Wall Street has a few prudent principles; the trouble is that they are always forgotten when they are most needed.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMWall Street has a few prudent principles; the trouble is that they are always forgotten when they are most needed.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMEven the most conservative must realize that the recent transformation of surplus from an individual to a national disaster implies a scathing indictment of our capitalist system as it has now developed.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMThere is no reason to feel any shame in hiring someone to pick stocks or mutual funds for you. But there’s one responsibility that you must never delegate. You, and no one but you, must investigate whether an adviser is trustworthy and charges reasonable fees.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMInstead of passing blithely over into that Promised Land, flowing almost literally with milk and honey, it may be our destiny to wander a full 40 years or more in the wilderness of doubt and divided sentiments.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMNever mingle your speculative and investment operations in the same account nor in any part of your thinking.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMWe 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 GRAHAMThe most striking thing about Graham’s discussion of how to allocate your assets between stocks and bonds is that he never mentions the word “age”.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMThe volume of credit depends upon three factors: the desire to borrow, the ability to lend and the desire to lend.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMMost of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble… to give way to hope, fear and greed.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMThe market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMThe beauty of periodic rebalancing is that it forces you to base your investing decisions on a simple, objective standard.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMAn investor calculates what a stock is worth, based on the value of its businesses.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMExperience 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 GRAHAMSuccessful investing professionals are disciplined and consistent and they think a great deal about what they do and how they do it.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMCalculate a stock’s price/earnings ratio yourself, using Graham’s formula of current price divided by average earnings over the past three years.
BENJAMIN GRAHAMLosing 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