We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

Asset allocation, risk, diversification and rebalancing. Pros/cons of hiring a financial advisor. Seeking advice on your portfolio?
Taggart
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

Post by Taggart »

DanH wrote:
Taggart wrote:More a qualitative, than a quantitative investor, here's a recent interview with David Herro who talks about Japan in this video. It's in the second video to the right of the webpage, "Market Missing the Value in Asset Managers".

David is the winner of U.S. Morningstar's International Manager of the Decade award. He was awarded the prize based on his work on three funds: Oakmark International, Oakmark International Small Cap, and Oakmark Global Select.
David Herro, of Harris Associates, in Chicago is the real deal. (Harris runs/offers the Oakmark funds.) Unfortunately, the firm no longer managers money for Canadian retail investors. AGF consulted me on the issue and if they had listened to me, Harris would still be running money for Canadian retail investors. Herro launched the international effort for Harris in 1992 and he's been there ever since. As you allude to, more of a Bob Krembil type of investor vs. a Ben Graham investor.
In addition to David Herro, many years ago I would have highly recommended Robert Rodriguez of First Pacific Advisors to run funds for Canadians.....but no one would have listened. I've no clout whatsoever.
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

Post by Taggart »

When you have some spare time, wander over to Norm's site and read "Benjamin Graham's SF Speech". Certainly the most important historical financial document I've seen in a long, long time, and written by the master himself.
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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The Wall Street Journal

JUNE 12, 2010

The 11-Year Itch: Still Stuck at Dow 10000

By JASON ZWEIG

In November 1963, with the Dow at 740, the great investor Benjamin Graham declared that "in my nearly 50 years of experience in Wall Street, I've found that I know less and less about what the stock market is going to do but I know more and more about what investors ought to do."

Graham went on to counsel that investors should never have less than 25% or more than 75% of their money in the stock market—and that they should move toward the maximum as the market falls and toward the minimum as it rises. In late 1964, with the Dow just below 900, he advised keeping no more than 50% in stocks, and he reiterated that sentiment eight years later. My hunch is that he would probably say much the same around Dow 10000 as he did around Dow 1000.
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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"Whenever I'm about to do something I think, would an idiot do that? And if they would, I do not do that thing." - Dwight K. Schrute
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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This big mystery came up at another site.

Benjamin Graham was supposed to have said:

"In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine."

Do a websearch and numerous commentators and blogs quote Graham as saying the above, quite often pointing to his book "The Intelligent Investor". Do a search through this book either at google books or Amazon and no mention of the word "weighing". Try another search in his book co-authored with David Dodd, "Security Analysis" and yes there is mention of "weighing", but in a completely different context. So, did Ben say the above statement, word for word, or not? It's left me in a conundrum. :shock:
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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Taggart wrote:This big mystery came up at another site.

Benjamin Graham was supposed to have said:

"In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine."

Do a websearch and numerous commentators and blogs quote Graham as saying the above, quite often pointing to his book "The Intelligent Investor". Do a search through this book either at google books or Amazon and no mention of the word "weighing". Try another search in his book co-authored with David Dodd, "Security Analysis" and yes there is mention of "weighing", but in a completely different context. So, did Ben say the above statement, word for word, or not? It's left me in a conundrum. :shock:
Was it not John Maynard Keynes who first stated this?

Added a bit later - hmmm I'm no longer so sure of that. :shock:
“The search for truth is more precious than its possession.” Albert Einstein
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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George$ wrote:
Taggart wrote:This big mystery came up at another site.

Benjamin Graham was supposed to have said:

"In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine."

Do a websearch and numerous commentators and blogs quote Graham as saying the above, quite often pointing to his book "The Intelligent Investor". Do a search through this book either at google books or Amazon and no mention of the word "weighing". Try another search in his book co-authored with David Dodd, "Security Analysis" and yes there is mention of "weighing", but in a completely different context. So, did Ben say the above statement, word for word, or not? It's left me in a conundrum. :shock:
Was it not John Maynard Keynes who first stated this?

Added a bit later - hmmm I'm no longer so sure of that. :shock:
Having followed him in his investing life, a little bit, I believe Keynes was more referring to musical chairs and beauty pageants. So perhaps you're closer in your thinking than what you believe it to be George.
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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Taggart wrote:This big mystery came up at another site.

Benjamin Graham was supposed to have said:

"In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine."

Do a websearch and numerous commentators and blogs quote Graham as saying the above, quite often pointing to his book "The Intelligent Investor". Do a search through this book either at google books or Amazon and no mention of the word "weighing". Try another search in his book co-authored with David Dodd, "Security Analysis" and yes there is mention of "weighing", but in a completely different context. So, did Ben say the above statement, word for word, or not? It's left me in a conundrum. :shock:
Well it is in the Zweig version of the book, pg 447, in Zeig's notes. :)
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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The Graham quote can be found in the 1951 edition of Security Analysis in a slightly different form.

