Security Analysis

Columbia Business School professors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd wrote their guide after the heavy Wall Street losses of the early Great Depression. They faulted the market's focus on reported earnings per share and on the fashionable earnings trends, and told investors instead to estimate the value of the business behind a security. The book separates investment from speculation, contrasts intrinsic value with price, personifies emotional investors as Mr. Market and coins the term margin of safety, laying the intellectual groundwork for value investing. First published in 1934, it went through five editions, and a sixth adds commentary from investors including Seth Klarman, Howard Marks and Bruce Greenwald, with a foreword by Warren Buffett.

Warren Buffett was reported to have called it the road map he has used for his own investing over 57 years. Mohnish Pabrai called it a terrific work to be digested slowly and urged readers to choose the 1934 edition.