About The Author

Benjamin Graham (May 9, 1894 – September 21, 1976) was a British-born American economist and professional investor. Graham is considered the father of value investing, an investment approach he began teaching at Columbia Business School in 1928 and subsequently refined with David Dodd through various editions of their famous book Security Analysis.
Graham had many disciples in his lifetime, a number of whom went on to become successful investors themselves. Graham’s most well known disciples include Warren Buffett, William J. Ruane, Irving Kahn and Walter J. Schloss, among others. Buffett, who credits Graham as grounding him with a sound intellectual investment framework, described him as the second most influential person in his life after his own father.
In fact, Graham had such an overwhelming influence on his students that two of them, Buffett and Kahn, named their sons Howard Graham Buffett and Thomas Graham Kahn after him. Graham also taught at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
His first book, Security Analysis, with David Dodd, was published in 1934. Security Analysis and The Intelligent Investor, published in 1949 (4th revision, with Jason Zweig, 2003), are his two most widely acclaimed books. Warren Buffett describes The Intelligent Investor as “the best book about investing ever written.” Graham exhorted the stock market participant to first draw a fundamental distinction between investment and speculation. In Security Analysis, he proposed a clear definition of investment that was distinguished from what he deemed speculation.
It read, “An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative.”