The Lunch Break Investor: Identify winning stocks, build your wealth, and reclaim your time

‘A clear, practical framework for building lasting wealth’ – Gautam Baid, author, The Joys of Compounding

Most of what passes for investing is actually speculation – buying on excitement, selling on fear, and getting nowhere.

This book shows you how to shift from speculator to owner.

Ronald Read was a janitor who never earned more than $8 an hour. He built a portfolio worth $8 million. Anne Scheiber was a tax auditor who started at 51 with $5,000 and turned it into $22 million. No finance degrees. No Bloomberg terminals. They owned great businesses and left them to compound.

The Lunch Break Investor teaches you to do the same – in roughly one hour a day.

Inside, you’ll learn:
Economic moats: the six types that determine whether a business will compound your wealth for decadesThe Lunch Break Valuation: a six-step method for working out what a business is worth, so you’ll never overpay for stocks againThe Crayon Test: how to know whether you understand a business well enough to actually hit the buy buttonWhen to sell: and why the answer is almost never (unless one of these three rules is broken)The one-hour portfolio: how to build and manage 15 to 25 businesses without it taking over your lifeThe owner’s mindset: the single shift that separates people who build wealth from people who trade it away
Thomas Chua grew up in poverty in Singapore. As a teenager, he walked into a library and read every book on investing he could get his hands on. He taught himself through years of real decisions with real money. Having achieved financial independence at 31, Thomas now invests full-time and publishes his market insights at SteadyCompounding, where he has built a community of over 100,000 investors.

Whether you’re just starting your investment journey or looking to grow your existing portfolio, Thomas shows you a clear, accessible path to finding great companies and investing in them to build real, lasting wealth.

‘For anyone investing alongside a day job’ – Chin Hui Leong, Co-Founder and Head of Investing, The Smart Investor
‘Thomas Chua is a clear thinker and a contrarian investor’ – Robert Vinall, Fund Manager, RV Capital

Book details

• Author: Thomas Chua
• Publisher: Harriman House
• eText ISBN: 9781804091524
• Print ISBN: 9781804091517
• Format: Reflowable Layout
• Language: en
• Copyright: 2026