This is the second of twelve parts of a “book club” reading and discussion of Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover, where this book on debt reduction is teased apart and looked at in detail. This entry covers the third chapter, finishing on page 51. The next entry, covering the fourth chapter, will appear on Wednesday.

Dave Ramsey is probably the loudest proponent out there of the “debt is bad” mantra and he makes the case for it loud and clear in this chapter. In his eyes, outside of a home mortgage (and that one should be paid off ASAP), all debt is bad.

I agree completely. The only problem comes in when this mantra is taken too far and overlooks the benefits of establishing a positive credit history. The positives of being debt free heavily outweigh the negatives of being heavily in debt, but being debt free doesn’t mean you should sacrifice a good credit history along the way. Let’s talk about this whole picture.

Not Using Debt Is Ridiculous?
The usage of debt for major purchases is definitely ingrained in the American psyche. At virtually every retailer you visit, there’s an offer to sign up for a credit card or finance the purchase you’re about to make. It seems so natural that many people assume it is natural. On page 19, Ramsey mentions this phenomenon:

[I]n the last several years, I have found that a major barrier to winning is our view of debt. Most people who have made the decision to stop borrowing money have experienced something weird: ridicule. Friends and family who are disciples of the myth that debt is good have ridiculed those on the path to freedom.

Given that financing usually means paying substantially more for the item over the long run, anyone who chides you for paying cash is actually chiding you for paying less - ludicrous, in other words.

My big issue here is how to deal with people who make comments like this. Whenever I’ve faced situations like this, I’ve found that explaining the truth doesn’t work - I’m usually met with a vacant, wide-eyed look that clearly indicates that the other person has no idea what I’m talking about.

Instead, my approach is to simply smile, nod, and do my own thing. Over the long run, my bank account will prove me right in paying cash as often as possible.

Risky Debt
On page 21, Ramsey argues that simply possessing debt is a risk, let alone paying it late:

My contention is that debt brings on enough risk to offset any advantage that could be gained through leverage of debt. Given time, a lifetime, risk will destroy the perceived returns purported by the mythsayers.

This is one of the most powerful arguments against debt, in my opinion. Most of the time, when people make the case for taking on debt, they make assumptions that involve a perfect, trouble-free life.

Sure, it’s easy to make a $400 a month payment given your current life situation, but what happens if you lose your job tomorrow? Or in a year? What if you suffer a major illness? What if your marriage falls apart? What if you get married? What if an unexpected child arrives?

Forecasting payments into the future can be smooth but the realities of our lives are quite bumpy, indeed. Lives don’t follow the smooth lines and curves of a debt repayment schedule, and saddling our lives with such lines and curves might enable us to get a car a bit earlier, but it also adds a lot of stress and worry if our life zigs when we expect it to zag.

Respect your complex, beautiful life and avoid unnecessary debt.

Relatives Shouldn’t Be Lenders
One of my biggest personal standards for money is to not lend money to family. If I decide to give someone a helping hand, it’ll be in the form of a gift, not a loan. Ramsey makes the case on page 26:

Hundreds of times I’ve seen relationships strained and sometimes destroyed. We all have, but we continue to believe the myth that a loan to a loved one is a blessing. It isn’t; it is a curse. Don’t put that burden on any relationship you care about.

Do you love your mortgage lender? How about your credit card company - do you look forward to getting together with them at Christmastime? Ever felt like inviting your car salesman to your New Years’ party?

The reason is that the lending/borrowing relationship doesn’t mix well with great interpersonal relations. If you borrow money from someone, you suddenly have a financial obligation to that person. You have to pay them back or incur some sort of retribution.

Retribution? That’s not exactly a concept that mixes well with close relationships and family events. Nor should it. No one wants to spend time with a person that’s demanding money from them. Thus, after a loan between friends or loved ones, it’s natural to expect that relationship to decay in some way.

No relationship is worth that decay. If you’ve decided that you really must help someone out, make that help into a gift, not a loan.

Look Good or Be Good?
On page 33, Dave digs into the difference between putting up appearances and actually having something to back it up:

Having been a millionaire and gone broke, I dug my way out by making a decision about looking good versus being good. Looking good is when your broke friends are impressed by what you drive, and being good is having more money than they have.

