The Intelligent Investor

Warren Buffett is one of my heroes. He is humble, wise, witty, generous, charming, the world's greatest investor and the world's richest man (well always bumping around in the top 3). If you ever needed an antidote to the excesses and stupidity of some of the characters you see in Wall Street and the City, then this is your man. Warren Buffett's mentor and hero was a man called Benjamin Graham, Graham wrote a book called The Intelligent Investor in 1934, which greatly influenced Buffet. It's in print today and I'm currently reading it - it seems to me just as useful now as it must have been back then. If there is one thing you really take away from it, it's the stupidity which is applied to the buying of stocks and shares - the simple fact that everyone piles in to it when the market is on the up and everyone gets out of it when the market is on the slide. Put simply why would you buy something as it's becoming more expensive and sell it when it's becoming cheaper? I think this tells us a lot about human behaviour and the instinct of the herd.