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The utility, or intrinsic value of gold as a commodity is now considerably less than in the past; its monetary status has become extraordinarily ambiguous; and its future is highly uncertain.

Benjamin Graham

In other words, the market is not a weighing machine, on which the value of each issue is recorded by an exact and impersonal mechanism, in accordance with its specific qualities.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Choices Impersonal Issues Voting
The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Realist
In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Business Intelligent Running
The money cost of the reservoir plan literally fades into insignificance when it is compared with the financial burden which the great depression imposed on the nation.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Cost Depression Financial Great
The essence of investment management is the management of risks, not the management of returns.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Essence Investing Risk
The volume of credit depends upon three factors: the desire to borrow, the ability to lend and the desire to lend.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Credit Desire Three
Investing is most intelligent when it is most businesslike.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing
There is a close logical connection between the concept of a safety margin and the principle of diversification.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Principles Safety
Whether we like it or not, government intervention in the face of surplus is here to stay.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Faces Government Surplus
We urge the beginner in security buying not to waste his efforts and his money in trying to beat the market. Let him study security values and initially test out his judgment on price versus value with the smallest possible sums.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Beginner Effort Trying
The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Interest Lying Market Timing
Instead 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 GRAHAM

Destiny Honey Milk Years
The best values today are often found in the stocks that were once hot and have since gone cold.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Gone Hot Today
The only thing you should do with pro forma earnings is ignore them.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Earning Investing Should
Knowledge is only one ingredient on arriving at a stock’s proper price. The other ingredient, fully as important as information, is sound judgment.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Arriving Important Sound
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
There 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 GRAHAM

Investing Responsibility Shame
Never buy a stock immediately after a substantial rise or sell one immediately after a substantial drop.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Drop Sells Stock Substantial
Never mingle your speculative and investment operations in the same account nor in any part of your thinking.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Investment Thinking
To establish the right price for a stock, the market must have adequate information, but it by no means follows that is the market has this information it will thereupon establish the right price.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Adequate Information Mean
Thousands of people have tried, and the evidence is clear: The more you trade, the less you keep.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Evidence Investing People
The existence of such a war chest might go far to strengthen our prestige and frighten off any would be assailant.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Assailant Chest Prestige Strengthen War
Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of Safety.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Challenges Intelligent Safety
Have the courage of your knowledge and experience. If you have formed a conclusion from the facts and if you know your judgment is sound, act on it – even though others may hesitate or differ.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Conclusion Facts Judgment May Sound
Even defensive portfolios should be changed from time to time, especially if the securities purchased have an apparently excessive advance and can be replaced by issues much more reasonable priced.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Issues Portfolio Purchase
Though business conditions may change, corporations and securities may change, and financial institutions and regulations may change, human nature remains the same.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Attitude Important Years
Speculators often prosper through ignorance; it is a cliché that in a roaring bull market knowledge is superfluous and experience is a handicap. But the typical experience of the speculator is one of temporary profit and ultimate loss
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Ignorance Loss Typical

The utility, or intrinsic value of gold as a commodity is now considerably less than in the past; its monetary status has become extraordinarily ambiguous; and its future is highly uncertain.

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The utility, or intrinsic value of gold as a commodity is now considerably less than in the past; its monetary status has become extraordinarily ambiguous; and its future is highly uncertain.

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Popular Authors

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