tailieunhanh - The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book On Value part 42

The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book On Value part 42. The purpose of this book is to supply, in a form suitable for laymen, guidance in the adoption and execution of an investment policy. Comparatively little will be said here about the technique of analyzing securities; attention will be paid chiefly to investment principles and investors’ attitudes. We shall, however, provide a number of condensed comparisons of specific securities - chiefly in pairs appearing side by side in the New York Stock Exchange list in order to bring home in concrete fashion the important elements involved in specific choices of common stocks | COMMENTARY ON CHAPTER 15 It is easy in the world to live after the world s opinion it is easy in solitude to live after our own but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. -Ralph Waldo Emerson PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE Max Heine founder of the Mutual Series Funds liked to say that there are many roads to Jerusalem. What this masterly stock picker meant was that his own value-centered method of selecting stocks was not the only way to be a successful investor. In this chapter we ll look at several techniques that some of today s leading money managers use for picking stocks. First though it s worth repeating that for most investors selecting individual stocks is unnecessary-if not inadvisable. The fact that most professionals do a poor job of stock picking does not mean that most amateurs can do better. The vast majority of people who try to pick stocks learn that they are not as good at it as they thought the luckiest ones discover this early on while the less fortunate take years to learn it. A small percentage of investors can excel at picking their own stocks. Everyone else would be better off getting help ideally through an index fund. Graham advised investors to practice first just as even the greatest athletes and musicians practice and rehearse before every actual performance. He suggested starting off by spending a year tracking and picking stocks but not with real money .1 In Graham s day you would 1 Patricia Dreyfus Investment Analysis in Two Easy Lessons interview with Graham Money July 1976 p. 36. 396 Commentary on Chapter 15 397 have practiced using a ledger of hypothetical buys and sells on a legal pad nowadays you can use portfolio trackers at websites like http http . com services portfolio or at the last site ignore the market-beating hype on its funds and other services . By test-driving your techniques before .