Trader Benjamin Graham

Benjamin Graham is one of the oldest figures in the investment business, and his contribution to the development of future investors is simply enormous.
It was Benjamin Graham who became the teacher and inspiration for millions of traders around the world, and his most successful student was Warren Buffett himself.

Graham is the author of the so-called Investor's Bible, in which Graham first separated stock market speculators from investors and also described in detail his method for selecting certain stocks.

This trader and investor's track record speaks for itself, but no less interesting is the life story of this great man, which you can learn from reading.

Benjamin Graham was born on January 8, 1894. The future investor's first home was London, but when the young man was just over a year old, his parents decided to emigrate to the United States.

After living there for some time, his parents received citizenship, and his original surname, Grossbaum, was changed to Graham. Benjamin grew up in good health until the age of nine, as his father was a prominent businessman involved in the international export and sale of porcelain.

However, when Benjamin was only nine years old, his father died. From this point on, the relatively wealthy family suddenly became destitute, and Graham experienced the harshness of poverty from childhood.

Training and career as a trader

A very difficult childhood, manual labor, and constant frugality clearly hammered into Graham's head the importance of education and career, so Graham entered Columbia University and received a bachelor's degree.

Faculty and management noticed Benjamin's talent and offered him a job teaching mathematics. However, at the same time, he was offered an internship as an assistant in the bond department at a Wall Street firm.

Graham's career at Newburger, Henderson & Loeb progressed rapidly, and six years later he became a partner. Recently, the penniless young man began earning 2.5 percent of the firm's total profits, a considerable salary.


By the end of 1923, everyone on Wall Street knew who Benjamin Graham was and how talented this young man was, so various offers began to come in to start his own hedge fund.

An entrepreneur offers Benjamin Graham $250,000 to manage, with a monthly salary of $10,000 and 20 percent of the profits.

A lucky break.

Naturally, Benjamin has no doubts and seizes his luck by the tail, quickly increasing his capital to 500 thousand dollars.

After some time, Benjamin decides to go on his own and establishes the Grahar Corporation fund with capital of 500 thousand dollars.

The fund's operating principle was that Graham would seek out undervalued stocks and buy them, anticipating their future growth. He would also sell overvalued stocks and profit from them in the short term.

The fund rapidly accumulated capital, as its annual returns were over 27 percent until 1928. However, that was the heyday of mutual funds, and stocks were mushrooming, leading to the world-famous Depression.

During the Great Depression in the United States, the fund's assets were reduced by more than half, but after the negative period ended, the fund returned to positive momentum and began to bring its investors 17 percent per annum.

Author of a book on stock trading.

Trader Benjamin Graham did not take his work and developments to the grave, but published a book called Security Analysis in 1934.

This manual has become a kind of bible for traders, as the book covers the practical aspects of trading on the stock exchange.

Also in 1949, Graham published a book called The Intelligent Investor, which not only supplemented the previous edition, but also demonstrated in practice how an investor could anticipate future price changes.

Benjamin Graham died on September 21, 1976, at the age of 82.