Late Benjamin Graham is known for being teacher of world’s most famous and successful investor Mr. Warren Buffet. He taught at Columbia University. He himself successfully created wealth for himself and his clients as a money manager. Here we should remember that he did not write books on subjects like “ How to become a millionaire in a very short time.” He wrote about intelligent investing.
He explains intelligent does not mean having high IQ but intelligent means having EQ (Emotional Quotient). He means to say an intelligent investor is someone who can think rationally during ups and downs of the stock market and does not react to it. Intelligent means someone who can control his behavior and not be greedy or fearful in the bull and bearish phase of the market.
He explains why famous scientist Issac Newton lost his money in the stock market during the South Sea bubble despite being the most intelligent person of his time.
This book was written for a simple layman and discusses the mental attitude required for success in investing. He wrote another book “ Security Analysis” where he teaches how to analyze businesses. Though this book was written for a common man and has been sold in millions, I find that people who want to invest in stocks do read this book as much as they should. Reason is that aspiring investors watch videos on youtube and are attracted to videos which are titled “ How I earned Rs. twenty thousand in a single day”, “ How to become millionaire by investing in stock market” . I have found that titles of such videos are click baits and lack substance.
This book is highly recommended by successful investors. I suggest if you are not able to read this book fully, start by reading commentaries by famous wall street journalist Jason Zweig. He has simplified the message in his commentaries. There is one commentary after each chapter.
HAPPY INVESTING.
Let us go forward in this battle fortified by conviction that those who labour in the service of a great and good cause will never fail.