The Principles for The Intelligent Investors

The book has praised as the bible for value investors fully lives up to the tribute. The Principles for The Intelligent Investors
is a timeless classic packed with principles that are as relevant today. The book contains such a wide array of important lessons.

The mindset to ride-out market swings - Graham teaches us that a healthy attitude towards and understanding of market swings characterises the intelligent investor. The investor should know that market swings are inevitable, which is why a strong mentality is a must in order to resist jumping into emotionally-driven actions. The intelligent investor should base his investment decisions on analysis and sound principles while staying relatively immune to optimism and pessimism in the market place. If, for instance, you've bought a security at $80 based on a valuation indicating the business is worth $120, ask yourself if you're worse of if that security plummets to $50. The obvious answer - which your home banking would agree on - is yes, you are poorer on paper. However, if you're convinced that the intrinsic value of $120 is still intact, you should not panic; Mr. Market is just confused. Now would be the time to buy, not sell. Graham explains it somewhat along the lines of: "One has to be psychologically prepared to be a real investor, not just a speculator disguised as an investor." He underscores the importance of basing your investment decisions on pricing rather than timing. Timing concerns speculation in the market's direction. Pricing revolves around determining a security's intrinsic value, and then insisting on buying only when the market price is substantially below said value.

Insist on intercepting bargains - The previous section serves as a stepping-stone to discuss the corner stone of the value investing universe: the margin of safety principle. The famous "50 cent for a dollar"-mantra illustrates the act of acquiring intrinsic value at a discount. The methods to determine intrinsic value are many, e.g. Ben's net-nets (read Value Investing Made Easy), a Discounted Cash Flow analysis (read Why are we so clueless about the stock market?), determination of reproduction value (read Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond) or other approaches (read The Manual of Ideas). The analyst should determine which method is most suitable for a given opportunity, but the same principle is recurring throughout: insist on buying only when there's a sufficient span between your estimate of intrinsic value and price. Ben recommends a minimum margin of safety of 30%. Insisting on never buying if a margin of safety isn't present protects the investor from errors in the analysis and unforeseen incidents that affect the company's outlook. Mix this principle with a portfolio of stable and relatively stable businesses, and you're secured a better night's sleep once market prices go south.

These two chapters are but a tiny fraction of an inexhaustible well of wise words. If you wish to venture into the value investing universe, this masterpiece is a must-read. Besides the two chapters touched upon here, the book also covers the distinction between stocks earnings power and market prices; how to determine markets' central value; and tons of other best bets.