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billywows Elite	03-Sep-2006 11:33        billywows About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	Haahaa!! ... Yup, Ten4one may be right cos SJ has been promoting this book. :P
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ten4one Master	03-Sep-2006 07:37        ten4one About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	You're welcomed. BTW if you ever bought one, don't lend it to anyone because very likely you'll not see the Book again...hahaha! Cheers!
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colorado Member	02-Sep-2006 12:58        colorado About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	Hi Billywows and ten4one, I've reserved the book "The Intelligent Investor" at the library already. Am looking forward to learning more from veterans like you both who are so willing to share. This help makes this forum a "learning centre" for many novices like me who are still groping in the dark. Unfortunately, I missed the TA training by Terraseeds.  Will try to attend the next one. Thanks once again for your tips!
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ten4one Master	02-Sep-2006 10:57        ten4one About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	Yes, it is good to get one (The Intelligent Investors) and put in in your bookself  for ref from time to time. It is good to  read the Biography of great Investors like George Soros and Warren Buffett. One interesting book is the 'Fortune Tellers" by Howard Kurtz. Hope you'll find these books interesting too. Cheers!
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billywows Elite	02-Sep-2006 01:08        billywows About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	Why not just simply check out the name sake of this topic - Benjamin Graham's book "The Intelligent Investor", Colorado?
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colorado Member	01-Sep-2006 13:49        colorado About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	Thanks ten4one!  Are there any particular titles you would recommend?  Yes, I know the authors of get rich books are the ones laughing to the bank... Thanks once again.
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ten4one Master	31-Aug-2006 10:38        ten4one About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	Hi Colorado, from time to time there're courses organized by Financial Houses or the Stock Exch of S'pore. Knowledge is very important if you intend to be a Player in the Stock Markets. There're also some very good Ref Books in our Nat'l Library or the Stock Exch Library if you intend to do some readings. Forget about books that teach you 'How To be a good Trader or Investor or... to get rich' ! Only the Authors will get richer! lol!!!!
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colorado Member	29-Aug-2006 16:10        colorado About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	Hi, I agree with Benjamin Graham's philosophy to do value investing.  But you can only do so if you have the necessary knowledge like maybe, TA & FA.  For a novice like me, what would you recommend that I learn before I proceed?  I am thinking of using my CPF to invest.  At the moment, I only look at the PE ratio cos I have no idea how to use the rest of the the charts like candlestick and so forth.  At the moment I only have 4 lots of SMRT bought during the IPO.  My ultimate aim is to grow my CPF and I have a time horizon of a year. Thanks for your contributions, I've learnt quite a bit from you and the rest of the veterans.  At least not so green anymore!
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Nostradamus Supreme	29-Aug-2006 10:55        Nostradamus About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	2 Things I Learned From Benjamin Graham If you're at all committed to value investing, you need to get to know Benjamin Graham. Warren Buffett's mentor pioneered the idea of buying stocks on sale, and his books have provided dozens of lessons for Fools over the years. Tim Beyers shares two that have changed his investment life. By Tim Beyers Have you ever heard a story that so profoundly affected you that it changed your entire point of view? I'm sure you have. There are all sorts of tall tales of investing: of fortunes won and lost, of Rule Breakers and Rule Makers, of small-cap skyrockets and deeply hidden values. Of all the stories I've heard in my brief investing career, the one that inspires me most features Benjamin Graham, founder of value investing and mentor to Warren Buffett. Graham emigrated from England with his family when he was barely a year old. He grew up in Manhattan and Brooklyn and went on to Columbia University, where he graduated in 1914. Though he had an opportunity with the family business, Graham instead opted for a career