THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR - BENJAMIN GRAHAM - CHAPTER 1

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is probably the best book out there for long term value investors. However, the last issue is from the 1970s so I will go through the book in a series of podcasts in order to extract what is still relevant. Believe me there is plenty of it relevant, especially in this stock market. This will allow us to compare the current market with essential value investing wisdom and perhaps improve our risk reward perspective on things. Let’s start with chapter 1; Investment versus speculation: Results to be expected by the Intelligent Investor. This chapter discusses the appropriate portfolio policy for the individual investor, an everlasting topic. Chapter 1 – distinction between investor and speculator “An investment operation is one in which, upon thorough analysis promises safety of principal and an adequate return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative.” The key to Graham, as later with Buffett and Klarman is safety of principal which is the leading rule with value investors, never lose money. As now, so in the 1970 the was a big misunderstanding of who is an investor and who a speculator. Graham wouldn’t be happy when he would hear the notion of “investing in cryptocurrencies”. Therefor, if you are an investor you invest in the business and take little risk, everything else is speculations. In this market, it means that 98% of all assets are speculations. After the next crash, the stock market will again be called a casino and all things related as speculations, even if now everything seems an investment. As long as it goes up, it is. Same things were going on towards the end of the 1940s when stocks were considered a gamble, thus cheap and in the 1960s when the entire stock buying public called themselves investors.