Value Investors: Should You Read 'The Intelligent Investor'?

• (1:00) - Should You Be Reading The Intelligent Investor?
• (7:50) - Who Is Benjamin Graham?
• (13:45) - Benjamin Graham's Top Tips On Investing
• (18:30) - Applying The Intelligent Investor To Today’s Market: Introduction Chapter
• (30:00) - Tracey’s Top Stock Picks
• (39:40) - Episode Roundup: AMZN, AAPL, TSLA, BOOT, PVH
• Podcast@Zacks.com

Welcome to Episode #152 of the Value Investor Podcast

Every week, Tracey Ryniec, the editor of Zacks Value Investor portfolio, shares some of her top value investing tips and stock picks.

This week begins her series of podcasts covering Benjamin Graham’s best-selling book for value investors called “The Intelligent Investor.”

First published in 1949, the last edition by Graham was published in 1973. But in 2003, Jason Zweig, along with a preface by Warren Buffett, updated the book to account for the events of the last 40 years.

The book is 600 pages long.

Graham’s Top Ideas

According to Buffett, Graham lays out a framework for stock investors. Applying it to your own investing is up to you.

Some of those top ideas include:

1. Investors should have discipline and patience

2. Investors are buying a business, not a ticker or a stock chart

3. Hot industries aren’t always going to be winners

4. How much? (are you willing to pay)

These tips can easily be applied to several of today’s hottest stocks including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) , Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) .

The More Pessimistic Wall Street is, the Less Risk

Which industries are out of favor on the Street right now?

Instead of it being risky to buy those stocks, Graham would argue that that is where the value investor should be.

Is Retail the Ultimate Buying Opportunity?

Other than energy, retail is among the most hated industries on the Street in 2019.

What if Graham’s top tips were applied to them?

1. Boot Barn (NYSE:BOOT) sells boots and the Western lifestyle. It has 240 stores in 33 states. It recently reported first quarter fiscal 2020 results and crushed it as same-store-sales rose 9.4%, with brick and mortar jumping 11.1% and e-commerce growing by 0.9%. This is coming off of a very hot 2019. It also raised full year fiscal same-store-sales guidance.

2. PVH (NYSE:PVH) , the owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger globally, has seen its shares decline 42% over the last year on China weakness, tariffs and global slowdown fears. It’s now dirt cheap, with a forward P/E of just 8.7 and a PEG ratio of 0.7.

Tracey will be offering tips she gleams from reading The Intelligent Investor on the next several podcasts.

Find out if she thinks you should be reading it too on this week’s podcast.

[In full disclosure, Tracey currently owns shares of AMZN in her personal portfolio.]

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