Something has always troubled me about the phrase “fake it ’till you make it.” I can understand it in some situations, where you have to put up a very polished front in order to further your career.

The problem comes when “fake it ’till you make it” becomes a life philosophy. If you find yourself leasing a BMW so that you can “fake it” and put up an appearance of being financially affluent when you’re really not, you’re entering into a trap.

Sure, you might be able to put up an appearance of “making it” with that purchase, but your income will be devoured by that car instead of being able to take advantage of other opportunities. In three years, you’ll have nothing in the bank and a car that just went off lease.

Instead, if you “fake it” a little less, buy a low end car and make it look as nice as you can, you can build up that bankroll, build some security, and eventually purchase that car.

You might be able to “fake it” now, but if you want to “make it” sooner, you’ll tone down on the fakery and keep yourself out of debt.

On Buying a New Car
On page 37, Dave makes a case against buying a new car:

A good used car is as reliable or more reliable than a new car. A new $28,000 car will lose about $17,000 of value in the first four years you own it. That is almost $100 per week in lost value.

I understand where Ramsey is coming from, but it doesn’t take into account several factors.

First, the only cars that depreciate like that were junk to begin with. If you have a car that depreciates 70% in the first four years, that car has a very poor record for long-term reliability. Reliable cars simply do not depreciate that fast.

Second, the first four years are the most worry-free for a car. During that period, they’re under warranty, meaning if something goes wrong, it doesn’t come out of your pocket. Once that warranty ends, you’re on your own. It’s during that warranty period that you can figure out whether the car is actually reliable or it’s not without a cavalcade of big bills.

Third, in a down economy, there are huge incentives to buy new. Sales, rebates, and other offers pop up all over the place, some of them impressive. There are often tax breaks for new car purchases as well, passed by Congress in a short-term effort to boost spending.

I am not saying that buying new is better than buying used. Instead, I am merely saying that it is a mistake to automatically exclude a new purchase, particularly if you can afford it.

Ramsey overstates his case here, though I understand why he does it. A forceful case on behalf of a good principle is a great tactic for convincing people of the principle. I do agree that buying used is often the best deal when buying a car, but to ignore new cars does the buyer a disservice.

Mortgages and Credit Cards
On page 39, Ramsey talks about why you don’t need to build credit to get a mortgage:

You will need to find a mortgage company that does actual underwriting. That means they are professional enough to process the details of your life instead of using only a Beacon score (lending for dummies). You can get a mortgage if you lived right.

Ramsey’s absolutely right here - you don’t need credit to get a mortgage, as long as you have a good housing history and a good record of paying your bills on time. A manual underwriter will dig these things out. An aside: if you’re in this situation, visit your local credit union first. They’re more likely to do manual underwriting.

The problem here is that a mortgage is not the only avenue through which good credit can help you. One’s credit score is used in lots of ways: determining insurance rates, aiding in many job application processes, and so on.

That’s why I think limited use of a credit card is actually a good thing. Leave the card at home most of the time. Only use it for specific purchases that you would otherwise make, like gas or groceries. Then, at the end of the month, pay off the balance in full, which should be trivial since you’re not buying more because of the card.

This accomplishes the big goal of improving your credit score without incurring debt. Having a good credit score improves your hiring chances and makes you eligible for better insurance rates, putting money directly in your pocket. Later, if you do get a home loan, you can simply trash that card if you so with.

If you’re already doing that, you might as well choose a card that helps you in other ways. For example, if you’re buying a card just to buy gas on to help your credit, get the Visa or MasterCard available from your gas station chain of choice (like BP). That way, you’ll get rebates on the gas you buy along the way - another way to save.

The trick is to simply leave the card at home. Don’t use it for any other purchases besides the ones you plan in advance, like gas purchases, and keep it somewhere safe outside of those opportunities.

Do you have any other thoughts on the third chapter of The Total Money Makeover? Please share them in the comments - and feel free to respond to any of my impressions as well. After all, a good book club is all about discussion!

On Wednesday, we’ll tackle the fourth chapter - Money Myths: The (Non)Secrets of the Rich.

