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Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.

Benjamin Graham

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.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Errors Odds Safety
We define a bargain issue as one which, on the basis of facts established by analysis, appears to be worth considerably more that it is selling for.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Analysis Investing Issues
To enjoy a reasonable chance for continued better than average results, the investor must follow policies which are (1) inherently sound and promising, and (2) not popular on Wall Street.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Average Sound Wall
The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Interest Lying Market Timing
Experience teaches that the time to buy stocks is when their price is unduly depressed by temporary adversity. In other words, they should be bought on a bargain basis or not at all.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Adversity Should Teach
The value of any investment is, and always must be, a function of the price you pay for it.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Investment Pay
The intelligent investor is likely to need considerable will power to keep from following the crowd.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Crowd Following Intelligent Needs
Undervaluations caused by neglect or prejudice may persist for an inconveniently long time, and the same applies to inflated prices caused by over-enthusiasm or artificial stimulants.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Enthusiasm Long May Prejudice Time
In the short-run, the market is a voting machine – reflecting a voter-registration test that requires only money, not intelligence or emotional stability – but in the long- run, the market is a weighing machine.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Emotional Long Running
To achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior results is harder than it looks.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Looks People
The stock market resembles a huge laundry in which institutions take in large blocks of each others washing … without rhyme or reason.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Block Investing Laundry
It is a misfortune of the times that all of us must needs be amateur economists-including, and perhaps especially, the professionals.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Economist Including Needs Profession
The distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Causes Common Investing
The market is always making mountains out of molehills and exaggerating ordinary vicissitudes into major setbacks.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Mountain Ordinary Vicissitudes
Losing some money is an inevitable part of investing, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. But to be an intelligent investor, you must take responsibility for ensuring that you never lose most or all of your money.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Responsibility
A great company is not a great investment if you pay too much for the stock.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Much Pay Too

Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.

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Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.

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