The Intelligent Investor
Written by Benjamin Graham
Narrated by Bill McGowan
4/5
()
About this audiobook
""By far the best book on investing ever written."" —Warren Buffett
The definitive book on value investing, this hardcover edition feature’s Benjamin Graham’s original wisdom from 1949 and includes a foreword by John C. Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group
The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham's philosophy of “value investing”—which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies—has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication.
Vital and indispensable, The Intelligent Investor is the most important book you will ever read on how to reach your financial goals.
Benjamin Graham
Benjamin Graham (1894–1976), the father of financial analysis and value investing, has been an inspiration for generations of the world’s most successful businesspeople. He was also the author of Security Analysis and The Interpretation of Financial Statements.
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Reviews for The Intelligent Investor
893 ratings33 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A little jargon heavy, but full of good advice. Same Concepts as most investing books, don't trade and diversify
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Main benefit I took from this book is the historical view and attitude of investors in the stock market 5 decades ago. Portfolios that were successful in the 1960s and 70s would not perform well in the current times of near zero percent interest on bonds and Treasury notes. Yet he provides a historical account of what was appropriate for the average person investing in a different economy that could roll around again in the future. Read this book to learn about where today's investing strategies came from and not as a guide on best practices in the third decade of the 21st century. Good day.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5it was ok. not very attention grabbing, but very informative
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wonderful book about knowledge-based investing.This is a great readGood for beginners in the stock market.
Berivan Kamran - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Indispensable for anyone willing to invest in the stock market.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good book but old. It needs to be updated.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is an amazing must read book that I’m going to get a physical version of the book and reread it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not very suitable for beginner, but extremely valuable content, no doubt.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing book how do you recommend it will be need to get
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Awesome book
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wonderful book about knowledge-based investing.
This is a great read.
Thanks :) - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Audiobook cuts at the end and beginning. Information is amazing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Simple book on investing. Good for beginners in the stock market.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Speculative money isn’t real. A majority of people speculate though. Technical insight made somewhat common sense. Principles are clear enough to understand why Warren Buffet profits on investments and also focuses on insurance. Making money is a racket lol. Averages aren’t though. I’m thinking about cracking open my finite math book again ??
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great and informative classic that stands the test of time.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ojalá pudiera darle más de 5 estrellas. hasta ahora es el mejor libro que he leído acerca de inversiones. Ahora entiendo porque Warren Buffet recomienda este libro tanto.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5So I loved the previous two novels of the Ellie Hatcher series. No, really I did...or at least I think I did. The first one received four stars and the second one received five stars. They have to have been good...right? Okay, so the truth is, I really don't remember. I'm serious, I can only vaguely recall the plot to the second novel (or is it the first I'm thinking about?), but that's really about it. So maybe this two star rating is just me and not the book. During the time I read the first two books, I was going through a big mystery and chick-lit phase. That was all that I would read. I guess the fact that I've broaden my horizons was the reason I didn't really love 212 (or maybe it just wasn't that great). I just really couldn't bring myself to care. It took me about 40 pages to get into this (and I'm the type of person, when reading a mystery, if it doesn't hook me right away, then I drop it; unless of course I paid full price for it or it's a book for review) because it really shouldn't take that long to get absorbed in a mystery plot. So, already I had issues with its slowness. It got better around page 60, but then the novel was just all over the place. I really couldn't bring myself to care: about the crime or the characters. Sure, I liked Ellie enough. I liked her partner. But I just found everything "meh". I found it boring. In 212, I felt, there were also moments where the author threw in red herrings, just to throw them in. "They don't make sense? Oh well." There was just too much going on that I started to think "Was it really necessary to even go there, especially when nothing was going to come out of it?" And the crime was boring. I know I said this already, but it really bears repeating. Mystery books should never be boring. I can have any number of issues with any number of books. But mysteries are the easiest for me to get into because I really don't require much for it. Give me an interesting crime, functional characters, and don't make it overly predictable. That's all I ask. But the most important thing is for me to care about what happens to the victims. I think that Burke focused so hard on trying to make this book "edgy" ("Oooh, here's where we put the Craiglist Killer. Enter stage left is the side plot about 70s Governor") that she really failed in connecting the plot points in a tangible way. So, again, I was disappointed with 212. There were a couple of intriguing parts and I did finish it, so I guess that says something about it (what it says, I don't know, but it says something). Again, maybe this was just about my reading tastes changing a bit (but I doubt it since I've enjoyed a few mysteries since they've broadened), but I can't really recommend it. I'll still probably pick up the next in the series since I enjoyed the first two (I swear, I did. I think...).