This is the first of twelve parts of a “book club” reading and discussion of Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover, where this book on debt reduction is teased apart and looked at in detail. This first entry covers the preface and the first two chapters, finishing on page 16. The next entry, covering the third chapter, will appear on Saturday.

Let’s get this straight right off the bat. I like what Dave Ramsey has to say when it comes to personal finance. I find much of his material makes a lot of sense and he does a great job of balancing a “coaching” attitude without going too over the top a la Larry Winget.

That being said, I don’t care much at all about his political commentary. I know that his relationship with Fox News pretty much requires a conservative bent, but his political perspectives feel very much out in right field to me with only a tenuous connection at best to his personal finance talk.

Given that, I’m going to completely ignore his politics for this discussion. If it’s not inside The Total Money Makeover, which is an excellent book on debt reduction and focus, I’m not going to talk about it.

Ahem.

So what exactly is The Total Money Makeover all about? It’s just a very straightforward plan for getting in control of your finances, particularly in terms of overcoming a heavy load of debt. Many people have “turned the corner” - meaning they’ve realized that debt is dangerous and are actually committed to spending less - but the mountain of debt they’ve incurred makes it almost impossible to move forward. That’s exactly who the book is written for.

‘80% Behavior, 20% Head Knowledge’
Right off the bat, on the first page of the introduction, the basic idea is made clear:

I am positive that personal finance is 80 percent behavior and 20 percent head knowledge. Our concentration on behavior - realizing that most folks have a good idea of what to do with money but not how to do it - has led us to a different view of personal finance. Most financial people make the mistake of trying to show you the number, thinking that you just don’t get the math. I am sure that the problem with my money is the guy in the mirror.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. All of us know that it’s important to save and can see the numbers on how useful it really is. The trick is actually doing it - and that’s all psychology.

If you don’t truly make up your mind to achieve financial success, you’ll hold back. You won’t save - or you won’t save much. You’ll keep telling yourself that “later” is the right time to do it.

And then you’ll find yourself in ten years having not made any progress on your big goals in life.

The choice to start spending less than you earn is a hard one, but it’s the most important one. That choice has nothing to do with math, with running the numbers, or anything else. It’s inside your head.

If You Will Live Like No One Else, Later You Can Live Like No One Else
That phrase is found at the bottom of virtually every page in the book - it’s basically the book’s mantra. Dave’s take on it is clear: live hard now and you’ll live easy later. My take is a little bit different.

I agree with him largely on the first part: it’s incredibly important to tighten up that spending and get rid of the debt. Doing that requires learning how to spend less - and also not allowing yourself to use that extra money for anything but getting rid of debt and building a future. That requires living “different” in a way - your goals shift from the shiny new car and the shiny vacation to the removal of all of your debt.

On my block, I can certainly say I see a lot of shiny cars - my truck is the oldest vehicle on the block, by far. In the end, though, my truck works - and that’s all I can really ask of it. It gets the kids to daycare and gets me to the library, which is really all I need. As long as it keeps running, we’ll keep it. And that’s living quite different when we’re surrounded by vehicles more than ten years newer than my truck.

It’s the other part that’s tricky. I don’t view the “later you can live like no one else” as meaning I can afford that shiny new car. Instead, I take a perspective closer to Your Money or Your Life - the “live like no one else” in the future for me is complete financial independence, meaning I don’t have to work for money.

That, to me, is “living like no one else.” I won’t have to factor in money at all when it comes to choosing how to spend my time, and that’s my real dream.

A 12% Rate of Return?
One big flashing question mark comes on page xv in the preface:

Sadly, many intelligent but ignorant people seem to think that making a 12 percent rate of return on your money in a long term investment is impossible. And that if I state that there is a 12 percent rate of return available, then I have lied to you or misled you. [...] The S&P 500 is the 500 largest companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange, sometimes called “The Big Board.” So it is widely accepted to be the best average of the market. The S&P 500 has averaged 11.3 percent per year for the last seventy-plus years, as of this writing.

So, I immediately flip to the front and discover that this revision was published in 2007. Something tells me that 2008 hurt those numbers quite a bit.

