Benjamin Graham
Benjamin Graham
Benjamin Grahamwas a British-born American economist and professional investor. Graham is considered the father of value investing, an investment approach he began teaching at Columbia Business School in 1928 and subsequently refined with David Dodd through various editions of their famous book Security Analysis. Graham had many disciples in his lifetime, a number of whom went on to become successful investors themselves. Graham's most well-known disciples include Warren Buffett, William J. Ruane, Irving Kahn and Walter J. Schloss, among others...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth8 May 1894
CountryUnited States of America
Benjamin Graham quotes about
The value of the security analyst to the investor depends largely on the investor's own attitude. If the investor asks the analyst the right questions, he is likely to get the right or at least valuable answers.
No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the "margin of safety" - never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be - can you minimize your odds of error.
The purpose of this book is to supply, in the form suitable for laymen, guidance in the adoption and execution of an investment policy.
No statement is more true and better applicable to Wall Street than the famous warning of Santayana: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it".
We have not known a single person who has consistently or lastingly make money by thus "following the market". We do not hesitate to declare this approach is as fallacious as it is popular.
The defensive (or passive) investor will place chief emphasis on the avoidance of serious mistakes or losses. His second aim will be freedom from effort, annoyance, and the need for making frequent decisions.
The determining trait of the enterprising (or active, or aggressive) investor is his willingness to devote time and care to the selection of securities that are both sound and more attractive than the average.
For 99 issues out of 100 we could say that at some price they are cheap enough to buy and at some price they would be so dear that they would be sold.
The distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern.
Never mingle your speculative and investment operations in the same account nor in any part of your thinking.
The memory of the financial community is proverbially and distressingly short.
... the loss of public confidence in the financial community growing out of its own conduct in recent years. I insist that more damage has been done to stock values and to the future of equities from inside Wall Street than from outside Wall Street.
I am no longer an advocate of elaborate techniques of security analysis in order to find superior value opportunities.
When somebody asserts that a stock has an earning power of so much, I am sure that the person who hears him doesn't know what he means, and there is a good chance that the man who uses it doesn't know what it means.