Stocks for the Long Run : the Definitive Guide to Financial Market Returns and Long-term Investment Strategies

6

CHAPTER

THE INVESTMENT

VIEW OF STOCKS

How Fickle Markets

Overwhelm Historical Facts

The “new-era” doctrine—that “good” stocks (or “blue chips”) were

sound investments regardless of how high the price paid for them—

was at the bottom only a means of rationalizing under the title of “in-

vestment” the well-nigh universal capitulation to the gambling fever.

BENJAMINGRAHAM ANDDAV I DDODD, 1934^1

Investing in stocks has become a national hobby and a national obses-

sion. To update Marx, it is the religion of the masses.

ROGERLOWENSTEIN, 1996^2

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(^1) Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, Security Analysis, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1934, p. 11.
(^2) Roger Lowenstein, “A Common Market: The Public’s Zeal to Invest,” Wall Street Journal, Septem-
ber 9, 1996, p. A11.
Copyright © 2008, 2002, 1998, 1994 by Jeremy J. Siegel. Click here for terms of use.