Here’s the point, though: The Total Money Makeover tends towards the optimistic when it comes to investment returns. While there are certainly long-term stretches (more than ten years) where the market as a whole - or certain pieces of the market - have returned more than 12% annually, the truth is that there is no guarantee that any 10 year, 20 year, 30 year, or any year period will return any percent. Surely, 2008 taught us all that, loud and clear.

Instead of relying on that extremely optimistic forecast, I’ve come to use Warren Buffett’s more realistic (perhaps even a bit pessimistic) forecast that in the future we should expect 7% returns on average. This might be slightly on the pessimistic side, but when you’re making calculations for your future and banking on them, you’re better off being pessimistic (and having more money than you need when the day comes) than optimistic (and having to work for the rest of your life).

Calculating with 12% returns gets people really excited - and it might happen. But my perspective is that using such hugely optimistic numbers puts your future at risk. Better to finish with more than you expect than with less.

Tapes and Books Aren’t the Solution
On page 4, a certain quote really caught my eye:

So my Total Money Makeover begins with a challenge. The challenge is you. You are the problem with your money. The financial channel and some tape sets aren’t your answer; you are.

All the blogs, all the books, all the “tape sets,” all the financial products in the world won’t help if you’re not committed to sucking it up and making it work.

If you’re not willing to look at your behaviors, step up to the plate, and make some changes in your life, nothing is going to change.

This kind of talk generates three kinds of reactions. It makes some people angry - they want to believe that they can suddenly get rich without changing a thing, even though it hasn’t happened yet. It makes some people stick their fingers in their ears and sing “lalalala” - they know it’s true, but they’d rather keep the sinking ship they’re on than try to change anything. And then others embrace it and work hard for something better.

I was in the “lalalala” group for years. I knew very well what I needed to do, I just didn’t want to hear it. I knew on some level that what I was doing wasn’t working, I just didn’t want to think about it.

My epiphany threw me on a new track - the “embrace change” track. I finally woke up and realized that if I didn’t take charge of my situation, I was going to keep sinking slowly. This one choice led to tons of things - I paid off four credit cards, two vehicles, three student debts, totaling $30,000 or so in debt; I bought a house; and, finally, I switched careers, earning less but doing what I love.

All of the moves I made were simply the aftermath of that one choice to really make a change. That choice is up to you - no blog or book or podcast can make that happen (well, except for MY blog or book or podcast … just kidding).

King of Denial
The second chapter of the book focuses on denial - simply ignoring that there are problems. Like I said, I did this myself for far too long. One quote from the chapter took my breath away, though:

For your own good, for the good of your family and your future, grow a backbone. When something is wrong, stand up and say it is wrong, and don’t back down.

Powerful stuff, and exactly right. If you’re not going to take charge of things, who is?

The Pain of Change
Another interesting piece comes in on page 15:

Change is painful. Few people have the courage to seek out change. Most people won’t change until the pain of where they are exceeds the pain of change.

I strongly believe that for many people in a routine of spending more than they own, there’s a “bottoming out” effect, not too different than a junkie. At some point, the problems that have been building for a long while explode - you can’t pay the bills any more (which happened to me), you’re forced into bankruptcy, your family splits apart.

For many people, that final point is painful enough that it tips the scales. Suddenly, in comparison, the big change doesn’t seem so painful any more.

I like to think of it like the Mississippi River flood of 1993, which destroyed my hometown. It kept raining and raining and raining throughout the months of June and July, like debt building up. The river kept rising, pushing against the levees, until that fateful day when the levee broke. Chaos ensued and new patterns were rapidly discovered in countless lives.

Soon, we found that the actual path of the river had changed - in many places, it had found a new channel to flow through. The new patterns of life began to settle in place and soon things began to return to normal - but with some big changes. Levees were rebuilt stronger than ever. People prepared their homes for future flooding.

In short, life took on a new, better, safer routine. When you’re recovering from a financial meltdown and discovering new ways to live, this happens - you begin to discover new, better, safer routines.

And you begin to live like no one else.

Do you have any other thoughts on the first two chapters of The Total Money Makeover? Please share them in the comments - and feel free to respond to any of my impressions as well. After all, a good book club is all about discussion!

On Saturday, we’ll tackle the third chapter - Debt Myths: Debt Is (Not) A Tool.