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nicely written, covering lots of fundamentals of investing and pitfalls of investing
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A penny saved is a penny earned ... and if invested for 20 years, compounded daily at an average of 6% you'll have $.03 more in your retirement fun ...
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book provides a lot of information regarding investing in the stock market: - analyze the long-term value of a stock - understanding the company and reading the market - how to deal with IPOs - indexes are best for beginners (like me)Accordingly, you get to know when not to invest in a company as well. I'm still very new into this, but the list of checks that we need to do to invest is big and I hope there are at least a couple of companies that pass all these criteria.As mentioned by others, the examples can be modified to be more relevant and current. Will this generation be able to correlate with what happened in the 70s and 80s? Also, this is the third book that I've read on this topic and it still had many things that I couldn't comprehend. I had to look online for quite a few things to get a basic understanding before continuing in the book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Intelligent Investor serves as a foundation for anyone interested in learning about investing. It is dated but there are universal concepts that remain true today. The revision brings some needed updates with great discussion on the dot com bubble. What I gained from reading this is investor behavior has not changed and there are many speculators in the market. In the current bull market, there is a optimism in companies that Graham would not find financially sound. Many people are seeking the next Amazon or Facebook. The important takeaway is timing the market is less important than finding companies that represent good value with potential growth. This book is not designed to tell the reader what exact stock to buy but instead give perspective on a healthy view on investing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The base advice is timeless, though the examples he uses, mostly from the 1940s through early 1970s, are dated. Luckily, Jason Zweig's useful commentary follows each chapter, summarizes the material, provides newer examples, from the late 1990s/early 2000s, and let's the reader know when changes in the industry have made one of Graham's points less relevant. It is a combination that works well. Younger readers, however, might find discussions of Enron and Global Crossing just as opaque as Graham's discussion of railroad bonds, and wish that there was an even newer revision.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Intelligent Investor, in its last edition by Benjamin Graham, is a book whose acquaintance would have benefited me greatly had I come across it as a young man back when it was published in 1973. As much a psychological guide to market investing as a technical one, Mr. Graham provides wise and emphatic counsel on when you should be excited to invest (not when euphoric markets reign) and the investments one should seek (not the hottest ones exciting everyone most). He demonstrates how to evaluate companies in order to become the defensive investor he believes most of us should be, with good advice for “enterprising” investors too. It’s a clarifying vision. And helpfully, this vintage volume was updated by Jason Zweig in 2003 with interesting footnotes and commentaries.The Intelligent Investor also calls our attention to the pitfalls of uncritical belief and the vigilance necessary to avoid them. As an example, he acquaints us with the accounting malpractice employed by some business concerns, something investors can’t afford to ignore. Jason Zweig injects passion into the text when discussing dividends and stock buybacks, aiming scorching words at corporate chiefs who devalue the former practice and too often celebrate the latter.Direct, intelligent, and even at times entertaining, The Intelligent Investor is a valuable aid for most anyone wishing to learn how to think over, with composure, the issues involved in making better investment decisions.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I see why this book is so popular and well-respected. However, out of the 20 chapters, there are only 6-8 chapters that I couldn't "must reads." If you want to read about investing, definitely add this to your list, but I recommend that you go to Investopedia to look up some of the terms and concepts. This is a heavy read, so don't rush through it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A penny saved is a penny earned ... and if invested for 20 years, compounded daily at an average of 6% you'll have $.03 more in your retirement fun ...
