A Random Walk Down Wall Street

A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel is a great book for getting a handle on how markets operate, recommended by many finance professors as the place to start to understand finance. It’s a famous introduction to the whole process of investing and whether it is possible consistently to outperform the market.

Perhaps the biggest service A Random Walk Down Wall Street performs is that it teaches you to develop a sceptical attitude to financial service professionals in general, and fund managers in particular. It was a bestseller when it came out in the 1970s and it still is. No pre-knowledge of economics or finance necessary to enjoy it.

Recommendations from our site

“It’s a wonderful read because it doesn’t presuppose any background knowledge of economics or finance…It’s had so much staying power. It was written in the 1970s, a bestseller when it came out, and it’s still a bestseller now. I recommend it to my MBA students today because it’s just a wonderful introduction to the field of finance. At the same time, it provides some very sensible advice for investors about how to manage their own money.” Read more...

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Andrew W Lo, Economist

“Essentially, the theme of Malkiel’s book was that you could, in effect, do investing yourself.” Read more...

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John Kay, Economist

“This is a book everyone should read. Finance is so important these days, people who work in it make such massive salaries compared to the rest of us, that you really have to be armed to deal with the mumbo jumbo. I get the sense that Burton Malkiel is a bit on the defensive these days because this book is a lot about the ‘efficient market hypothesis’ — the idea that the market is good at determining the prices of things — and how can that be true when you have all these bubbles? That just doesn’t bother me too much.” Read more...

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Sophie Roell, Journalist