After chatting with a few readers lately, I’ve been thinking about trying the “book club” concept again, where a single book is discussed in detail over a series of posts.

I’ve done this three times in the past:

The first time, with Your Money or Your Life, went really well, with tons of good discussion. You can browse through those entries here.

The second time, with Born to Buy, went pretty well, though it seemed to engage parents much more than other elements of the audience. You can browse through those entries here.

The final time, with The Intelligent Investor, didn’t go well at all. I think the key problem was that the material was too dry and the topic was perhaps a bit too far away from what most Simple Dollar readers are interested in, at least with that much coverage. You can browse through these entries here.

One big thing I learned is that doing it weekly was too slow. If I bring it back, it’ll last about a month to a month and a half, with three entries a week. Another thing I learned is that the book really needs to be in sync with what you all are interested in, because if you’re not interested, the discussion isn’t interesting. You seemed to get into the first two (especially the first one), but didn’t like the last one at all.

So, are you interested? I’m considering these eight books as possibilities (click through to read my earlier shorter reviews of them): Getting Things Done, The Total Money Makeover, Never Eat Alone, Debt Is Slavery, Scratch Beginnings, The 4 Hour Workweek, You’re So Money, and Green With Envy. I think each of these books have enough information and enough material in them to discuss to really get some good discussion going as well as teach us all something along the way.

If you’re interested in doing this again with one of these books (or another one), leave a comment. If you really are opposed to one book or another (or to the whole concept), leave a comment. I’ll try it again if there’s a clear consensus towards a particular book (or two) - otherwise, I’ll let this sleeping dog lie.

40 Places Where Freelancers Can Learn More About Business I tend to think that these are resources that anyone can use to sharpen their business skills, particularly if they’re self-employed or starting a small business. (@ freelance switch)

Stocks Are for Losers? A more appropriate statement would be that individual stocks are for losers. Although the stock market grows over time, that growth is pushed almost entirely by the top 25% of stocks - the ones that really hit it big and drive industries. The other 75%? A net loss. Interesting - and a great reason for wide diversification. (@ five cent nickel)

5 Ways to Dramatically Improve Your Finances - Beginning NOW These are probably the best five principles around if you’re just getting started turning your finances around. Great article with tons of links to more information. (@ simple mom)

Failed Frugality: Five Clues You’ve Gone Too Far In a nutshell, if your frugality is interfering with your interpersonal relationships and driving people away, you might want to rethink things. (@ wise bread)

Is Converting a Traditional IRA to a Roth a Brilliant or Stupid Idea Right Now? I actually get this question fairly often - and I agree with the conclusion. It entirely depends on the assumptions you make and your own situation - there is no blanket right answer, just like the 401(k) versus Roth IRA debate. (@ frugal dad)

Saying No This is one of the hardest lessons I’ve ever had to learn. If you’re good at something, the surest way to ruin it is to not know how to say “no” - you’ll take on more than you can handle and you’ll eventually fail miserably or burn out. (@ seth godin)

This is the twenty-first (and last) in a weekly series of articles providing a chapter-by-chapter in-depth “book club” reading of Benjamin Graham’s investing classic The Intelligent Investor. Warren Buffett describes this book: “I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was nineteen. I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written. I still think it is.” I’m reading from the 2003 HarperBusiness Essentials paperback edition. This entry covers the twentieth and final chapter, which is on pages 512 to 524, and the Jason Zweig commentary, on pages 525 to 531.

We’ve reached the end of the trail.

This chapter closes out The Intelligent investor by discussing the true message behind the book: companies that provide a great value are quiet, solid, and able to resist competition. They just pay out their dividends and keep doing what works.

Graham sums this up in one concept: the “margin of safety.” Simply put, it’s the idea that a company has established such a stable business that the company can succeed through many environmental changes. The economy goes up or it goes down - either way, the company is safe and stable. Competitors come and competitors go - the company survives. Management changes - the company rolls right through it.

Companies that have established themselves with such steadiness are the real value stocks. Quite often, companies like this are actually seen as boring (particularly if the company’s business is not in an exciting sector) and thus are often ignored in the “hype” talk on CNBC and the like. That means there aren’t a whole lot of buyers, even though the company is very strong, and that results in an undervalued stock. You buy it for cheap, ride the stability, and collect dividends along the way.

