THE WALL STREET SELF-DEFENSE MANUAL: Henry Blodget

Great Books

Jeremy Siegel: Stocks for the Long Run
An excellent overview of asset returns.
Charles Ellis: Winning the Loser's Game
Think you can beat the pros? Don't be silly. You can't beat the pros in baseball or football, and you can't beat them in the stock market. Unless you play a different game.
Burton Malkiel: Random Walk Down Wall Street
The market is not "random," but most stockpicking success is.
David Swensen: Unconventional Success
Yale's superb investment officer sounds off on the mutual fund industry: "The systematic exploitation of individual investors requires government intervention." N.B.: He's not talking about market timing.
Mark Hebner: Index Funds
A tour of investment theory, with an emphasis on the futility of stockpicking. Hebner is a self-taught advisor, which helps make him a good teacher.
John Bogle: Common Sense on Mutual Funds
Don't buy a mutual fund until you have read this book. If your broker hasn't read it, get another broker.
Peter Bernstein: Against The Gods
"The Remarkable Story of Risk." Shows how (some) humans learned to distinguish luck from skill, assess probabilities, and intelligently play the odds.
Michael J. Mauboussin: More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places
A collection of essays by the most well-rounded, original-thinking strategist on Wall Street.
Robert J. Shiller: Irrational Exuberance
Excellent study of the many factors that contribute to booms and busts. Shows why both happen, as well as how long full cycles take (40 years).
Robert Hagin: Investment Management
Shows why many people who think they are good investors are hallucinating.
Benjamin Graham: The Intelligent Investor
Like his protege, Warren Buffett, Graham was a true guru. A pleasure to read, but don't imagine you can follow in Graham's footsteps just by reading it.
Dimson, Marsh, and Staunton: Triumph of the Optimists
Expensive and academic, but excellent detail of 101-year performance of 16 markets. Shows that stocks don't perform as well as most people think.

Henry Blodget is president of Cherry Hill Research, an Internet industry analysis and consulting firm. He is a frequent contributor to Slate, Newsweek International, New York magazine, and other publications, and an occasional guest on CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. Henry writes and edits Internet Outsider, a business blog, which was recently voted one of the "Best of the Web" in a BusinessWeek reader poll. The Wall Street Self-Defense Manual is his first book.

A former top-ranked Wall Street analyst, Henry worked in corporate finance and equity research at Prudential Securities, Oppenheimer & Co., and Merrill Lynch. From 1999-2001, Henry was Managing Director and head of global Internet research at Merrill, where was voted the top Internet Analyst on Wall Street by Institutional Investor, Greenwich Associates, and other third-party organizations. After leaving Wall Street, Henry was a party to an industry-wide regulatory complaint about conflicts of interest between the research and banking divisions of brokerage firms. He participated in the global settlement of the complaint and is precluded from working in the securities industry.

Henry lives in New York with his wife and daughters.

Real Investment Gurus

TERRANCE ODEAN
Expert in behavioral finance: the dumb mistakes we make and why.
EUGENE FAMA
Showed that most investment performance has nothing to do with traditional "stockpicking."
KENNETH FRENCH
Dartmouth professor, Fama co-author, and advisor to Dimensional Fund Advisors, which offers intelligently designed (and top-performing) passive funds.
ROBERT J. SHILLER
King of mean-reversion: Sooner or later, markets (stocks or housing) revert to long-term averages. Developed a defensible and predictive valuation tool: the cyclically adjusted PE.
JEREMY SIEGEL
Fame may have gone to head (refers to HIMSELF as "Wizard of Wharton"), but author of excellent books and editorials. Advises WisdomTree, which offers intelligently designed, passive ETFs.
JEREMY GRANTHAM
Manages $100-billion-plus at GMO. Always wise, often funny, occasionally wrong, never in doubt.
ANDREW SMITHERS
Smart, independent strategist. His research costs arm and leg, but occasionally writes for masses (see "Newsroom"). Current view? We're screwed.
PAUL KASRIEL
Northern Trust economist. Writes antidotes to typical "good times will keep rolling" pablum. Colleague Asha Bangalore smart, too.
MICHAEL MAUBOUSSIN
Smart, cross-disciplinary thinker who doesn't waste time predicting future, making trading calls, or being mostly bullish. Identifies what smart investors do that others don't.
JOHN BOGLE
Founder of Vanguard and true hero for small investors. Appalled by the billions the investment industry pays itself each year for subtracting value. Has arguably done more for small investors than anyone in history.
WARREN E. BUFFETT
Of course, but note why: Few predictions, no market timing, no trading, no strategy drift, and favorite holding period of "forever." Also note how utterly different this is than frantic trading and predicting that usually passes for "smart investing."
JONATHAN CLEMENTS
Columnist for WSJ ($). Continues to write about (boring) intelligent investing instead of sexier stock-picking, market-timing, etc., despite voluminous reader ridicule and hate mail.
BILL GROSS
PIMCO bond king. Commanding knowledge of long-term economic and market fundamentals.

THE WALL STREET SELF-DEFENSE MANUAL

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Great Books

Henry Blodget

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