The most succinct description of value investing

"The value investor seeks to purchase a security at a bargain price, the proverbial dollar for 50 cents." 

Of course, there is considerably more to it than that.   However, this is a good starting point.



History of the Teaching of Value Investing in Columbia University

1928:  Benjamin Graham began to teach a course on security analysis at Columbia University.

1978:  Roger Murray, an author of the fifth edition of Security Analysis retired, and the course and the tradition disappeared from the formal academic curriculum.

1992:  Mario Gabelli, who had taken the course with Roger Murray, prevailed on Murray to offer a series of lectures on value investing to Gabelli's own analysts, who had found nothing like this in their formal MBA courses.  Bruce Greenwald, the newly appointed Heilbrunn Professor of Asset Management and Finance, attended those lectures out of curiosity.

1993:  Bruce Greenwald dragooned Roger Murray into joining him in offering a revived and revised version of the value course in Columbia University.

Value Investing: Buy Cheap, Obscure and Out of Fashion

Value Investing Process

Search
- Cheap
- Ugly
- Obscure
- Otherwise ignored

Valuation
- Asset
- Earnings Power
- Franchise

Review
- Key Issues
- Collateral Evidence
- Personal Biases

Risk Management
- Margin of Safety
- Some Diversification
- Patience - Default Strategy

Important Points
- Market Irrationality Creates Opportunity
- Know what you know: Inherent Quality of Information & Circle of Competence
- Look for Margin of Safety

Professor Bruce C. Greenwald discusses his executive education course in value investing and what differentiates the practice from other investment strategies. "Most investors are constitutionally oriented to buying lottery tickets," he says. "And that's what creates the value opportunities for the plodding, careful investors."

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