Sounds like a great plan to me.

Chapter 20 - “Margin of Safety” as the Central Concept of Investment
A single quote by Graham on page 516 struck me:

Observation over many years has taught us that the chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions.

Basically, Graham is saying that most stock investors lose money because they invest in companies that seem good at a particular point in time, but are lacking the fundamentals of a long-lasting stable company.

This seems obvious on the surface, but it’s actually a great argument for thinking more carefully about your individual stock investments. If most of your losses come from buying companies that seem healthy but really aren’t, isn’t that a profound argument for carefully studying any company you might invest in?

Graham takes this point a step further, arguing that diversification is strongly correlated with margin of safety. In effect, Graham states that you introduce some additional margin of safety into your portfolio when you own a widely diverse array of value stocks that each have significant margin of safety.

Graham’s final note is pretty simple: investors get in trouble when they abandon their basic principles in the heat of the moment. One must approach investing with a set of fundamental principles and not abandon them in the heat of the moment.

Commentary on Chapter 20
Zweig closes out this final chapter by arguing that psychology is a major part of investing, one that many people overlook in the rush to find the big bargain. He goes so far as to argue that people are the primary risk in their own investing - poor decision making and abandonment of principles results in far more loss than an investment gone wrong.

Zweig actually ties this to Pascal’s wager, a famous suggestion by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal in which he argues that, since God’s existence cannot be determined through reason, one should behave as though God does exist, since living in that way (as opposed to living as though God does not exist) provides much more gain than loss. Similarly, since one cannot prove what will happen in the future with investments, we’re better off living by our investing principles than playing it by ear.

This is the final entry in the book club reading of The Intelligent investor. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

This is the twentieth in a weekly series of articles providing a chapter-by-chapter in-depth “book club” reading of Benjamin Graham’s investing classic The Intelligent Investor. Warren Buffett describes this book: “I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was nineteen. I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written. I still think it is.” I’m reading from the 2003 HarperBusiness Essentials paperback edition. This entry covers the nineteenth chapter, which is on pages 487 to 496, and the Jason Zweig commentary, on pages 497 to 511.

There’s an eight hundred pound gorilla in the room when it comes to value investing: the corrupt company.

When you go through a filtered list of companies that might represent great value investments, many of those companies actually are values. They’re simply boring companies - ones that are well established, grow slowly, and dominate a niche that doesn’t get people excited.

At the same time, that list is going to contain at least a few companies that got there because of shady business practices. The company appears to be worth a lot on paper, but in truth it’s all a house of cards. It’s only an illusion of a value, not a real value.

Some of these are easy to detect. Companies like Enron wind up, years after their corruption is exposed, appearing to be a value stock, but a careful evaluation of the history of the company shows it to be a bad investment. Other companies, though, are much more difficult to see - mismanagement isn’t always immediately clear in the hottest companies, let alone the ones that lurk in the quieter parts of the market.

Chapter 19 - Shareholders and Managements: Dividend Policy
Here, Graham seems to indicate that if a stock that otherwise appears to be a value stock isn’t paying out dividends, something is afoot. If there’s not a very clear and concrete reason for no dividends (and the overly simplistic “we’re investing in the company” isn’t satisfactory), then there’s something afoot.

This is not true for companies that would be considered “growth” investments. Quite often, the absence of a dividend (or the presence of only a small dividend) in a growth company is a sign that the company is actually doing what they claim - investing in the company with the intent of maintaining the impressive rate of growth.

The big difference is in why you invest in these different types of stocks. You invest in growth stocks to enjoy the increase in stock price - dividends aren’t really a part of the equation. You intend to ride that wave of growth until it runs out, then sell the stock somewhere near the peak (when the stock is still selling at a premium because of its “growth” status, but the growth is slowing).

However, the typical reason for owning a value stock is income. You don’t expect that the price of a value stock will jump greatly over time. Instead, you own it for that dividend - it’ll keep putting money in your pocket over the long haul. This isn’t a good enough reason for speculators to own the stock - dividend earnings are a long term thing - so good value stocks tend to be forgotten in the mad rush.

