More than one million hardcovers sold.

"The wider Mr. Graham’s gospel spreads, the more fairly the market will deal with its public." - Barron's 

Vital and indispensable, The Intelligent Investor is the most important book you will ever read on how to reach your financial goals.

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham published in 1949, is a widely acclaimed book on investing. Famous investor and billionaire Warren Buffett describes it as "by far the best book on investing ever written", a sentiment echoed by other Graham disciples such as Irving Kahn and Walter Schloss.

Contents

    * Preface to the Fourth Edition, by Warren E. Buffett
    * A Note About Benjamin Graham, by Jason Zweig
    * Introduction: What This Book Expects to Accomplish
    * Commentary on Introduction

   1. Investment versus Speculation: Results to be Expected by the Intelligent Investor
   2. The Investor and Inflation
   3. A Century of Stock Market History: The Level of Stock Market Prices in Early 1972
   4. General Portfolio Policy: The Defensive Investor
   5. The Defensive Investor and Common Stocks
   6. Portfolio Policy for the Enterprising Investor: Negative Approach
   7. Portfolio Policy for the Enterprising Investor: The Positive Side
   8. The Investor and Market Fluctuations
   9. Investing in Investment Funds
  10. The Investor and His Advisers
  11. Security Analysis for the Lay Investor: General Approach
  12. Things to Consider About Per-Share Earnings
  13. A Comparison of Four Listed Companies
  14. Stock Selection for the Defensive Investor
  15. Stock Selection for the Enterprising Investor
  16. Convertible Issues and Warrants
  17. Four Extremely Instructive Case Histories
  18. A Comparison of Eight Pairs of Companies
  19. Shareholders and Managements: Dividend Policy
  20. "Margin of Safety" as the Central Concept of Investment

Download The Intelligent Investor

Excerpt, PDF format, 599KB, 142Pages.

Preface to the Fourth Edition
by Warren E. Buffett

I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was nineteen. I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written. I still think it is.

To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What’s needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework.

This book precisely and clearly prescribes the proper framework. You must supply the emotional discipline. If you follow the behavioral and business principles that Graham advocates—and if you pay special attention to the invaluable advice in Chapters 8 and 20—you will not get a poor result from your investments. (That represents more of an accomplishment than you might think.) Whether you achieve outstanding results will depend on the effort and intellect you apply to your investments, as well as on the amplitudes of stock-market folly that prevail during your investing career. The sillier the market’s behavior, the greater the opportunity for the business-like investor. Follow Graham and you will profit from folly rather than participate in it.

To me, Ben Graham was far more than an author or a teacher. More than any other man except my father, he influenced my life. Shortly after Ben’s death in 1976, I wrote the following short remembrance about him in the Financial Analysts Journal. As you read the book, I believe you’ll perceive some of the qualities I mentioned in this tribute.

Read The Intelligent Investor Online

The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham's philosophy of "value investing" -- which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies -- has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949.

Over the years, market developments have proven the wisdom of Graham's strategies. While preserving the integrity of Graham's original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today's market, draws parallels between Graham's examples and today's financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham's principles.

Visit The Intelligent Investor Harper Collins Official Website

The Classic Text Annotated to Update Graham's Timeless Wisdom for Today's Market Conditions

The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham's philosophy of "value investing" -- which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies -- has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949.

Over the years, market developments have proven the wisdom of Graham's strategies. While preserving the integrity of Graham's original text, this revised edition includes updated commentary by noted financial journalist Jason Zweig, whose perspective incorporates the realities of today's market, draws parallels between Graham's examples and today's financial headlines, and gives readers a more thorough understanding of how to apply Graham's principles.

Vital and indispensable, this HarperBusiness Essentials edition of The Intelligent Investor is the most important book you will ever read on how to reach your financial goals.

The Intelligent Investor: Information From Answers.com

Mr. Market

Graham's favourite allegory is that of Mr. Market, an obliging fellow who turns up every day at the share holder's door offering to buy or sell his shares at a different price. Often, the price quoted by Mr. Market seems plausible, but sometimes it is ridiculous. The investor is free to either agree with his quoted price and trade with him, or to ignore him completely. Mr. Market doesn't mind this, and will be back the following day to quote another price. The point is that the investor should not regard the whims of Mr. Market as determining the value of the shares that the investor owns. He should profit from market folly rather than participate in it. The investor is advised to concentrate on the real life performance of his companies and receiving dividends, rather than be too concerned with Mr. Market's often irrational behaviour.

(From wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

BENJAMIN GRAHAM 1894–1976

Several years ago Ben Graham, then almost eighty, expressed to a friend the thought that he hoped every day to do “something foolish, something creative and something generous.”

The inclusion of that first whimsical goal reflected his knack for packaging ideas in a form that avoided any overtones of sermonizing or self-importance. Although his ideas were powerful, their delivery was unfailingly gentle.

Readers of this magazine need no elaboration of his achievements as measured by the standard of creativity. It is rare that the founder of a discipline does not find his work eclipsed in rather short order by successors. But over forty years after publication of the book that brought structure and logic to a disorderly and confused activity, it is difficult to think of possible candidates for even the runner-up position in the field of security analysis. In an area where much looks foolish within weeks or months after publication, Ben’s principles have remained sound—their value often enhanced and better understood in the wake of financial storms that demolished flimsier intellectual structures. His counsel of soundness brought unfailing rewards to his followers—even to those with natural abilities inferior to more gifted practitioners who stumbled while following counsels of brilliance or fashion.

A remarkable aspect of Ben’s dominance of his professional field was that he achieved it without that narrowness of mental activity that concentrates all effort on a single end. It was, rather, the incidental by-product of an intellect whose breadth almost exceeded definition. Certainly I have never met anyone with a mind of similar scope. Virtually total recall, unending fascination with new knowledge, and an ability to recast it in a form applicable to seemingly unrelated problems made exposure to his thinking in any field a delight.

But his third imperative—generosity—was where he succeeded beyond all others. I knew Ben as my teacher, my employer, and my friend. In each relationship—just as with all his students, employees, and friends—there was an absolutely open-ended, no-scores-kept generosity of ideas, time, and spirit. If clarity of thinking was required, there was no better place to go. And if encouragement or counsel was needed, Ben was there. Walter Lippmann spoke of men who plant trees that other men will sit under. Ben Graham was such a man.

Reprinted from the Financial Analysts Journal, November/December 1976.

(Preface to the Fourth Edition)

Comments (351)