The Intelligent Investor_ The Definitive Book on Value Investing - Benjamin Graham [249]
2 Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, Canto XXVI, lines 112–125, translated by Jason Zweig.
* The survey Graham cites was conducted for the Fed by the University of Michigan and was published in the Federal Reserve Bulletin, July, 1948. People were asked, “Suppose a man decides not to spend his money. He can either put it in a bank or in bonds or he can invest it. What do you think would be the wisest thing for him to do with the money nowadays—put it in the bank, buy savings bonds with it, invest it in real estate, or buy common stock with it?” Only 4% thought common stock would offer a “satisfactory” return; 26% considered it “not safe” or a “gamble.” From 1949 through 1958, the stock market earned one of its highest 10-year returns in history, averaging 18.7% annually. In a fascinating echo of that early Fed survey, a poll conducted by BusinessWeek at year-end 2002 found that only 24% of investors were willing to invest more in their mutual funds or stock portfolios, down from 47% just three years earlier.
* Speculation is beneficial on two levels: First, without speculation, untested new companies (like Amazon.com or, in earlier times, the Edison Electric Light Co.) would never be able to raise the necessary capital for expansion. The alluring, long-shot chance of a huge gain is the grease that lubricates the machinery of innovation. Secondly, risk is exchanged (but never eliminated) every time a stock is bought or sold. The buyer purchases the primary risk that this stock may go down. Meanwhile, the seller still retains a residual risk—the chance that the stock he just sold may go up!
† A margin account enables you to buy stocks using money you borrow from the brokerage firm. By investing with borrowed money, you make more when your stocks go up—but you can be wiped out when they go down. The collateral for the loan is the value of the investments in your account—so you must put up more money if that value falls below the amount you borrowed. For more information about margin accounts, see www.sec.gov/investor/ pubs/margin.htm, www.sia.com/publications/pdf/MarginsA.pdf, and www. nyse.com/pdfs/2001_factbook_09.pdf.
* Read Graham’s sentence again, and note what this greatest of investing experts is saying: The future of security prices is never predictable. And as you read ahead in the book, notice how everything else Graham tells you is designed to help you grapple with that truth. Since you cannot predict the behavior of the markets, you must learn how to predict and control your own behavior.
* How well did Graham’s forecast pan out? At first blush, it seems, very well: From the beginning of 1972 through the end of 1981, stocks earned an annual average return of 6.5%. (Graham did not specify the time period for his forecast, but it’s plausible to assume that he was thinking of a 10-year time horizon.) However, inflation raged at 8.6% annually over this period, eating up the entire gain that stocks produced. In this section of his chapter, Graham is summarizing what is known as the “Gordon equation,” which essentially holds that the stock market’s future return is the sum of the current dividend yield plus expected earnings growth. With a dividend yield of just under 2% in early 2003, and long-term earnings growth of around 2%, plus inflation at a bit over 2%, a future average annual return of roughly 6% is plausible. (See the commentary on Chapter 3.)
* Since 1997, when Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (or TIPS) were introduced, stocks have no longer been the automatically superior choice for investors who expect inflation to increase. TIPS, unlike other bonds, rise in value if the Consumer Price Index goes up, effectively immunizing the investor against