Security Analysis: Principles and Technique.

GRAHAM, Benjamin & David L. Dodd [Warren E. Buffett].

Item Number: 5070

New York: Whittlesey House/ McGraw Hill, 1934.

First edition of Graham and Dodd’s seminal work, considered the Bible of modern financial analysis. Octavo, original red cloth. Boldly signed by Warren Buffett on the front free endpaper, Graham and Dodd’s most well-known adherent. Laid in is a 1993 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Metting Admission Card. “The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville” is a 1984 article by Warren Buffett promoting value investing, which was based on a speech given on May 17, 1984, at the Columbia University School of Business in honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Security Analysis. Using case studies, the speech and article challenged the idea that equity markets are efficient. Buffett brought up 9 investors whom he considered direct protegés of Graham and Dodd, and using their finances, then argued that “these Graham-and-Doddsville investors have successfully exploited gaps between price and value,” despite the inefficiency and “nonsensical” nature of the pricing of the overall market. Buffett concluded in the 1984 article that “some of the more commercially minded among you may wonder why I am writing this article. Adding many converts to the value approach will perforce narrow the spreads between price and value. I can only tell you that the secret has been out for 50 years, ever since Ben Graham and Dave Dodd wrote Security Analysis, yet I have seen no trend toward value investing in the 35 years I’ve practiced it. There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult. The academic world, if anything, has actually backed away from the teaching of value investing over the last 30 years. It’s likely to continue that way. Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace, and those who read their Graham & Dodd will continue to prosper.” In excellent condition with very light rubbing to the cloth. Examples of the first edition are known to exist both in black cloth binding, with “Whittlesey House-McGraw Hill” in gilt at the foot of the spine and in red cloth binding, with “McGraw-Hill Book Company” in gilt at the foot of the spine, as with this example. No priority of issue has been established. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Rare and desirable signed by Buffett.

Continuously in print through five editions, for more than 80 years, and with nearly a million copies sold, Security Analysis is indisputably the most influential book on investing ever written. Known as the investors' bible, it is as frequently consulted today as it was when it first appeared in 1934. The original words of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd--put to paper not long after the disastrous Stock Market Crash of 1929--still have the mesmerizing qualities of rigorous honesty and diligent scrutiny, the same riveting power of disciplined thought and determined logic that gave the work its first distinction and began its illustrious career. In 2016, Fortune called the book "still the best investment guide" and noted its "extraordinary endurance." The article states that "Graham, the primary author, then an obscure professor and money manager, chose the Great Depression as the time to assert his faith in patient security analysis and long-term investing. Given that the market was in the throes of an epochal collapse, very few folks were interested in investing. But Graham had the courage to see through the moment." Fortune also argues that one reason the book remained popular is that "it proffered an irreplaceable approach to investment. Stocks were to be valued as a shares of a business, bought and sold on that basis. No one contemplating the purchase of a family farm pondered the market trend or the latest jobs report; so should it be with common stocks."