Benjamin Graham was born Benjamin Grossbaum on May 9, 1894, in London, and sailed to New York with his family before he was two. He attended New York City public schools and excelled at every subject except gym. He read constantly and forgot nothing—the kind of child we wish we had, or, indeed, had been ourselves. With the untimely death of his father, young Benjamin early learned to do without and to work. He entered Columbia College at 17 in the Class of 1914 and majored in mathematics.
For Graham, the life of the mind was inseparable from the life of finance. He was a fluent and adventurous writer. At one time or another, he tried his hand at poetry, playwrighting, translations, textbook writing and—the highest form of literature—financial journalism. In 1915, the New York Times published a letter to the editor under his name. The subject was the city's sinking fund, for which Graham had no use. He was 20 years old at the time and was posting quotations by hand on the chalk board of the New York Stock Exchange member firm of Newberger, Henderson & Loeb. Graham wrote not only for money—which he could certainly use at that stage of his career—but also for glory, such glory, for example, as a signed piece in the Magazine of Wall Street might afford.
The modern journalistic convention calls for an author on an investment subject to sprinkle his article with validating quotations from acknowledged authorities—brokerage-house analysts, for instance. There was none of that in Graham's pieces. He himself was the authority, and his topics ranged from bankruptcies and arbitrage to orphaned value stocks. In the summer of 1924, on the eve of the great Coolidge bull market, he identified eight stocks that, seemingly for no good reason, were quoted in the market at less than their pro rata share of net current assets. Then there were eight—in less than a decade, there would be hundreds.
Disclosure: Thanks to Sanjeev from MSN BRK shareholders board for the original reference.
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