Benjamin Graham was an Anglo-American author, economist, and investor known as the father of value investing. He wrote Security Analysis (1934) with David Dodd and The Intelligent Investor (1949), both of which are regarded as seminal works in modern finance. His writing established principles of rational investment and influenced generations of investors. Warren Buffett later called The Intelligent Investor “the best book about investing ever written.”
Graham was born Benjamin Grossbaum in London in 1894 to Jewish parents. His family moved to New York City when he was a year old, where they later changed their surname to Graham. After his father’s early death and the financial collapse of 1907, the family struggled to make ends meet in poverty. This experience shaped his later search for financial security and analytical order.
Graham excelled academically and graduated from Columbia University at twenty, where he was offered posts in mathematics, English, and philosophy. He declined these to support his mother and began working on Wall Street.
In the 1930s, his experience in securities led to his first significant publication, Security Analysis (1934), co-authored with David Dodd. The book defined the distinction between investment and speculation and argued that every investment must promise “safety of principal and a satisfactory return.” It introduced the concept of intrinsic value and emphasised rigorous research over market emotion. The text became the foundation of analytical investing and is still used in business schools worldwide.
Benjamin Graham continued his literary work with The Interpretation of Financial Statements (1937), a concise guide for investors on reading corporate reports, and Storage and Stability (1937), which examined the economics of commodities. His later book, World Commodities and World Currency (1944), proposed an alternative to the gold standard, outlining a plan for international monetary stability.
His most influential solo work, The Intelligent Investor (1949), set forth a philosophy based on prudence and long-term perspective. It introduced the “Mr Market” parable to illustrate investor psychology and coined the principle of the “margin of safety.” These ideas shaped global investing culture and remain central to financial education. Graham’s language was direct, with a moral undertone rooted in discipline and reason. He wrote, “You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.”
Beyond finance, Graham demonstrated a broad intellectual life. He wrote the Broadway play Baby Pompadour and translated The Truce by Mario Benedetti from Spanish into English. He also patented two mechanical calculators. Fluent in several languages, he described writing as “a means to clarify the mind before it clarifies the market.”
Benjamin Graham taught at Columbia Business School and later at the University of California, Los Angeles. Among his students were Warren Buffett and Irving Kahn, who both credited him as their mentor.
Graham retired in 1956 and died in Aix-en-Provence, France, in 1976.