on Wall Street. By 1920, he was a partner at a major securities firm. Six years later, he formed the Benjamin Graham Joint Account, an investment fund he ran with partner Jerome Newman. But hard times would follow. From 1929 to 1932, the Joint Account declined by a breathtaking 70%. But there was more bad news to come. It turned out that Graham had used substantial margin in making his selections. So when the stock market crashed, the massive debt he had incurred to buy stocks suddenly came due. That borrowing nearly ruined him. Graham persevered by selling personal assets and taking out loans with friends and family. Over the next 30 years, he and Newman would deliver 17% annualized returns to investors in the Joint Account. That's a remarkable record by any measure, and well north of the stock market's historical annual average return of 11%. Graham never recounts this story in his landmark work, The Intelligent Investor, but the lessons he learned over 30 years of making money for others spring forth from every page. Here are two that continue to serve me well in my own investing. Lesson No. 1: Buying stocks makes you an owner My favorite part of The Intelligent Investor comes toward the end, in the section that covers shareholder rights and responsibilities. Graham exhorts common stockholders to think of themselves as owners who have a right to answers. He writes: "Shareholders are justified in raising questions as to the competence of the management when the results (1) are unsatisfactory in themselves, (2) are poorer than those obtained by other companies that appear similarly situated, and (3) have resulted in an unsatisfactory market price of long duration." In other words: If your investment is underperforming, you have every right to demand better. On more than one occasion, Graham did exactly that. Consider this tidbit from another wonderful investing work, John Train's Money Masters of Our Time: While combing through Interstate Commerce Commission filings in the mid-1920s, Graham found that Northern Pipeline had $95 per share in assets. The stock, however, was selling for $65 per share and yielding 9% at that price. Graham jumped at the opportunity. At the 1928 annual meeting, he garnered 38% of the proxies and was named to the company's board of directors. In that position, he would help persuade Northern Pipeline to pay out a huge $50 per-stub distribution to shareholders, clinching his original valuation thesis. Graham considered managers the stewards of stockholder money. They ought to invest intelligently and create market-trouncing returns or, in lieu of that, earn enough to pay a steady, growing dividend. He also expected them to act competently and behave ethically. He'd never stand to be a victim of corporate shenanigans, such as recent allegations of stock option backdating at roughly 40 firms, including Openwave Systems, Monster Worldwide and Equinix. Or, for that matter, the ridiculous hype surrounding GlobeTel. Instead, he'd have taken action, as an owner should. Thanks to Graham's teachings, today I take proxy season as seriously as any national election. You should, too. Lesson No. 2: Always buy with a margin of safety Graham was perhaps the first stock analyst to understand that in investing, price is everything. Indeed, buying shares of a great company means nothing if you overpaid. And buying rubbish on the cheap will frequently leave you with only the unpleasant odor of a rotting portfolio. Graham details how to buy with a margin of safety, which he calls the "central concept" of investing. Put simply, the margin of safety is the difference between intrinsic value and the price at which a stock trades. For example, a security worth $50 per share, but trading at $25 per share, enjoys a massive 100% margin of safety. Buying in that situation heavily stacks the odds in the investor's favor. Conversely, a stock that trades close to or above its intrinsic value offers almost no margin of safety. And buying without a margin of safety, in Graham's book, is no better than mere speculation. Consider the case of General Motors, which refused to adjust its business model despite a rapidly changing industry. Such situations rarely offer a margin of safety. No wonder investors have been scorched. Or think of Hoku Scientific, which, in recent months, has seen its stock fall faster than a boulder in the ocean. That may be because the company burns cash faster than it pumps out dreamy press releases. Finally, seeking a substantial margin of safety can light the path to outsized returns. It has certainly helped Philip Durell, lead analyst for Motley Fool Inside Value. Take his investment in Colgate-Palmolive, for example. When Philip recommended it in the December 2004 issue, the stock enjoyed a 24% margin of safety. Subscribers who followed his advice are up 30% as I write.
