Learning path
The Intelligent Investor: Benjamin Graham's ideas
Benjamin Graham's classic, taught chapter by chapter with Jason Zweig's commentary: investing versus speculating, the defensive and enterprising investor, Mr. Market, reading a company, and the margin of safety. Graham's companies and figures are taught as dated case studies. Education only: no stock tips.
24 lessons, about 122 minutes in all. Take them in order.
- Investment versus speculation 4 min
Benjamin Graham's test for what counts as investing, and his two kinds of investor.
- Inflation and the investor 4 min
Why neither bonds nor stocks fully protect you from rising prices, in Graham's data and Zweig's.
- A century of market history 5 min
How Graham judged whether the whole market was cheap or dear, and why he never trusted the past to repeat.
- The defensive investor's portfolio 4 min
Graham's split between bonds and stocks, the 50–50 default, and rebalancing when the mix drifts.
- Defensive investors and stocks 4 min
Graham's four rules for a defensive stock list, why he kept out growth stocks, and dollar-cost averaging.
- What the enterprising investor avoids 4 min
Graham's "don'ts": second-grade bonds and preferreds, foreign government bonds, and new issues sold on enthusiasm.
- What the enterprising investor does 5 min
Unpopular large companies, bargain issues priced below their working capital, special situations, and looking abroad.
- Mr. Market 5 min
Graham's moody business partner who quotes a price every day, and why you don't have to take it.
- Living with fluctuations 5 min
Why even safe bonds swing in price, the shareholder's two positions, and Zweig's list of what you can control.
- Investing in funds 5 min
What Graham thought funds did well, his arithmetic on closed-end funds at a discount, and Zweig's checklist for choosing one.
- The investor and his advisers 4 min
Graham's test for whose advice to trust, what good advisers actually do, and Zweig's "trust, then verify".
- Security analysis for the lay investor 4 min
How Graham tested a bond's safety, his simple growth-stock formula, and Zweig's warning signs in a company's reports.
- Per-share earnings and their traps 4 min
Graham's two warnings about earnings per share: don't trust one year, and read the footnotes.
- Comparing four companies 4 min
Graham's side-by-side method: profitability, stability, growth, finances, dividends and price, on his 1970 four.
- The defensive investor's screen 4 min
Graham's seven tests for a defensive investor's stocks, from financial strength to the 22.5 rule, with a calculator.
- The enterprising investor's screen 7 min
Graham's looser tests for an enterprising investor, what his single-factor experiments found, and the advice to practise on paper first.
- Convertibles and warrants 6 min
How a convertible bond works, why Graham mistrusted new ones and condemned warrants, and Zweig's view of convertibles today.
- Four extreme case histories 7 min
Graham's four cautionary tales from 1968–1971, the warning signs each one showed, and Zweig's parallels from the dot-com years.
- Eight pairs of companies 7 min
Graham's method of comparing neighbouring companies on price, quality and record, with two of his pairs and one of Zweig's.
- Shareholders, managements and dividends 5 min
Graham on what owners should expect of managers and dividends, and Zweig on proxy statements, buybacks and executive pay.
- Margin of safety (1): the idea 5 min
Graham's central idea, the gap between price and value that protects you from error, for bonds, ordinary stocks, growth stocks and bargains, with a calculator.
- Margin of safety (2): in practice 7 min
Why a margin of safety needs diversification, how Graham used it to tell investment from speculation, his four business principles, and Zweig on the cost of a big loss.
- The superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville 6 min
Buffett's 1984 argument that Graham's followers beat the market by skill, not luck, and the reasons to weigh it with care.
- Graham today 7 min
Graham's postscript on one lucky, well-prepared decision, Zweig's closing advice, and a review of the whole path.