Now im 22. Didn’t get around to reading any other finance-related books with university (majoring in Finance, so why bother reading more finance books?) and CFA studying taking up my time…probably start reading again once i graduate.
I think 27, I got the version with the red cover with the commentary between the chapters and liked that as much or more than the original text itself.
Warren Buffett said if you understand chapters 8 and 20 of The Intelligent Investor (Benjamin Graham, 1949) and chapter 12 of the General Theory (John Maynard Keynes, 1936) “you don’t need to read anything else and you can turn off your TV.” Chapters 8 in Graham’s The Intelligent Investor is “The Investor and Market Fluctuations.” In this chapter, Graham essentially argues that investors should not fall victim to market fluctuations and intelligence investors should buy when prices are below fair value and sell when they exceed fair value. Chapter 20 in Graham’s The Intelligent Investor is “Margin of Safety as the Central Concept of Investment.” In this chapter, Graham said they investors should know what the value of a particular asset is and then pay less. Chapter 12 of the Keynes’ General Theory is “The State of Long-Term Expectation.”
What always blows my mind about this book is that anyone would have thought this was news. What were people doing for hundreds of years before this revelation came to light? Running around like a bunch of idiots, basically.
The market has evolved. You now have a minority of people practicing the Graham / Buffett approach, which has largely commoditized traditional value investing. And then in the background, you still have a bunch of idiots running around blowing themselves up. But that’s some progress at least, so hat’s off to Graham.
True it sounds obvious, but even then you have people thinking…“how is this stock going to do over the next 6 months”. That being said, I don’t believe traditional value investing is commoditized, as very few people really try to invest Ben Graham style, most everyone these days want to buy “wonderful businesses at moderate prices”. The real Ben Graham style investors are looking at sub 50M , pink sheet OTC stocks where net nets continue to exist.
Even though the concept of buy low, sell high seems obvious, this book was written in the 30s and the first of it’s kind to compile a value investing philosphy, without any subjective emotion or speculative valuation.
Even then in modern markets, we still witness irrationality ala the tech bubble and subprime mortgage crisis. So it’s actually easier said than done.
If I had to pick a book on value investing though, I’d prefer Seth’s Margin of Safety.
Whenever I’m asked by wannabe traders through my almamater or networking events what books they should read, I always recommend Reminiscences and the Market Wizards (2). I might add Van Tharp’s work also. You’ll never learn through a book tips on how to make money (you can on not to make stupid mistakes). You will learn though about market psychology (which is too often underrated and which is still in its infancy academically) and how great traders think, react and adjust. The ability to adjust is the greatest trait a trader can have, with discipline a close second. Two things that are very difficult to teach.