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billywows Elite	28-Aug-2006 23:15        billywows About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	Anyone read this Benjamin Graham book "The Intelligent Investor"?  ------------------------ Foolish Book Review: The Intelligent Investor By Chuck Saletta August 16, 2006 Warren Buffett is generally considered the greatest modern investor. He managed to parlay his initial investment in troubled textile manufacturer Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A)(NYSE: BRK-B) into a multibillion-dollar fortune. Yet once, even Warren Buffett had to learn to invest. He was an A+ student, of course -- but the professor who taught his class launched an investing revolution. That professor was none other than Benjamin Graham, the founder of value investing. Fortunately for the rest of us, Graham was kind enough to capture the essence of his strategy in writing. His classic text, The Intelligent Investor, lays out the foundation of value investing. Buffett himself has called it "the best book on investing ever written." What's it about? It's a wide-ranging book, covering such topics as portfolio policy, asset allocation, inflation, diversification, market fluctuation, dividends, and of course Graham's famous margin of safety. Data-rich and numbers-heavy, it's not exactly recreational reading. But nestled among the tables of data reaching as far back as 1871 are key lessons that every investor really needs to know in order to be successful. Had I learned these lessons a decade ago, I'd have escaped much suffering at the hands of my former stockbroker. Chief among Graham's lessons are the twin anchors of valuation and patience. You must do the research to estimate a company's true worth. With that value in mind, successful investing becomes as simple as refusing to overpay for a company. Additionally, once you've bought a stake in a bargain-priced business, you must be patient enough to wait for the market to realize its mistake and bid up the company's shares. These days, we also often forget that total return also includes dividends. In stark contrast to modern practices, Graham argues that "stockholders should demand of their managements a normal payout of earnings -- on the order, say, of two-thirds -- or else a clear-cut demonstration that the reinvested profits have produced a satisfactory increase in per-share earnings." The keys to investing success Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the last chapter of The Intelligent Investor is a must-read for anyone looking to make money in the stock market. In it, Graham describes the concept of the margin of safety -- three magical words that let investors absolutely slaughter the market. Graham explains that companies slip up, that projections are estimates at best, and that believing in overly rosy projections can drive stock prices too high. On the flip side, companies can be priced well below their true value, too, if the prevailing market projections are too pessimistic. If you buy only those firms trading for well below their true worth, even if their business suffers, their shares simply have that much less room to fall. That's the safety provided by value-priced stocks. Of course, even a margin of safety in one investment, Graham councils, is not enough. You must diversify appropriately to improve your chances of making money across a portfolio. To illustrate, Graham likened diversification to playing roulette, with the casino's odds rather than the gambler's. With each spin of the wheel, the casino has a margin of safety that provides it an edge over time. Yet on any given spin, the gambler may win. Even so, the casino's margin of safety on each spin helps assure it will end up ahead, in the long run. Value investing made simple The lessons embedded in The Intelligent Investor are an absolute must for anyone with money in the stock market. They can be boiled down to these four simple points: Estimate a fair value for a company. Buy only if the price is safely below that value. Look for a strong dividend policy as a signal of financial strength. Diversify appropriately to spread the risks. If you invest based on those four key principles, the odds are quite high that you'll do fine. All in all, The Intelligent Investor is a superb reference book, and one with which every investor should be acquainted.
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billywows Elite	18-Aug-2006 07:48        billywows About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	Hey, remember to check out the 4 articles at the bottom .... Great reads on 'Buy & Hold' for unloved or neglected good stocks.
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billywows Elite	18-Aug-2006 06:54        billywows About Contact  Quote this Post!
x 0   x 0  Alert Admin	Meet Benjamin Graham By Motley Fool Staff August 14, 2006 Many investors hold Warren Buffett, arguably America's greatest investor, in the highest esteem, and rightfully so. But whom might you find on Warren's own pedestal? Probably Benjamin Graham, under whose tutelage Warren studied many moons ago. Although Graham's record doesn't beat Buffett's, he was no slouch. Between 1929 and 1956, a time period spanning the Great Depression and several major wars, Graham's investments grew an average of about 17% per year. Ben Graham is known as the father of value investing. Value, or "defensive," investors quietly seek out bargains among underpriced companies, buy into them, then patiently wait for their fair value to be realized. Growth investors are more aggressive. They aim to buy businesses that are booming, often due to high demand for their products. While growth investors will buy one dollar hoping that it will become two, value investors will try to buy a dollar for fifty cents. Both approaches have their merits, and Warren Buffett's current approach combines the two. Graham was a pioneer in driving home to investors the importance of crunching numbers. After experiencing the devastation of the 1929 crash, he sought to develop resilient techniques that could be used by any investor. He popularized examining price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios, debt-to-equity ratios, dividend records, net current assets, book values, and earnings growth. (Thanks, Ben!) Graham knew what he was looking for, and demanded high quality on every count. Graham focused on objective numbers, rather than more subjective factors such as management, trends, brand names, and new products. The data he tapped was publicly available, via corporate financial statements and the Standard & Poor's Stock Guide (available for free from many brokerages). In 1934, Graham co-authored a hefty textbook called Security Analysis with David Dodd. Nearly seven decades later, it's still widely used in business schools. Since it's not the easiest read, we recommend his more concise work, The Intelligent Investor. Warren Buffett himself has referred to The Intelligent Investor as "by far the best book about investing ever written." Pick up a copy at your local library and check it out. Here are some other articles of possible interest: 2 Things I Learned From Benjamin Graham Invest Smarter Dirt Cheap Dream Stocks How to Be a Better Investor
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