemkin
- How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross
- Content Machine by Dan Norris
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
- Contagious by Jonah Berger

Design to Grow: How Coca-Cola Learned to Combine Scale and Agility

How to Sell Your Way Through Life

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Online Business from Scratch: Launch Your Own Seven-Figure Internet Business by Creating and Selling Information Online

Stop Making Sense: The Art of Inspiring Anybody

Essays in Persuasion

Self Belief: The Vision

The Ultimate Sales Letter: Attract New Customers. Boost your Sales.
The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million
Question: What books do you recommend for people starting out or just resources? What are the ones that you go to?
Answer: First book that I think of is Mark Roberge's book, Sales Acceleration Formula. Mark came from an engineering background and really thought about things mathematically, and not just from like a sales dude sleezy car sales perspective. That's the first one and it's really good. And it also talks a lot about who are your first hires for your sales organization, how do you incentivize them, ultimate sales machine.

Ogilvy on Advertising

Limitless: Leadership That Endures

The Magic of Thinking Big

The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company

The Stoic Creative Handbook: Struggling Creatives Are Driven By Passion. Thriving Artists Are Driven By Purpose.

Harry Potter Box Set

Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World

Digital Gold: The Untold Story of Bitcoin

The Internet of Money
It's difficult to pinpoint an exact moment because all of the books helped me in a way. Probably a recent example was the book The Internet of Money by Andreas M. Antonopoulos. He is talking about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. After reading this book I was, damn that's the future and I need to start investing in this technology. Didn't stop ever since.
Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World
Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal

The Great Convergence

The Consulting Bible: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Expand a Seven-Figure Consulting Practice
Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: And Other Tough-Love Truths to Make You a Better Writer

Rich Dad Poor Dad
The funny thing is that the books that had the biggest impact (like my Verne’s favourite) are not necessarily the best books, objectively speaking. They were good enough to present a new worldview that I was not aware of. Timing probably was more important than their intrinsic literary qualities. They “managed” to fall into my lap at the right time. Such a book was Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, a mediocre book by my standards of today, but deeply inspirational by the ones from yesterday.

SPIN Selling

The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
My favorite business book is the Effective Executive by Peter Drucker. No question. Business literature is full of nonsense. Drucker doesn’t tolerate nonsense 🙂
Drucker defines an effective executive as anyone who gets the right things done (an “executive” for Drucker is broad — it’s essentially what we would call knowledge workers). It’s actually a really important point: being effective is not about your personality. The only thing that matters is if you get the right stuff done.

Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine

Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness
If you want to make the transition into business, sales is a must. Most sales books are bloated and spand many thousands of pages without much insight, but there are a few that are different and you MUST read:
- Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness
- SPIN Selling
Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion
Universal Principles of Design: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design
What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School: Notes from a Street-smart Executive
Question: What books had the biggest impact on you? Perhaps changed the way you see things or dramatically changed your career path.
Answer:
- “Zen and the Art of Making a Living: A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design” By Laurence Boldt
- “Horse Sense: The Key to Success Is Finding a Horse to Ride” by Al Ries and Jack Trout
- “What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School” by Mark McCormack

How Google Works

Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain

To Kill a Mockingbird

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Both Melinda and I read this one, and it has sparked lots of great conversations at our dinner table. Harari takes on a daunting challenge: to tell the entire history of the human race in just 400 pages. He also writes about our species today and how artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and other technologies will change us in the future. Although I found things to disagree with—especially Harari’s claim that humans were better off before we started farming—I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who’s interested in the history and future of our species.
Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com
The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
It's important that we make this transformation, because of what Clayton Christensen calls the innovator's dilemma, where people who invent something are usually the last ones to see past it, and we certainly don't want to be left behind.

Chernobyl: A Documentary Story
The End of Jobs: Money, Meaning and Freedom Without the 9-To-5

The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream

Alibaba’s World: How a remarkable Chinese company is changing the face of global business

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

The Four Steps to the Epiphany

Chaos Monkeys: Inside the Silicon Valley Money Machine

Building a Big Small Business Brand: How to Turn Your Brand into Your Most Valuable Asset

Social Business By Design: Transformative Social Media Strategies for the Connected Company
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It

The Lean Startup
Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change

Getting Real
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
Sorrell, CEO of the communications house/ad agency, WPP, has a rather eclectic mix this summer:
- Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency—James Andrew Miller
- Universal Man: The Seven Lives of John Maynard Keynes—Richard Davenport-Hines
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future—Ashlee Vance
Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads

Losing My Virginity

The Execution Factor: The One Skill that Drives Success

Darwin Among The Machines: The Evolution Of Global Intelligence

Remote: Office Not Required

Steve Jobs

The Fur Country: Seventy Degrees North Latitude

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
I read this book at a time when Udemy was rapidly growing—over the 18 months where we went from 30 to 200 people. It was helpful to read about Horowitz's challenges, worries, and triumphs when addressing the same types of issues at a similar stage of growth. There are so many big decisions you need to make where there's just no clear-cut, right or wrong answer. There are a lot of gray areas. You gather information from your team, but the hard decisions rest with you. This book helped me realize that while I needed to carefully and objectively consider feedback, I was responsible for making a decision in the end—even when it was an unpopular one.

The Alchemist
Is Your Business Worth Saving?: A Step-by-Step Guide to Rescuing Your Business and Your Sanity

Man’s Search for Meaning – The Classic Tribute to Hope from the Holocaust

Think and Grow Rich
I do goal-setting. The first time I read about this was in Napoleon Hill's 'Think and Grow Rich,' I was 16 years old.

The 48 Laws of Power

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon
I really enjoyed Brad Stone's The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. Anyone who wants to better understand the dynamics of disruption or just gain a better understanding of the website we've come to love, must read this book.

Rework

The Obstacle is the Way

Horse Sense: The Key to Success Is Finding a Horse to Ride
Question: What books had the biggest impact on you? Perhaps changed the way you see things or dramatically changed your career path.
Answer:
- “Zen and the Art of Making a Living: A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design” By Laurence Boldt
- “Horse Sense: The Key to Success Is Finding a Horse to Ride” by Al Ries and Jack Trout
- “What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School” by Mark McCormack
