A Note About Benjamin Graham by Jason Zweig

本杰明·格雷厄姆的一点笔记，作者：杰森·兹韦格。

Who was Benjamin Graham, and why should you listen to him? Graham was not only one of the best investors who ever lived; he was also the greatest practical investment thinker of all time. Before Graham, money managers behaved much like a medieval guild, guided largely by superstition, guesswork, and arcane rituals. Graham’s Security Analysis was the textbook that transformed this musty circle into a modern profession. 1

谁是本杰明·格雷厄姆，你为何应当倾听他的智慧？格雷厄姆不仅是历史上最出色的投资者之一；他还是有史以来最伟大的实用投资思想家。在格雷厄姆之前，资金管理者的行为很大程度上像中世纪的行会，主要依靠迷信、猜测以及神秘的仪式。格雷厄姆的《证券分析》是一本教科书，它将这个陈旧的圈子转变为一个现代的职业。

And The Intelligent Investor is the first book ever to describe, for individual investors, the emotional framework and analytical tools that are essential to financial success. It remains the single best book on investing ever written for the general public. The Intelligent Investor was the first book I read when I joined Forbes Magazine as a cub reporter in 1987, and I was struck by Graham’s certainty that, sooner or later, all bull markets must end badly. That October, U.S. stocks suffered their worst one-day crash in history, and I was hooked. (Today, after the wild bull market of the late 1990s and the brutal bear market that began in early 2000, The Intelligent Investor reads more prophetically than ever.)

《聪明的投资者》是首部为个人投资者描述必要的情感框架和分析工具以实现财务成功的书籍。它依然是为大众所写的有关投资的最佳书籍。当我在1987年成为《福布斯》杂志的初级记者时，《聪明的投资者》是我阅读的第一本书，格雷厄姆对于牛市迟早会糟糕收场的确定性给我留下了深刻的印象。那年十月，美国股市遭受了历史上最糟糕的单日崩盘，而我被深深吸引了。（如今，在20世纪90年代末的疯狂牛市之后以及2000年初开始的残酷熊市之后，《聪明的投资者》读起来比以往任何时候都更具预言性。）

Graham came by his insights the hard way: by feeling firsthand the anguish of financial loss and by studying for decades the history and psychology of the markets. He was born Benjamin Grossbaum on May 9, 1894, in London; his father was a dealer in china dishes and figurines.2 The family moved to New York when Ben was a year old. At first they lived the good life—with a maid, a cook, and a French governess— governess—on upper Fifth Avenue. But Ben’s father died in 1903, the porcelain business faltered, and the family slid haltingly into poverty. Ben’s mother turned their home into a boardinghouse; then, borrowing money to trade stocks “on margin,” she was wiped out in the crash of 1907. For the rest of his life, Ben would recall the humiliation of cashing a check for his mother and hearing the bank teller ask, “Is Dorothy Grossbaum good for five dollars?”

格雷厄姆通过艰苦的方式获得了他的洞察力：他亲身感受到了金融损失带来的痛苦，并且研究了几十年的市场历史和心理学。他于1894年5月9日出生在伦敦，原名本杰明·格罗斯鲍姆，他的父亲是瓷器餐具和小雕像的商人。格雷厄姆家族在他一岁时搬到了纽约。起初，他们过着优渥的生活——有女仆、厨师和法国家庭教师——在第五大道的上段。但是本的父亲在1903年去世了，瓷器生意也开始衰败，家庭逐渐陷入了贫困。本的母亲将他们的家变成了一家寄宿公寓；然后，她借钱炒股“保证金交易”，并在1907年的崩盘中一无所有。在他的余生中，本会回忆起为母亲兑现支票的耻辱，以及听到银行出纳员问：“多萝西·格罗斯鲍姆能支付五美元吗？”

Fortunately, Graham won a scholarship at Columbia, where his brilliance burst into full flower. He graduated in 1914, second in his class. Before the end of Graham’s final semester, three departments—English, philosophy, and mathematics—asked him to join the faculty. He was all of 20 years old.

幸运的是，格雷厄姆在哥伦比亚大学获得了奖学金，他的才华在那里得到了充分的展现。他于1914年毕业，位列班级第二。在格雷厄姆最后一个学期结束之前，三个系——英语、哲学和数学——都邀请他加入教师队伍。他当时只有20岁。

Instead of academia, Graham decided to give Wall Street a shot. He started as a clerk at a bond-trading firm, soon became an analyst, then a partner, and before long was running his own investment partnership.

格雷厄姆决定放弃学术界，转而尝试华尔街的机会。他起初在一家债券交易公司担任文员，很快成为了分析师，然后是合伙人，不久后便运营着自己的投资合伙企业。

The Internet boom and bust would not have surprised Graham. In April 1919, he earned a 250% return on the first day of trading for Savold Tire, a new offering in the booming automotive business; by October, the company had been exposed as a fraud and the stock was worthless.

互联网的繁荣与衰退不会让格雷厄姆感到惊讶。1919年4月，他在Savold Tire——一家新兴的汽车业公司——交易的第一天就获得了250%的回报；到了10月，该公司被揭露为欺诈，其股票一文不值。