"In other words, the market is not a weighing machine, on which the value of each issue is recorded by an exact an impersonal mechanism, in accordance with its specific qualities. Rather should we say that the market is a voting machine, whereon countless individuals register choices which are partly the product of reasons and partly of emotion."

So, it very likely came from Graham but perhaps in a speech or in a condensed form via Buffett.
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

Post by Taggart »

NormR wrote:
Taggart wrote:This big mystery came up at another site.

Benjamin Graham was supposed to have said:

"In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine."

Do a websearch and numerous commentators and blogs quote Graham as saying the above, quite often pointing to his book "The Intelligent Investor". Do a search through this book either at google books or Amazon and no mention of the word "weighing". Try another search in his book co-authored with David Dodd, "Security Analysis" and yes there is mention of "weighing", but in a completely different context. So, did Ben say the above statement, word for word, or not? It's left me in a conundrum. :shock:
Well it is in the Zweig version of the book, pg 447, in Zeig's notes. :)
Thanks Norm, but yes, that part we do know. According to a poster, Zweig's already contacted Buffett about it, and received a reply. For ethical and perhaps copyright reasons all I can say is the thread is on FWF's sister forum in the U.S.
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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Taggart wrote:For ethical and perhaps copyright reasons all I can say is the thread is on FWF's sister forum in the U.S.
Please explain these reasons.
Sedulously eschew obfuscatory hyperverbosity and prolixity.
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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Bylo Selhi wrote:
Taggart wrote:For ethical and perhaps copyright reasons all I can say is the thread is on FWF's sister forum in the U.S.
Please explain these reasons.
First of all as I explained from the beginning, it's on another forum site. I can't take a message from another forum, and copy and paste it here. I just don't do it....and that's doubly so for someone's personal e-mail, even if it's purportedly from WB via Zwieg.
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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You can link directly to a post or thread at Bogleheads from here. Trust me - management won't mind. :wink:
Sic transit gloria mundi. Tuesday is usually worse. - Robert A. Heinlein, Starman Jones
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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Shakespeare wrote:You can link directly to a post or thread at Bogleheads from here. Trust me - management won't mind. :wink:
Shakes,

Yabbut, then after what I just said above, if I post it directly here, then nobody will trust me in future. OK, OK, they probably don't trust me now anyhow, but that's beside the point. :lol:
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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Taggart wrote:First of all as I explained from the beginning, it's on another forum site. I can't take a message from another forum, and copy and paste it here. I just don't do it....and that's doubly so for someone's personal e-mail, even if it's purportedly from WB via Zwieg.
I asked in part because I couldn't find the thread on that site in order to read it there and, as Shakes has suggested, link to it here.

There's no need to cut and paste. A link will do and is preferred. It also absolves you of all responsibility for copyright or personal e-mail issues. The thread/posts is already out on the Internet so, if neither Zweig nor Buffett have objected over there, I don't see what you'd be doing that's unethical. Indeed a link is preferable to cut and paste in part because if they were to ask that this material be removed from that site and the administrators of that site complied, the link here would automatically no longer work.
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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Links to threads on Bogleheads have been posted here on numerous occasions.
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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I thought the thread was easy to find, but I guess not.

Link
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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It appears that there is a new book out on the life and investments of Benjamin Graham. Getting good reviews at the Amazon website from value investors like the Kahn brothers and Charles Brandes.

From the Economist website:

Jul 7th 2012

The Einstein of Money: The Life and Timeless Financial Wisdom of Benjamin Graham. By Joe Carlen. Prometheus Books; 358 pages
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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The Heilbrunn Center for Graham and Dodd Investing

Columbia Business School

Legacy of Benjamin Graham

15 minute youtube video
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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Value investors know the dangers of reacting to short-term volatility

GEORGE ATHANASSAKOS
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Dec. 03 2014, 7:35 PM EST
Last updated Wednesday, Dec. 03 2014, 7:35 PM EST
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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First time I read it was in the early 1980's but now I'm very slowly starting to re-read Ben Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" again. For the first time, focusing only on the defensive investor. It's like reading a totally different book.

"The defensive (or passive) investor will place his chief emphasis on the avoidance of serious mistakes or losses. His second aim will be freedom from effort, annoyance, and the need from making frequent decisions."
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Re: We'd make Benjamin Graham proud

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"Evidently it is not only the tyro who needs to be warned that while enthusiasm may be necessary for great accomplishments elsewhere, on Wall Street it almost invariably leads to disaster."

Ben Graham
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