Benjamin Graham, Building a Profession: The Early Writings of the Father of Security Analysis

How One Man Created a Profession―and Entirely Transformed the World of Investing

“The small list of investment books that must grace the library of any serious investor―not to gather dust, but to be opened over and over again―just grew by one. This wonderful compilation of the wit and wisdom of Benjamin Graham is the new addition. Savor it. Learn from it. Treasure it.”
John C. Bogle, founder and former Chief Executive, The Vanguard Group

“If youth is measured by creativity and excitement about new ideas and a thirst for learning, then Ben Graham-in his early 80s-was the youngest guy in the room when two-dozen stellar investment managers met for three days to explain the inner workings of investment management.”
Charles D. Ellis, CFA, Bestselling Author of Winning the Loser's Game

“These writings, spanning over 30 years, help us understand even better the remarkable achievement of this visionary man and his lasting influence on the finance profession.”
Burton Malkiel, Princeton University, Bestselling Author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street

“Investing involves the intelligent triangulation between fundamentals, psychology, and prices. Benjamin Graham, Building a Profession . . . illustrates how this investment legend never stopped thinking about this multi-dimensional challenge.”
Seth Klarman, The Baupost Group

“Serious professionals in the investment business will delight in pouring over this and checking their own thoughts against those of the master.”
Jeffrey J. Diermeier, CFA, Diermeier Family Foundation, and former CFA Institute president and CEO

“This is a must-read for anyone interested in the history and development of our profession and the importance of critical investment thinking.”
Gary P. Brinson, CFA, GP Brinson Investments

“Some investors ('the happy few') know that Ben Graham's writings on financial analysis give them a leg up. So they will want to read this book, and other investors should.”
Jean-Marie Eveillard, First Eagle Funds

“The CFA Institute and Jason Zweig have performed an invaluable service to our profession in collecting these [writings] in one volume.”
William H. Miller, CFA, Legg Mason Funds Management

About the Book:

When Benjamin Graham began workingon Wall Street in 1914, the centerof American finance resembled a lawless frontier.The concept of regulatory laws was in itsinfancy, the SEC wouldn’t see the light of dayfor 20 years, and many firms hid assets andearnings from nosy outsiders.

And security analysts didn’t exist as weknow them. They were called “diagnosticians,”and they didn’t do much analyzing. These investorsprided themselves on going with the“feel” of the market, and most of them rarelylooked at a financial statement.

Appalled by the lack of research and quantification,Benjamin Graham set out to changeall this―and ended up creating the disciplineof modern security analysis.

A collection of rare writings by and interviewswith one of financial history’s most brilliantvisionaries, Benjamin Graham, Building aProfession presents Graham’s evolution of ideason security analysis spanning five decades.Articles include:

• “Should Security Analysts Have aProfessional Rating? The Affirmative Case”
  Financial Analysts Journal (1945)
• “Toward a Science of Security Analysis”
  Financial Analysts Journal (1952)
• “Inflated Treasuries and DeflatedStockholders: Are CorporationsMilking Their Owners?”
  Forbes (1932)
• “The Future of Financial Analysis”
  Financial Analysts Journal (1963)
• “Controlling versus OutsideStockholders”
  Virginia Law Weekly (1953)

These pages reveal the revolutionary ideas of aman who didn’t so much find his calling as hecreated it from scratch―and opened the doorfor entire generations of investors.

Jason Zweig writes the “Intelligent Investor” column for The Wall Street Journal. He has been a senior writer at Money, mutual funds editor at Forbes, and guest columnist at Time and CNN.com. Zweig is the editor of the 2003 revised edition of Benjamin Graham’s book The Intelligent Investor and the author of Your Money and Your Brain (2007).
Rodney N. Sullivan , CFA, head of publications for CFA Institute, serves as editor of the Financial Analysts Journal and several other leading publications. He was director of research for Trigon Healthcare, Inc. (now Anthem Healthcare, Inc.) and a senior portfolio analyst for Aris Corporation.