There are hundreds of books on every element of money available at your local library, bookshop, and several internet retailers. There's a book for everything, from financial history and bad guys on Wall Street to hedge fund analysis and day trading strategies. If you want to learn how to handle money well, The Richest Man in Babylon is the best book to start with. It's a short book that was written. It also gathers the wisdom of the ages in an easy-to-understand way. After that, the well-known For Dummies books can help you learn everything from budgeting to mutual funds. Money for Dummies and Managing Your Mutual Funds for Dummies are two publications that will teach you more about fundamental concepts. When you're done with these three books, you'll probably know what you want to learn more about.
How to Become a Self-Taught Expert in Finance
Google and other search engines can help you narrow your search, and many mutual fund and financial services companies offer a lot of free information. On a website, you can find all kinds of information, from general facts about different products to experts' predictions about the economy and market. You don't have to work hard to find and follow the comments of your favourite economists, investment strategists, portfolio managers, and other experts.
Enrol in a Finance Course
You can learn about money and investing in thousands of in-person and online classes. At many universities, you can take online classes for free.
Read Books
If you already know the basics and want to learn more, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Learning Investing and Money is a great place to start. After that, you can visit your local library or bookstore to find magazines covering current and general financial services topics. Value Line is an excellent research and publishing company that can help you start researching and analysing stocks when you are ready to do so. If you've made it this far, you're trying to do something meaningful. Now is the time to start doing your quest every day.
Signing up to receive The Wall Street Journal
If you get The Wall Street Journal, you can see how business is done worldwide every day. The WSJ also has a great section called "Personal Finance." Barron's is another good magazine that many people who work in the financial services field read. There are a lot of other high-quality publications that cover different parts of the financial services world. Read the one that sounds most interesting to you. Some libraries will let you read Value Line for free. You can sign up for the service if your library doesn't have it.
Talk to people who work in financial services
When you know a lot about the different parts of the world of financial services, it's time to talk to the experts. People who work in financial services get paid for what they know, and they can help you learn about everything from mortgages and debt management to planning for retirement and your estate. Some topics are discussed in seminars, and others are spoken in one-on-one meetings. You can learn a few things just by talking to people. Talk to a financial planner, a lawyer, an accountant, and a banker. Then pay close attention to what they say and learn from it.
Want to know more?
Like what you've seen and heard so far and want to learn more? The CFA Institute is a non-profit organisation that offers education, a code of ethics, and several certification programmes, such as the CFA (chartered financial analyst) and the CIPM (certificate in investment performance measurement). It lets people see what it teaches. The CFA programme is well-known and well thought out. Let's say you are interested in articles like "Investment Performance Measurement: Evaluating and Presenting Results" by Todd Jankowski and Philip Lawton. If so, the CFA Institute has a list of books you might like.
An Emerging Industry
Financial services are a field that grows and changes all the time. In the past few decades, ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds), cryptocurrencies, and other things have become more popular. Change is standard in the industry because it has to adapt to a constantly changing economy and to changes in what investors want and how they want to use their money.
In this place, there is always something new, something old to think about again, and something interesting just over the horizon. It's essential for people who work in financial services to know what's going on in their field, and many of them have to take classes to keep their licences. This means that you can always learn more, even if you have taught yourself everything.
