None of the Top Five Value Investors Believes in Value Investing

Ben Graham, Warren Buffett, Howard Marks, Joel Greenblatt & Seth Klarman

If you look in the right places, it’s really not that difficult to bust the myth of value investing. Recall that we gave you the five notable names in a previous post. Let’s stick with that order and start with Ben Graham:

1. Ben Graham

The Intelligent Investor has been enormously successful. Low and behold, many editions have been published since the original 1949 edition. We posted on this story back in 2023, but let’s recap the timeline:

(CLICK TO VIEW LARGER IMAGE)

Ok. Let’s superimpose the subtitles on this timeline.

(CLICK TO VIEW LARGER IMAGE)

As both infographics illustrate, Ben Graham passed away in 1976. So:

The phrase “value investing” did not become part of the subtitle

until after Ben Graham passed away.

Think about that for a second. Ben Graham, the “father of value investing,” never actually uttered the phrase in The Intelligent Investor. Moreover, it was never part of the subtitle while Ben Graham was alive. It found its way there posthumously.

But how and why? We are not 100% sure but we do have a theory based on our research.