Bill Ackman

CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, Philantropist

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Book Recommendations:

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Recommended by Bill Ackman

A legendary mutual-fund manager explores the advantages average investors have over professionals and how they can use them to achieve financial success. America’s most successful money manager tells how average investors can beat the pros by using what they know. According to Lynch, investment opportunities are everywhere. From the supermarket to the workplace, we encounter products and services all day long. By paying attention to the best ones, we can find companies in which to invest before the professional analysts discover them. When investors get in early, they can find the “tenbaggers,” the stocks that appreciate tenfold from the initial investment. A few tenbaggers will turn an average stock portfolio into a star performer. Lynch offers easy-to-follow advice for sorting out the long shots from the no-shots by reviewing a company’s financial statements and knowing which numbers really count. He offers guidelines for investing in cyclical, turnaround, and fast-growing companies. As long as you invest for the long term, Lynch says, your portfolio can reward you. This timeless advice has made One Up on Wall Street a #1 bestseller and a classic book of investment know-how.

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Recommended by Bill Ackman

Can a book teach you how to beat the pants off the stock market? After all, billion-dollar portfolio managers can't do it -- and if they can't, they figure no one can. Business-school professors not only say it's impossible, but they can cart out plenty of statistics to prove it. So, why should you buy this book? Because Joel Greenblatt has been beating the pants off the stock market (with returns of 50 percent a year) for more than ten years. And now he's willing to show you how to do it, too. Here, in this witty and accessible guide, you'll learn the secret hiding places of stock market profits. You'll see how simple it is to succeed where the professionals and the professors have failed. No special tools are required. No degrees are needed. All it takes is a little time and a little effort, and You Can Be a Stock Market Genius. But who's Joel Greenblatt and why should you listen to him? He's the former chairman of a Fortune 500 company and founder of Gotham Capital, an investment partnership whose stock portfolio achieved returns of $52 for each $1 invested at its inception. Now he's ready to reveal all his secrets. This book will show you how to uncover the investment opportunities that the experts are actually trained to miss. You'll learn the hidden value and the incredible profits that lie waiting in those uncharted areas where the individual investor has a huge advantage over the Wall Street pros. This is not a book full of theoretical possibilities; You Can Be a Stock Market Genius is a practical guide to finding those special situations in which big profits are possible. It's all here, including specific case studies, the background information you need, and the tools you'll use. If you're an investor who wants to beat the market, you've come to the right place. If you want to be a stock market genius, just think of this book as your personal treasure map to the secret hiding places of the stock market profits that you've been looking for.

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Recommended by Bill Ackman

“By far the best book on investing ever written.” — Warren Buffett The classic text of Benjamin Graham’s seminal The Intelligent Investor has now been revised and annotated to update the timeless wisdom for today’s market conditions. The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham, taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham's philosophy of "value investing"—which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies—has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949. Over the years, market developments have proven the wisdom of Graham's strategies. While preserving the integrity of Graham's original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today's market, draws parallels between Graham's examples and today's financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham's principles. Vital and indispensable, this revised edition of The Intelligent Investor is the most important book you will ever read on how to reach your financial goals.

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Recommended by Bill Ackman

Security Analysis, Sixth Edition (Leatherbound Edition) book cover

by Benjamin Graham, David Dodd, Seth Klarman·You?

First published in 1934, Security Analysis is one of the most influential financial books ever written. Selling more than one million copies through five editions, it has provided generations of investors with the timeless value investing philosophy and techniques of Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd. As relevant today as when they first appeared nearly 75 years ago, the teachings of Benjamin Graham, “the father of value investing,” have withstood the test of time across a wide diversity of market conditions, countries, and asset classes. This new sixth edition, based on the classic 1940 version, is enhanced with 200 additional pages of commentary from some of today’s leading Wall Street money managers. These masters of value investing explain why the principles and techniques of Graham and Dodd are still highly relevant even in today’s vastly different markets. The contributor list includes: Seth A. Klarman, president of The Baupost Group, L.L.C. and author of Margin of SafetyJames Grant, founder of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, general partner of Nippon Partners Jeffrey M. Laderman, twenty-five year veteran of BusinessWeekRoger Lowenstein, author of Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist and When America Aged and Outside Director, Sequoia Fund Howard S. Marks, CFA, Chairman and Co-Founder, Oaktree Capital Management L.P. J. Ezra Merkin, Managing Partner, Gabriel Capital Group . Bruce Berkowitz, Founder, Fairholme Capital Management. Glenn H. Greenberg, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Chieftain Capital Management Bruce Greenwald, Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management, Columbia Business School David Abrams, Managing Member, Abrams Capital Featuring a foreword by Warren E. Buffett (in which he reveals that he has read the 1940 masterwork “at least four times”), this new edition of Security Analysis will reacquaint you with the foundations of value investing―more relevant than ever in the tumultuous 21st century markets.