The best investment books?

[karlmarx]

This "top trader" has been plying the trade for some 20 years now.

Given the two decades he has been on the market, I imagine that, with his superior trading ability, and hence extraordinary returns, the compounded gains must have propelled his worth to some hundreds of millions by now, at least.

[Behappyalways]

Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator


The reason is that a man may see straight and clearly and yet become impatient or doubtful when the market takes its time about doing as he figured it must do. That is why so many men in Wall Street, who are not at all in the sucker class, not even in the third grade, nevertheless lose money. The market does not beat them. They beat themselves, because though they have brains they cannot sit tight.
Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight! It is no trick at all to be right on the market. You always find lots of early bulls in bull markets and early bears in bear markets. I've known many men who were right at exactly the right time, and began buying or selling stocks when prices were at the very level which should show the greatest profit. And their experience invariably matched mine that is, they made no real money out of it. Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make big money. It is literally true that millions come easier to a trader after he knows how to trade than hundreds did in the days of his ignorance.
Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator


The desire for constant action irrespective of underlying conditions is responsible for many losses in Wall Street even among the professionals, who feel that they must take home some money every day, as though they were working for regular wages.
Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator


“One of the most helpful things that anybody can learn is to give up trying to catch the last eighth—or the first. These two are the most expensive eighths in the world. They have cost stock traders, in the aggregate, enough millions of dollars to build a concrete highway across the continent.”

[soros]

" Trade like a stock market wizard" by Mark Minervini ( published in 2013 ?) is worth reading for revealing the way of his wizardry .
He was US champion investor in 2021 , by making 334 % on his $1 Mil capital.

[soros]

It seems Mark Minervini's  book  ( Trade like a wizard )  should  be studied  by  all share investors. 

Chapter 3  explains the  SEPA  strategy (  Specific Entry Point Analysis ).

Chapter 5  explains the  4  stages of  share price levels :  Stage 1 : Neglect phase.,  Stage 2 : Advancing  phase ,  Stage 3 : Topping phase and stage 4 : declining phase.
And he applies  a trend template to every stock to  identify  which  ones  are  into stage 2: Advancing phase .

He is a swing trader  and focuses  search  for shares  in  stage 2 :  advancing phase .

[weijian]

Someone's recommended reading - which was an unorthodox one - Wirecard annual report 2018, also their last annual report. Check out their EBITDA guidance for FY19 but of course, FY19 results never had a chance to see the daylight

While I am not a payment expert but even after reading their comprehensive explanation (pg37-41), I still didn't understand specifically how they earn their money. In other words, they seemed to be doing everything with everyone (diagram on page 31).

It is good to past read something unorthodox like this, to improve one's spidey sense.

Wirecard Annual Report 2018 - Transition to Tomorrow

Wirecard offers its customers the full value added chain through its products and solutions – across all areas of electronic payment processing and acceptance – and through the issuing of card products. The resulting complete range of services for all industries makes it possible to significantly reduce the complexity of electronic payment for the customers of Wirecard. By integrating all back-end processes in the Group and via the front-end solutions offered primarily on a white label basis, the conditions are created for exploiting synergy effects and reducing costs. The extensive scope of the Group’s value added activities will also make a major contribution to profitability in the coming years as shown in the graphic below:

The anticipation of future developments and pushing forward innovations is deeply anchored in the Wirecard strategy. The comprehensive range of products and solutions is based on a highly scalable software platform that is linked to banking services, risk management services and value added services such as data analytics and financial services. The area of research and development remains an important pillar for also achieving above-average growth in the future as a driver of innovation.

The Supervisory Board in particular concurs with the conclusion of the auditor that - taking into account the corrections made by Wirecard - there are no objections against the accounting treatment of the facts that were the subject of various allegations made by a purported whistle-blower in Singapore (cf. the statements under 2.5 of the Risk Report regarding current investigations of the authorities in Singapore and possible criminal liability of individual employees).

https://www.wirecard.com/wp-content/uplo...t-2018.pdf

P.S. The translation from German might have explained the bad english.