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Summary of Topics
- Investment vs. Speculation
- Defensive Investment vs. Enterprising Investment
- Decent return for the Defensive: 4%
- Decent return for the Enterprising: 8%
- Investors are owners
- Margin of safety
Reception
A lot of the talking points in this book could easily be given at a talk on Slow Money [the alternative or new economy movement]. And yet what's so striking is that this book is also supposed to be the foundation of modern investment. How could this be, as the two are supposed to be opposites?
Well, most mainstream "investment" is actually speculation. And most Slow Money isn't that radical, but this is changing.
The book lays out two divergent strategies. The first is for the normal "defensive" investor. This strategy is largely passive, and focuses only on minimizing loss; impressive return is ignored.
The second is that of the "enterprising" and aggressive or full-time investor. Here the emphasis is still on minimizing exposure, but returns are expanded by heavily researching all possible pathways.
What's most interesting is not how the concepts of this book apply to investing, but how they apply to life. One of the key points is that, no matter how careful our calculations, some part of every decision is left to chance, and there's no way to eliminate this. So our best option is to align ourselves with those factors of which we will always be ignorant.
Much of the book is about dividends. Apparently they were the primary source of return back then. But it's gotten me thinking: how is it a good deal for a company to perpetually pay investors through dividends? Why not just pay them off? Dividends are essentially just debt service. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing by Benjamin GrahamThe father of value investing, Benjamin Graham, wrote a powerful and insight book that has changed the way individuals invest their money. The basic premise in value investing is not to look for the quick changing high payout stocks but rather to focus on long-term investment strategies. This same strategy is the one used by Warren Buffett and look where he, and Berkshire Hathaway clients, is today.I thought about dabbling in the world of the stock market and thought I needed more education before I sunk my teeth into this world. Enter Benjamin Graham and The Intelligent Investor. This book opened my eyes to a new and valuable understanding of the stock market. It also introduced me to how people can make substantial amounts of money investing correctly. Armed with the right information, any new investor can succeed in the markets.Graham’s book covers a variety of topics including investment versus speculator; inflation and the investor; the defensive investor; the enterprising investor; market fluctuations; investment funds; and a whole lot of comparisons and valuable information. Nearly 600 pages of valuable information that any stock investor should be aware of.This books information is dated as it was published in 2003 but the premise is a sound today as it was in 1949 when Graham first published this work. Numerous famous companies provide examples throughout the book to give real world analysis of value investing strategies. Companies like ALCOA, Coca-cola, General Motors, IBM, McGraw-Hill, Penn Central Railroad, Sears Roebuck, Standard Oil of California, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Wal-mart and Yahoo.I never did invest money into the stock market directly; I decided to go a safer route through mutual funds. There is something inherently risky about the stock market, which did not suit my investment purposes. That is not to say that mutual funds are risk free because they are not. To me, mutual funds are a safer investment vehicle because they rely not on a single stock but rather many different stocks to make up the portfolio.Anybody interested in value investing should read this book. In fact, I would suggest that anybody contemplating investing any money in any investment vehicle should read this before they invest. I know I am happy to have read this book before making any investments.Happy Reading,
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was given to me by my boyfriend and by far still one of the best books about stock trading for the long and safe term. :) Another good pick for guides on financial goals.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read it for the 2nd time - the first time I quit it after 100 pages.
Once you are done with this wonderful book on investing, you'll learn that most other literature in the field of value investing seems mimicking what the master has said decades ago.
If you are not from the finance background, initially the book may seem boring or esoteric - as was the case with me. But once you begin to pick up investment basics I'm sure the book will be priceless.
Still I can't claim that I've understood it completely, but then that's why I'll read it for 3rd time, or maybe 100 more times.
I recommend this book for everyone. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A book on investing that every investor should have read. The principles that Benjamin Graham outlines are the very precepts that guided many great investors. Although the book was first published in 1949, and is still very relevant for today's markets. When Benjamin Graham writes about categories of investors, approaches to security analysis, the proper disposition investors should have toward market moves, and other fundamental investment subjects, his advice is timeless. This is a "must-read" even if you are an investor who bases their strategy on technical analysis. Every investor must have a fundamental understanding of how markets interact, and although this book is not easy to read, and takes some discipline to complete, it is time well spent. This book is highly recommended for everyone interested in investing in today's markets.