Photo credit: John Schnelder, Flickr Creative Commons
By Jason Zweig | March 31, 2015 10 p.m. ET
Here is the original typewritten text of a speech Benjamin Graham gave in San Francisco one week before John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In this brilliant presentation, Graham explores how an investor should go about determining whether the market is overvalued, how to tell what asset allocation is right for you, and how to pick stocks wisely. This speech is a rare opportunity to see the workings of Graham’s mind in the raw.
I am grateful to Richard A. Rigg of San Francisco, who was in the audience that day, for providing me with this copy of Graham’s speech, which to the best of my knowledge had previously been undiscovered. After I sent a copy to Warren Buffett, he told me that he hadn’t been aware of it but regarded it as one of the best of Graham’s speeches. I first posted it online in 2010 and am re-posting it now because 1) I discovered it too late to include in the anthology Benjamin Graham: Building a Profession and 2) several people have told me they have been unable to find it since I redesigned my website last year.
I hope you will agree that Graham’s words are at least as timely as they were more than a half-century ago.
Enjoy!
Click below to download “Securities In An Insecure World, A Lecture by Benjamin Graham,” delivered at Town Hall, St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco, CA, November 15, 1963:
Note: This is an extremely large file (upwards of 12 mb) that may load slowly if you have limited bandwidth.
