The Best Trading Audiobooks for Improving Your Financial Savvy

Think of this selection as a guide to the psychology behind trading. Expert Mark Douglas is best known in the industry for introducing the concept of trading psychology with his first book, The Disciplined Trader, in 1990. While anyone can learn the logic and practices that drive the trading game, Douglas’s teachings address the mindset necessary for successful trading. Assisted by the excellent narration of Kaleo Griffith—who has earned praise for his work in every genre from nonfiction to thrillers and beyond—Douglas illuminates the mental tricks and tactics necessary to approach trading with a confident, winning attitude. Regardless of what strategies you ultimately adopt, Douglas’s advice is designed to help fortify a solid psychological foundation upon which to build your trading career.

Beginner and intermediate traders take note: Andrew Aziz’s guide is perhaps one of the most comprehensive, useful how-to guides available on the topic of day trading. Those just getting started can do so with confidence by following the first half of the audiobook’s introduction to trading guides, while traders who have more experience can use Aziz’s insight to evaluate past mistakes and learn better strategies for future trades. Kevin Foley has a wealth of experience in investment audiobook narration, making him an expert in conveying seemingly complex financial how-do and advice in easily digestible ways. For early-career traders, this is a strong cornerstone around which to build a trading library.

Alexander Elder’s trove of trading wisdom was first published in 1993 and has remained one of the best-selling trading works for over two decades—and with good reason. Elder’s wisdom centers on the idea of trading discipline: Knowing how and when to exercise it—and when to ditch discipline and take a necessary risk. Considering how thin a boundary separates disciplined risk-taking and gambling chaos, it’s to Elder’s extreme credit that he not only has figured out how to walk that fine line but has also authored a guide teaching others to do the same. For an in-depth synthesis of hands-on strategy with a psychological mindset approach, Trading for a Living offers a balance that few others are able to strike.

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is starkly different than the rest of the selections on this list in that it is a novel—a roman à clef based closely on the life of Jesse Livermore, one of the men to first introduce the practice of day trading in the late 1800s. Edwin Lefevre adopts the mindset of an original trader, giving a cutting perspective on the very beginning of the trading industry, an undeniably valuable insight for anyone looking to enter into the field. Narrator Rick Rohan is an Audie and Earphone Award winner, and reviewers agree his performance here is yet another stellar showing.

Benjamin Graham is largely considered the greatest investment advisor of the 20th century, so it makes sense that his work, The Intelligent Investor, would be among the best audiobooks in the trading genre. Graham was one of the first to champion what is now a very popular trading ideology known as "value investing," and this is his original explanation of his time-tested methodology. Over the decades, countless investors have consulted Graham’s wisdom, and Luke Daniels’s narration keeps the material clear and easy to follow, making this a formative source for any trading aficionado or beginner.

Once you’ve listened to the handful of basic investment texts, it can seem like there are few other entries in the investment genre that can introduce new information. That’s why Market Wizards is such a valuable work: It offers up real one-on-one interviews with actual traders like Richard Dennis, Bruce Kovner, Ed Seykota, and more. Once you’ve heard about the best strategies, tactics, psychology, and more for your trading approach, these interviews will offer you real perspectives on the actuality of day trading. While other works can offer solid strategies and tactics, this compilation gives real-world examples and first-person accounts that are completely unique to these investors and can present learnings in a direct-from-the-source way.

Michael Lewis is the best selling author of both The Big Short and Moneyball. And his Liar’s Poker, in which the author turns his laser focus on Wall Street in the 1980s, more than earns its place among the best trading audiobooks the genre has to offer. In Lewis’s characteristic style, the tell-all pulls back the curtain on an infamously raucous time and place in American economic history, pairing bitingly witty commentary on the culture with shrewd and comprehensive explanations of the economics of the time. The author also performs the narration himself, so the listener truly gets direct access to the economic secrets of the decade from someone who witnessed it firsthand.

Joel Greenblatt’s The Little Book That Still Beats the Market is considered a must-listen in all investment genres, but as the wisdom within concentrates in particular on the stock market, it’s doubly valuable for traders. What’s most impressive, and most useful, about Greenblatt’s work is that it clocks in at just under four hours—and despite its brevity, manages to offer a fully comprehensive understanding of stock trading to the average listener. The author sticks to using plain and accessible language, making the ideas he communicates easy to comprehend, but the easily digested nature of Greenblatt’s advice doesn’t make it any less potent.

All traders have a host of options to choose from when selecting a portfolio, but the modern investor also has one brand new field on which to play: Cryptocurrency. First popularized by the meteoric rise of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency is a specialization that can feel shrouded in mystery. But in reality, crypto is an economic market like any other, and the rules and structures that govern it can be learned and mastered with the right instruction. In Cryptoassets, experts the likes of Chris Burniske and Jack Tatar lay out that instruction in absolute and complete detail, offering the listener the equivalent of a college course on the crypto economy. But despite its thorough coverage of a complicated industry, the audiobook is well-structured to remain fresh and engaging without getting bogged down in minutiae that would otherwise slow down the narrative. Cryptoassets provides an accessible entry to blockchain assets, allowing the traditional trader to dip their toe into the technological economy.

For the average trader, the first titles on our list are more than enough to get started and get ahead in most markets. But for a particular subgenre of investors called proprietary or "prop" traders, more detailed strategy is required. Enter Mike Bellafiore, the co-founder of the proprietary trading firm SMB Capital and a renowned thought leader in the world of prop trading. Since proprietary trades are performed using the assets and investments belonging directly to a company, their stakes are far higher—and the challenges and obstacles that face the traders performing them are completely unique. One Good Trade is one of few authoritative works that offers true insight and actionable advice from the perspective of a proprietary trader with the success that Bellafiore has seen throughout his career. While comparatively few investors choose to go into proprietary fields, even those who don’t plan to enact the author’s practical advice can gain useful insights from his experiences, and with downright entertaining reminiscences from Bellafiore’s career peppered throughout the narrative, it’s easy to get drawn into his world whether or not prop trading is for you.