[.ca] Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond (ISBN 0471463396)

Packed With Knowledge!:
This is a very lucid, practical introduction to the principles of value investing. It is detached, relatively objective considering the authors' bias in favor of the subject, doesn't hype or hard-sell and, on the whole, would be a valuable addition to any investor's bookshelf. If you're a relative beginner, your shelf will also need to include a dictionary of financial terms - the authors assume you already know the vocabulary. And who is the Graham cited in the title? He is Benjamin Graham, who all but invented security analysis. With coauthor David Dodd, he produced the book Security Analysis in 1934. Later, Graham wrote The Intelligent Investor. Both books are investment classics and have been revised and re-issued. This one may endure, as well, based on its thorough exposition on how to value a company and its instructive profiles of value investing heavyweights. Our recommendation: strong buy, long term hold.

Turkey and Where is the Beef?:
There is simply not enough value in this book to justify using it. I'm sorry but words like Alta Vista and Cisco just should not appear anywhere in a value investing book. Period and discussion over. At least not up to the present. Maybe in the future but I doubt it. Also there is way too much verbage to describe much of nothing. The modern budding value investor would be better served by other book including Security Analysis by Graham. A lot of detail is missing here and much of the analysis leaves one wondering if the authors know what value investing really is.

Serves as Both a Great Primer & Also a Great Idea Generator:
Ben Graham may have done for investing what Euclid did for geometry, but the Graham student must take a long and winding road to collect and organize Grahamian "theorems." Greenwald modernizes and thoughtfully organizes the value framework originally expounded by Graham, and shows how investors might take -and in the final section of the book, how several master investors DO take- Graham's notion of buying dollar bills for fifty cents and apply this central idea in creative ways to some of the less frequented areas of the market. Greenwald et.al. show a terrific aptitude for remaining informal and conversational while maintaining brevity and orderliness. Neophytes are unlikely to encounter a clearer, more concise explanation of 'discounting future cash flows', and most students of value investing will be well-served by Greenwald's order of equity valuation: (1) Asset Value, (2) Earnings Power, (3) Growth, all of which are clearly explained. Additionally, Greenwald discusses a useful addition to common metrics such as 'net asset value' and 'liquidation value' with the concept of 'replacement cost'. Greenwald also acknowledges and thoughtfully attempts to quantify the value investor's less traditionally acknowledged principle of 'franchise value', which he judiciously attributes to Warren Buffett as the latter's singular contribution to investment analysis. The book's admirable brevity is also its primary shortcoming. Whereas Graham included senior debt and convertible debt vehicles both in Security Analysis and in his investment practices, this text is for all practical purposes only an examination of equities. If the authors of "Value Investing" ever opt to write about a value approach to bonds and other instruments, I'll bet they'd have a captive audience.

Packed with Knowledge!:
This is a very lucid, practical introduction to the principles of value investing. It is detached, relatively objective considering the authors' bias in favor of the subject, doesn't hype or hard-sell and, on the whole, would be a valuable addition to any investor's bookshelf. If you're a relative beginner, your shelf will also need to include a dictionary of financial terms - the authors assume you already know the vocabulary. And who is the Graham cited in the title? He is Benjamin Graham, who all but invented security analysis. With coauthor David Dodd, he produced the book Security Analysis in 1934. Later, Graham wrote The Intelligent Investor. Both books are investment classics and have been revised and re-issued. This one may endure, as well, based on its thorough exposition on how to value a company and its instructive profiles of value investing heavyweights. Our recommendation: strong buy, long term hold.

Good book about value investing:
The values are out there, it is just a matter of finding them and knowing what to look for. This book has many ideas about how to find the values. I was somewhat disappointed in some of the math since I found some errors, for example on pg 139 of my edition, the formula for PV contains an error. The Earnings Power Value seems to be useful for some situations, but not in all cases --- I think that point is covered in the book, yet so much time is devoted to EPV. Even with some rough spots, this book will indeed help me in my investing walk.