Now the Rask team has reached the end of another big year, it’s a great time to reflect back on some of our favourite personal finance and investing books we’ve read during 2021.
From our team favourite The Psychology of Money to some more technical investment reads, there’s plenty of recommendations in this piece.
– Rask Media Contributor
You can be a stock market genius by Joel Greenblatt. It’s such a tacky name for a book but it’s all about special situations investing (spinoffs, mergers, takeovers, bankruptcies). It’s not for everyone, but if you love trying to find an edge in markets this is the book for you.
A fascinating read and is particularly applicable given the number of demergers we’ve seen recently such as Woolworths and Endeavour/Illuka and Deterra. Tabcorp and AGL are also spinning off divisions next year.
– Rask Media Contributor
Morgan Housel, the Psychology of Money. I really liked reading this book because it had 20 unique stories that I could engage with.
Further, they were so far from investing generally, that I could actually talk about some of these amazing stories with my wife who hates investing!
– Rask Invest Analyst
Unlocking the Customer Value Chain because it provides a lot of practical case studies that demonstrate the importance of understanding a business’s customer value chain. There is often a big misconception that companies are disrupted by innovative technology but if you take a step back and work out what is causing the development of innovative technology, it’s essentially trying to meet a new customer need.
Companies don’t set out to purely develop some new tech to be innovative. For example, people want faster internet because it saves time, which has driven the development of faster broadband like NBN. Another example is Twitch, which capitalised on an unmet demand where there was no channel for people to watch other people play games and voila, a new global leading business was born!
The book provided so many valuable insights that will no doubt assist with my analytical skills when understanding a business’s customer value proposition as well as identifying possible disruption for the purposes of understanding whether a company is able to sustainably maintain its competitive advantage.
Monique Pizzica – Podcast Producer & Videographer
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. It may have been the only one I read (thanks Kate) but I really enjoyed learning about how much psychology does relate to how you treat money.
– Rask Media Contributor
Whilst, not exactly a book, I have enjoyed the recent Howard Marks memo ‘Winds of Change’ discussing the ramifications of changing business and work.
It raises some interesting questions about the future, but also acknowledges the inherent advantages that tech businesses do have.
– Community & Education
I really enjoyed Shareplicity 1 & 2 by Danielle Ecuyer (who I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to a number of times now).
It’s rare to find an Aussie investing book focused on shares, and even rarer to find one by a kickass female author and expert in her own right. If you’re keen to learn more about investing in companies on the ASX and US markets, these are the books for you!
– Founder & Lead Analyst
Not finance related but I (finally) read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. If there is an allegory from evolution for investors it might be that the history of tribes/teams is complex but one of the key reasons Sapiens have triumphed over other creatures is storytelling. Stories can create invisible laws.
Here’s how Yuval put it when talking about what Peugeot, the car company, really is:
“Peugeot is a figment of our collective imagination. Lawyers call this a ‘legal fiction’. It can’t be pointed at; it is not a physical object. But it exists as a legal entity. Just like you or me, it is bound by the laws of the countries in which it operates. It can open a bank account and own property. It pays taxes, and it can be sued and even prosecuted separately from any of the people who own or work for it.
Limited liability companies emerged because people were too scared to take the legal and financial risks of opening a business in their own name.”
Sally O’Brien – Graphic Designer & Copy Editor
I’ve been reading Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money. Housel notes that the investment techniques of one successful person can also be mirrored by someone who is ultimately unsuccessful simply due to an unlucky run or a risky choice.
As someone who never studied finance, it’s been really uplifting to recognise the importance of flexibility in your financial plans and having that emergency fund ready (because you can’t predict when a pandemic will strike).
So there we have it, plenty of book recommendations to keep you busy over the summer break or even as some Christmas gift inspiration.
We’d love to hear what your favourite personal finance and investing reads were during 2021, so be sure to share them with us on Instagram or Twitter @RaskAustralia or in our FB Community.
This article formed part of our 2021 wrap, which includes:
