There are many variations on the value investing theme. However described, the fusing theme among value investors is appreciating the difference between stock price and business value.

There are many variations on the value investing theme.  The philosophy permits particular applications that vary to suit individual taste and ability.  Leading value investors employ a range of styles.

Philip Fisher is a good example.  In Fisher's era, investment wealth arose either:

• from traditional value investing (buying underpriced securities and holding them until fairly priced or overpriced) or 
• fairly-priced businesses poised to grow so rapidly in sales and earnings (today we would add cash flows) that profits arise from that growth.  

The former describes traditional Graham-based pure value investing.  The latter is Fisher's pioneering sense as a growth rather than a value investor and leads to the distinction (somewhat false) between the two.

Many contrast Graham, the father of value investing, and Fisher, the father of growth investing.  But because value investing and growth investing are really cousins of one another, Fisher is better understood as developing a variation on value investing's themes.  The difference is more a matter of style and emphasis than fundamentals.

Among the most famous published accounts of success reported by students of Graham-Dodd's teachings is Buffett's essay The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville.  He documents a range of value investors who adopted varying styles of the philosophy.

• Some diversify investments widely while others allocate wealth to a concentrated group of stocks.  
• Most place a high premium on understanding the particulars of any business before investing, yet some will invest while holding only a reasonable level of expertise on a business.

Columbia University Business School professor Bruce Greenwald published a series of essays updating and elaborating Buffett's Superinvestors theme.  He highlights numerous value investors to underscore slight variations of approach.

• Some refine valuation methods to define value as what informed industrialists would pay to own a business's equivalent assets.  
• Some relate historical price fluctuations to intrinsic business value.
• Others combine this innovation with more traditional valuation metrics to enhance investment discipline.  
• Some emphasize the role of catalysts such as takeovers and bankruptcy reorganizations that can transform underpriced businesses into reliased investment results.

Of the variety of value investors and their styles, those most closely aligned to Graham might be called pure value investors.  Those giving more weight to other traditions or contemporary influences might loosely be described as modified value investors.  

However described, the fusing theme among value investors: 

• is appreciating the difference between stock price and business value.  
• All also believe in the gospel of the margin of safety.  

A common characteristic is superior investment results.