
Security Analysis: Sixth Edition: Foreword by Warren Buffett
Posted by jack_miller | Published 10 months ago

With 380 ratings
By: Benjamin Graham, David Dodd, et al.
Purchased At: $82.00
"A road map for investing that I have now been following for 57 years." (From the Foreword by Warren E. Buffett)
First published in 1934, Security Analysis is one of the most influential financial books ever written. Selling more than one million copies through five editions, it has provided generations of investors with the timeless value investing philosophy and techniques of Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd.
As relevant today as when they first appeared nearly 75 years ago, the teachings of Benjamin Graham, “the father of value investing”, have withstood the test of time across a wide diversity of market conditions, countries, and asset classes.
This new sixth edition, based on the classic 1940 version, is enhanced with commentary from some of today’s leading Wall Street money managers. These masters of value investing explain why the principles and techniques of Graham and Dodd are still highly relevant even in today’s vastly different markets. The contributor list includes:
- Seth A. Klarman, president of The Baupost Group, LLC and author of Margin of Safety
- James Grant, founder of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, general partner of Nippon Partners
- Jeffrey M. Laderman, twenty-five year veteran of BusinessWeek
- Roger Lowenstein, author of Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist and When America Aged and Outside Director, Sequoia Fund
- Howard S. Marks, CFA, Chairman and Co-Founder, Oaktree Capital Management LP
- J. Ezra Merkin, Managing Partner, Gabriel Capital Group
- Bruce Berkowitz, Founder, Fairholme Capital Management
- Glenn H. Greenberg, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Chieftain Capital Management
- Bruce Greenwald, Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management, Columbia Business School
- David Abrams, Managing Member, Abrams Capital
Featuring a foreword by Warren E. Buffett (in which he reveals that he has read the 1940 masterwork “at least four times”), this new edition of Security Analysis will reacquaint you with the foundations of value investing - more relevant than ever in the tumultuous 21st century markets.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd have written an excellent book. It's easy to follow and has an incredible amount of insight. Don't lose out on it by buying the incomplete 6th edition. The commentary and forwards provided are great in the 6th edition, but they in no way make up for the shockingly VAST amount of MISSING content.
**Shoutout to theamazing Amazon Kindle rep who helped me figure this out and take care of the issue! McGraw Hill was of ZERO help**
The ridiculous thing is that I would have gladly paid extra for the full thing in two print volumes.
In the case of the 6th edition of Security Analysis, the value is a poor one indeed. The book has been "updated" to include the commentary of some of the more well-known value investors of our age, which by itself is great. However, what the good folks over at McGraw Hill downplay is the fact they decided to remove a sizable portion of the actual text from the book, and shift it to a CD-Rom. Out of the 52 chapters that comprise this masterful work, 11 (~21% of the original text) have been omitted from the actual book, along with the appendix which houses a great deal of statistical data that adds vital context to Graham and Dodd's insightful analysis. The CD-Rom adds another layer of consumer woe to this laughable excuse of an edition. Inserting the CD in to your computer you are prompted to provide a host of information (Name, Email, etc.) to access the text that you own. On principle, I refuse to jump through these hoops just because some unscrupulous publisher thinks he can get clever on how to collect my personal information.
I guess it’s fitting that in a book that teaches you how to search for value your first test is to actually choose the version that provides the most value for your dollar. I can tell you this now; the 6th edition is not the version that does the trick. Please learn from my mistake and choose another version that does not short change you on content. As a starting point, the 2nd edition, published in 1940, is the version that Warren Buffett used when he was getting his start in the investing world.
This book is a timeless classic on investing and you will be enriched mentally and possibly even financially if you are willing to read thoughtfully and diligently. However, your journey through securities analysis will be hobbled if you only receive 4/5 of the content you purchased. To that end I would recommend a version of Security Analysis other than the 6th edition.
If you want to buy this as an item in your permanent collection, forget about it. Dont waste your money.
My experience with reading this book has been wonderful. Not only did I pick up various specific lessons that would be valuable for my career in the stock market (particularly on behavioral biases, such as the market's tendency to value management quality twice), I also came to appreciate the various aspects about Ben Graham as a person:
1. VISION
The book helps you understand why Ben Graham is considered a 'man of ideas', whose investment philosophies transcend time. Decades after the various editions of this book were published, such ideas as 'speculation focuses primarily on, and attempts to profit from, the unknown future' as well as the classic 'margin of safety' would have served to prevent the dotcom or the subprime mortgage crashes. Moreover, observations such as that the P/E ratio was arbitrarily applied ('sometimes to the past, sometimes to the present, sometimes to the near future') still resonate with current practices in many markets.
2. LOGIC
Ben Graham was mathematically inclined. After all, he did elect to major in math at Columbia. Reflecting this, his writing consisted of many instructive guidelines that are both illuminating and elegantly succinct, like what you would expect of a mathematical equality. This makes it so easy for readers to quote his wisdom. Consider this sentence: 'It may be said, with some approximation to the truth, that investment is grounded on the past whereas speculation looks primarily to the future.' (although this is not a complete statement).
3. CREATIVITY
Ben Graham's intellectual capacity is by no means confined to quantitative analysis. A reflection of his being offered post-graduation employment in English, math and philosophy, Ben Graham eventually went on to co-write a Broadway play, develop a patented Morse-code-based system, and translate a Spanish novel. In his writing, you would find such flair of his creativity as this: 'An indefinite and approximate measure of the intrinsic value may be sufficient. To use a homely simile, it is quite possible to decide by inspection that a woman is old enough to vote without knowing her age.'
4. GENEROSITY
Warren Buffett was impressed by Ben when he used his own stock picks as examples in his class at Columbia, thereby revealing his trade secrets, perhaps to his financial detriment. This tendency to be so generous is reflected in the book: the 'Dean of Wall Street' was so deeply concerned with the well-being of the laymen investor in the stock market that he lashed out on Wall Street as an institution, which he himself was part of. Warren Buffett was lucky to be at the receiving end of Ben's generosity.
Note that this is still essentially a book about the technicality and psychology involved in the job of a security analyst. To obtain a more detailed picture of Ben Graham as a person, I would recommend his own Memoirs book, or The Einstein of Money by Joe Carlen.
Comprem na AMAZON.COM a edição de 1934, uma vez que infelizmente aqui não há.
Sobre o livro : Leitura cansativa, porem vale mais do que a pena todo tempo voltado a investimentos e ao mundo financeiro. ( Obviamente caso você deseje uma independência ou até mesmo ajudar alguém e colocar a econômica a girar algumas vezes a mais )
Recomendo tanto a pessoas Físicas e Jurídicas.