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What David Is Reading

Saving the Protestant Ethic:

CREATIVE CLASS EVANGELICALISM AND THE CRISIS OF WORK
by Dr. Andrew Lynn

A longer review is forthcoming, but Lynn does great work academically documenting the history of the faith and work movement in the United States, a subject near and dear to my heart.  His research and compartmental analysis is phenomenal.  His diagnosis of the movement’s flaw is sorely lacking

The New Crowd: 

THE CHANGING OF THE JEWISH GUARD ON WALL STREET
by Judith Ehrlich & Barry Rehfeld

Fifty history books combined into one, covering a century of Wall Street drama.  This is my kind of reading.

Up Close and All in:

LESSONS FROM A WALL STREET WARRIOR
by John Mack

I first talked to John Mack on my second day at Morgan Stanley when he called to welcome me aboard and invite me to a dinner event.  I worked under him as a Managing Director at the firm throughout the global financial crisis, a period Mack describes in vivid detail in this book, doing justice to the Herculean efforts Mack exerted to save his prestigious firm.  We are all better off for his resilience, and his was a career well-lived in profound ways.

Virtuous Liberty:

A CHRISTIAN DEFENSE OF CLASSICAL LIBERALISM AND THE FREE SOCIETY
Edited by P. Andrew Sandlin

Okay, my reading of this did skip two chapters since I had already read them when I wrote them.  But the whole of this book features remarkable contributions from a host of public intellectuals covering the most significant topic posing an internal divide within the cultural, political, and economic right. 

The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory:

AMERICAN EVANGELICALS IN AN AGE OF EXTREMISM
by Tim Alberta

A gifted writer documents his own upbringing and analysis of what is wrong with modern evangelical engagement.  He paints with a broad brush when a narrow one is needed, rightly indicating a small segment of a movement but wrongly including a far broader population than is appropriate and horrifically misdiagnosing proper cultural apologetics.

Always A Good Idea

THE CASE FOR DIVIDEND GROWTH

INVESTING IN A POST-CRISIS WORLD
David L. Bahnsen

It wouldn’t make sense for me to have a recommended investing book list and not include the book that serves as the core investing philosophy of The Bahnsen Group!

THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR

Benjamin Graham

The grandfather of value investing, Warren Buffett’s mentor, and the best explainer in history of buying a risk asset at a discount to the sum of its future cash flows!  Reading is believing …

FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS

Nassim Taleb

Not just in the investing world but in all of life, human nature causes us to mentally construct reasons and patterns for success, and allows us to be fooled by randomness, often to our own demise.  Chance, therefore, favors preparation.  And the quality of a choice can not be judged by the result – not if you care about the next time.

STOCKS FOR THE LONG RUN

Jeremy Siegel

More historical data than you may have signed up for, but this is a perfectly comprehensible book about the long-term reality of equity returns vs. other asset classes, and why that may be (i.e. the nature of the equity risk premium).  By long term, I mean, over 200 years of research is laid bare to make the case for a long-term equity bias.

ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON

Henry Hazlitt

I can’t tell you how useful this book was to me at a very, very young age, in forming basic economic principles and understandings that would shape the foundation of what I believe about economic law and reality.

THE ESSAYS OF WARREN BUFFETT

LESSONS FOR CORPORATE AMERICA
Warren Buffett

This collection of essays from the oracle of Omaha, written over many decades, has become a vital addition to the libraries of not just investment advisors but corporate managers and business entrepreneurs.  Tremendous insights proven true over the test of time.

EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE MADNESS OF CROWDS

Charles Mackay

If you are not a contrarian investor before you read this book, you will be after you read this book.  A historical instructive through the realities of human psychology and group think, and the disastrous investment results that can come about from those realities.

HUMAN ACTION

Ludwig Von Mises

It may be more philosophical than it is investment-application, but so much of my understanding of capital markets comes from my understanding of basic economics.  And this book many years ago taught me to understand human action as the core to understanding economics.  The calculations that serve at the core of human reasoning ultimately drive prosperity (and the preservation of civilization itself).  A few sentences can’t do justice to the richness of wisdom and profundity in this book.

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