Investment veteran Irving Kahn, who has weathered every financial storm since the 1920s, reveals everything he has learned
The catalyst for the change was his collaboration with Benjamin Graham, the inventor of “value investing”.
Graham was a lecturer at Columbia University in New York, where his pupils included Warren Buffett, and Mr Kahn was his teaching assistant. “They’d take the subway to Columbia together,” said Tom Kahn, Irving Kahn’s son, who also works for the family investment firm.
Irving Kahn said: “During the Great Depression, I could find stocks trading at tremendous discounts. I learnt from Ben Graham that one could study financial statements to find stocks that were a 'dollar selling for 50 cents’. He called this the 'margin of safety’ and it’s still the most important concept related to risk.”
Indeed, he uses the same approach today. “During the recent crash and in other sell-offs, Tom and I looked for good companies selling at a discount, which do surface if you’re patient. If the market is overpriced, an investor must be willing to wait.”
The market today
Mr Kahn said he was finding few bargains in today’s markets, in which America’s benchmark S&P 500 index has hit repeated record highs.
“I try not to pontificate about the market, but I can say that my son and I find very few instances of value when we look at the market today. That is usually a sign of widespread speculation,” he said.
DYI Comment: THE GREAT WAIT CONTINUES!
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