Social Sciences
Finance & Investing
Capital allocation under uncertainty — the field where a good mental model compounds and a bad one is expensive.
14 fields · 139 topics · 16 curated works
Fields within Finance & Investing
Corporate Finance
10How firms raise and deploy capital.
Capital Structure · Cost of Capital · Capital Budgeting · Discounted Cash Flow · Dividend Policy
Investment Theory
10The frameworks for deciding what to own.
Modern Portfolio Theory · Efficient Market Hypothesis · Capital Asset Pricing Model · Factor Investing · Asset Allocation
Valuation
9Deciding what something is worth, as distinct from what it costs.
Intrinsic Value · Relative Valuation & Multiples · Free Cash Flow Analysis · Terminal Value · Cost of Equity Estimation
Equity Markets
10Ownership stakes and the markets that price them.
Stock Market Mechanics · Fundamental Analysis · Technical Analysis & Its Critics · Value Investing · Growth Investing
Fixed Income & Credit
10Lending, and the pricing of the promise to repay.
Bond Pricing · Yield Curves · Duration & Convexity · Credit Risk · Credit Ratings
Derivatives
10Contracts whose value depends on something else.
Forwards & Futures · Options Basics · Black-Scholes Model · The Greeks · Volatility Surfaces
Quantitative Finance
10Mathematical modelling of markets.
Stochastic Calculus in Finance · Ito's Lemma · Monte Carlo Pricing · Risk-Neutral Valuation · Time Series Models of Returns
Risk Management
10The discipline of surviving the tail.
Value at Risk · Stress Testing · Tail Risk & Fat Tails · Liquidity Risk · Counterparty Risk
Venture Capital & Private Markets
10Financing companies before they are legible to public markets.
Venture Capital Model · Power Law Returns · Startup Fundraising · Term Sheets · Cap Tables & Dilution
Banking & Financial Institutions
10The plumbing of the financial system.
Commercial Banking · Investment Banking · Fractional Reserve Banking · Bank Balance Sheets · Capital Requirements
Accounting & Financial Statements
10Reading what a company actually reports.
Balance Sheet · Income Statement · Cash Flow Statement · Accrual Accounting · Revenue Recognition
Financial History & Crises
10The pattern that keeps repeating with new instruments.
Tulip Mania · South Sea Bubble · The 1929 Crash · The 1987 Crash · The Dot-Com Bubble
Personal Finance
10The applied version, which most people need more than the theory.
Budgeting & Saving · Compound Interest · Retirement Planning · Tax-Efficient Investing · Index Fund Investing
Crypto & Digital Assets
10A new asset class with an unusually high ratio of noise to substance.
Blockchain Fundamentals · Bitcoin · Ethereum & Smart Contracts · Consensus Mechanisms · Tokenomics
Reading in Finance & Investing
16Start here
No prior grounding assumed.
- BookFooled by RandomnessNassim Nicholas Taleb, 2001
Track records confuse skill with luck because survivors are the only ones we ever see reported.
- BookVenture DealsBrad Feld & Jason Mendelson, 2011
Explains term sheets clause by clause from both sides of the table, and makes clear that control terms usually matter more than valuation.
- BookA Random Walk Down Wall StreetBurton Malkiel, 1973
The case that costs and diversification dominate security selection for almost every investor over long horizons.
- BookThe Psychology of MoneyMorgan Housel, 2020
Financial outcomes depend more on behaviour under uncertainty than on technical knowledge or intelligence.
Then
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
- BookThe Intelligent InvestorBenjamin Graham, 1949
Investing is distinguished from speculation by margin of safety and by treating the market as a servant rather than a guide.
- BookManias, Panics, and CrashesCharles P. Kindleberger, 1978
Financial crises follow a recurring structure — displacement, credit expansion, euphoria, distress, revulsion — across four centuries.
- BookFinancial ShenanigansHoward M. Schilit, 1993
A taxonomy of the ways accounts are manipulated legally, and the specific line items where each trick shows up.
- PaperBitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash SystemSatoshi Nakamoto, 2008· 9 pages· Free
Nine pages solving double-spending without a trusted third party by making history expensive to rewrite.
- BookThe Bankers' New ClothesAnat Admati & Martin Hellwig, 2013
Banks are fragile because they are allowed to be thinly capitalised, and nearly every argument against higher equity requirements is wrong.
- BookCommon Stocks and Uncommon ProfitsPhilip A. Fisher, 1958
Argues for judging a business by its management and research culture rather than its price, and defines the growth side of value investing.
Go deeper
Primary sources and full treatments.
- PaperPortfolio SelectionHarry Markowitz, 1952
Fourteen pages establishing that risk is a portfolio property, not a security property, and that covariance is what matters.
- PaperThe Pricing of Options and Corporate LiabilitiesFischer Black & Myron Scholes, 1973· 18 pages
An option can be priced by constructing a continuously rebalanced hedge, which removes preferences from the valuation entirely.
- BookInvestment ValuationAswath Damodaran, 1996
Every valuation is a story with numbers attached; the discipline is making the assumptions explicit enough to be argued with.
- BookPrinciples of Corporate FinanceRichard Brealey & Stewart Myers, 1980
The standard text, built on the single question of whether a project earns more than the capital it consumes.
- BookThe Handbook of Fixed Income SecuritiesFrank J. Fabozzi, 1983
The reference on the larger and less discussed half of capital markets, where duration and credit do the work volatility does in equities.
- BookPaul Wilmott on Quantitative FinancePaul Wilmott, 1998
Derives the models and then attacks their assumptions, which is the habit that separates a quant from a user of a pricing library.