Many of the most successful people I know read a lot of books.
Unfortunately, many of the people I know who feel stuck in their jobs, unsure about their careers, and frustrated by what they do not know rarely read at all.
“I haven’t read a book since high school” is something I hear all the time.
That gap is not random. It’s a pattern. And I’ve seen it repeat itself for years.
Reading should not feel like homework. It should not feel like a chore. If it does, you’re doing it wrong.
I only read books I actually want to read. Books that make me curious. Books that help me understand something I care about more deeply.
When the subject matters to you, reading becomes a reward, not an obligation.
That also means reading is selfish. And it should be.
I do not read because I have to. I read because I want to.
And if I’m not enjoying a book or learning something useful from it, I move on without guilt.
Last week, I walked through the first set of books that shaped my early career and helped prepare me for the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) exams.
Those books laid the foundation. This post picks up right after that.
Once the exams were over and the designation was behind me, the real learning began.
Books I Read by Choice
In the summer of 2008, I was heading to Italy and needed something to read for the trip.
Around that time, Brian Shannon had just published “Technical Analysis Using Multiple Timeframes.” I reached out to him and asked if he could ship me a copy quickly so I could have it before my long flight.
He did me the favor, got it to me in time, and I finished the book before I even made it back to the United States.
This was the first book I read about technical analysis after I completed the CMT designation:
As it turns out, I was most likely the first CMT charterholder to read it. But certainly not the last!
While Brian approaches the market with a shorter time horizon than I do, the principles in that book apply to every timeframe.
That’s the real takeaway. Multiple timeframe analysis is one of the closest things I’ve ever seen to a market cheat code.
The next group of books probably should come earlier in most traders’ journeys. I can only speak to my own experience and the order I went in.
I’m almost embarrassed to admit that the “Market Wizards” books weren’t even among the first 20 books I read about public markets.
If I had to do it over again, or if I were recommending an order to someone today, this book would easily be in the top five, and probably the top three.
That’s how important this one is:
Jack Schwager interviews the greatest traders of all time, including Paul Tudor Jones, Bruce Kovner, Marty Schwartz, and many other legends.
If you want to learn how someone turned $30,000 into $80 million, it’s in there.
But the real value of this book is not the money-making stories. It’s the constant emphasis on risk management.
Every trader Schwager interviews uses a different strategy. Different markets. Different timeframes. Different styles. The one thing they all share is an obsession with managing risk.
That’s the biggest takeaway.
Once you finish the original “Market Wizards,” I strongly recommend “Hedge Fund Market Wizards,” where Schwager interviews another group of elite traders, many of whom are now household names:
Anything written by Jack Schwager is worth reading.
After those two, make sure to check out “New Market Wizards,” “Unknown Market Wizards,” and his book on behavioral finance, “Market Sense and Nonsense.”
By the time 2009 and 2010 rolled around, I’d already worked through all of these books, at least the ones that had been published at that point.
We had also just lived through the Great Financial Crisis, and new books were starting to come out that explained what had happened.
I had a front-row seat to the crisis. I was working across the street from Bear Stearns, down the block from Lehman Brothers, right in the middle of New York City on Park Avenue and 46th Street, in the Helmsley Building, known as the Crown Jewel of Park Avenue.
I read the next three books back-to-back-to-back, and I would encourage anyone who wants to understand that period to do the same.
Whether you were actively trading through it or you came into markets afterward, it is valuable to understand what actually took place.
The first was “Bailout Nation” by Barry Ritholtz:
What made this one unique was that Barry was blogging many of the chapters while he was writing the book, as the crisis was still unfolding.
I was an avid reader of his blog then and still am today. This was the first book about the crisis that I read once we were on the other side of it.
“Bailout Nation” gives a comprehensive overview of what happened and how it unfolded.
“A Colossal Failure of Common Sense” zooms in on Lehman Brothers specifically:
It was written by a bond trader inside Lehman during the collapse.
That trader, Larry McDonald, is now a friend of mine. I was having drinks with him in Toronto a few months ago.
And, finally, this was a financial crisis, but a lot of it had to do with real estate. That’s where David Faber’s book comes in.
David fills in some of the holes not covered as thoroughly in the other two in a book brilliantly called “And Then The Roof Caved In”:
By the time I finished all of these books — and the ones I talked about last week — I was only 28 years old. I still had a long road ahead of me, and a lot more reading to do.
I’ll continue this list in a future post. But I think it matters when I read these books, why I read them, and what stage of my life I was in at the time.
The better you understand that context, the easier it becomes to build your own list — and decide the order that actually makes sense for you.
And don’t read books just because I told you to. Or because someone smarter, richer, or louder says you should.
Be selfish with your time.
If a book isn’t clicking, move on. If you’re bored, close it. If you catch yourself wondering why you’re reading it in the first place, that’s your answer.
Keep a tight stop on your reading list.
Some of the most successful people I know — prolific readers and authors alike — do exactly that. I used to be stubborn and power through out of obligation.
Turns out, that’s a waste of time.
Read what sharpens your thinking. Read what compounds. And don’t feel bad walking away from anything that doesn’t.
This Week in Everybody’s Wrong
On Monday, we looked at a magazine cover from Bloomberg’s Businessweek.
The journalists are doing their thing again.
When you call every bull market a bubble, you don’t see what’s right in front of you.
On Tuesday, we talked about stocks posting historic numbers while consumer sentiment is collapsing to historic lows.
People are angry, frustrated, and convinced things are falling apart.
On Wednesday, we got back to basics.
Everybody’s telling me we’re finally getting “confirmation” of the raging bull market we’ve been in for years.
So we broke down what a confirmed bull market should look like beneath the surface.
On Thursday, we did some counting.
More NYSE stocks are in uptrends than at any point in the past year, and participation is expanding to levels we’ve never seen before.
There’s a lot of winning going on in the stock market right now.
On Friday, we noted that small-cap stocks with “good” fundamentals are finally starting to participate.
Sometimes earnings matter, sometimes they don’t.
That’s the thing about “funnymentals”…
On Saturday, Jason Perz shared probably the best writing on inflation you’re going to read this cycle.
Jason doesn’t think Jerome Powell is confused, nor is he panicking or flying blind.
Have a great Sunday.
We’ll see you Monday morning…
Stay sharp,
JC Parets, CMT
Founder, TrendLabs