As a business professional, who could blame you for leaving your job behind to go to unwind after a uniquely hectic first half of the year. Of course, you will put geopolitics, models, spreadsheets, etc. to the side. Streaming your favourite tunes or series, with a penny-dreadful light read at hand, will have made you forget about volatility and valuations, ratings and ratios.
Alas, reality returns soon enough and it will be time to catch up. Here are some thoughtful books that colleagues at BNP Paribas Asset Management consider worthwhile.
They offer insights into issues from investing in sustainability and navigating de-globalisation, to lessons from past debt crises and running monetary policy across decades of calm and upheaval.
These are the suggestions by some of our experts and specialists.*
Benoit Bellone – senior quantitative analyst
- Your Essential Guide to Sustainable Investing: How to Live Your Values and Achieve Your Financial Goals With ESG, SRI, and Impact Investing; Larry Swedroe is chief research officer at Buckingham Strategic Wealth; Samuel Adams is CEO and co-founder of Vert Asset Management
- Investing Amid Low Expected Returns: Making the Most When Markets Offer the Least; Antti Ilmanen is a Principal and Global Co-head of the Portfolio Solutions Group at AQR Capital Management
- The Book of Alternative Data: A Guide for Investors, Traders and Risk Managers; Alexander Denev is co-founder of Turnleaf Analytics; Saeed Amen is the founder of Cuemacro.
“These books are quite recent, reasonably accessible even for non-specialists, and tackle three key issues in our industry today: How to invest in an environment with low expected returns (There is no magic answer, but the book contains some clear arguments); how to navigate the concepts of sustainable investing; and how to deal with alternative data when you are a fundamental or quantitative fund manager” – Benoit Bellone
Peter Abbott – head of large-cap European equity
- Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice and Freezing Order: A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath; Bill Browder is founder and CEO Hermitage Capital Management
- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Start-up; John Carreyrou is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and a nonfiction author
“Browder’s books shed light on investing in Russia, while Bad Blood offers a lesson that is highly relevant to our industry: Never assume” – Peter Abbott
Alberto Talero Garcia – portfolio manager global sovereign & inflation rates
- More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite; Sebastian Mallaby is an English journalist and author, and Paul A. Volcker is a senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and contributing columnist at The Washington Post
- Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World; Liaquat Ahamed is a Kenya-born US author
- Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises; Ray Dalio is the founder, co-chief investment officer and co-chairman of Bridgewater Associates
Jenny Yiu – head of inflation
- 21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19; Ben Bernanke is a former chair of the US Federal Reserve
- The End of the World is just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization; Peter Zeihan is an American geopolitical analyst, author, and speaker
Also revisit the 2021 edition: Summer reading – You want to, but which book to pick? – Investors’ Corner (bnpparibas-am.com)
*These books are the personal choices of the people mentioned and any views expressed in them are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect those of BNP Paribas Asset Management.
Disclaimer