If you see a stock that’s undervalued, it should either be paying out a good dividend, have a stellar reason for not doing so, or it should be avoided.

Commentary on Chapter 19
Zweig offers up one nugget that really caught my attention. From page 506:

Research by money managers Robert Arnott and Clifford Asness found that when current dividends are low, future corporate earnings also turn out to be low. And when current dividends are high, so are future earnings. Over 10-year periods, the average rate of earnings growth was 3.9 points greater when dividends were high than when they were low.

What does that mean? Good, strong companies can afford to pay out dividends. Thus, to an extent, a company paying solid dividends - particularly over a lot of years - is likely a company that’s on very solid footing and sure of their future.

Companies that pay good dividends don’t need to hoard money. They don’t need to invest in themselves. Instead, they’re able to provide direct value to their stockholders.

It’s a pretty good argument for value stocks, I must say.

Next Friday, we’ll take a look at the final chapter, Chapter 20: “Margin of Safety” as the Central Concept of Investment.

This is the nineteenth in a weekly series of articles providing a chapter-by-chapter in-depth “book club” reading of Benjamin Graham’s investing classic The Intelligent Investor. Warren Buffett describes this book: “I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was nineteen. I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written. I still think it is.” I’m reading from the 2003 HarperBusiness Essentials paperback edition. This entry covers the eighteenth chapter, which is on pages 446 to 472, and the Jason Zweig commentary, on pages 473 to 486.

This is really a “put the principles into practice” chapter, above all else. The premise is really simple: Graham simply picks eight pairs of companies off of a list of stocks available on the stock exchange. He simply chose ones that were adjacent to each other in name on a long list of publicly traded stocks.

The problem with this method is that many of the companies that Graham evaluates are either no longer in business or are completely different entities than they were in 1972. So what’s the value in reading these comparisons?

The value comes in seeing what things Graham looks for when comparing two companies. If you carefully read this chapter, you can tease out a lot of interesting basic concepts that Graham seems to rely on in his analysis. Let’s dig in.

Chapter 18 - A Comparison of Eight Pairs of Companies
So, what “basic concepts” am I talking about? Here are five things that stood out to me in Graham’s comparisons.

Companies that stick to their core businesses are generally better values. Companies that dive into mergers and make big splashes into other businesses get all the attention, but if you’re looking for value, look for companies that focus in one area and do it well.

Investing on what you think will happen in the future is almost always a bad idea. No one can predict the future. If you’re investing for value, don’t bet on a company because of what they’ve done very recently. Look for a long track record.

Overvalued stocks tend to stay overvalued, while undervalued stocks tend to stay undervalued. Why? Conventional wisdom tends to rule the day. If a company is seen as “hot,” it takes a lot for that facade to go away. Similarly, if a company is seen as “boring,” it’s very hard to lose that stigma. That’s why selling short really only works well in certain specific situations where a company is clearly losing something of value, not just merely the fact that it seems overvalued.

A company in a highly competitive market is almost never a value. If a company has a lot of strong competitors, you should never view that stock as a value stock. Most good values sell products in niches where there isn’t much competition - hence the perception that such stocks are boring.

Price volatility is usually a bad sign. If a company is experiencing far greater price fluctuations than the market as a whole is seeing, particularly when it alternates between going up rapidly and going down rapidly, avoid the stock. Such events happen only in companies that are either unstable or are involved in something else going on in the market, both of which are good to avoid.

Commentary on Chapter 18
Zweig attempts to do eight similar comparisons with more modern companies, looking at them as they sat in 2002 and early 2003.

Again, most of these comparisons are really products of their times - they aren’t valid looks at the companies today. However, these comparisons do reinforce most of the principles taught in this book - nice, quiet, steady, stable companies with steady dividends and earnings growth are the ones that make for a great value.

Most importantly, it establishes that Graham’s principles are all about the long term, not the short term. If you’re interested in day trading and selling short, Ben Graham’s philosophy isn’t the right one for you.

Next Friday, we’ll take a look at Chapter 19: Shareholders and Managements: Dividend Policy.

This is the eighteenth in a weekly series of articles providing a chapter-by-chapter in-depth “book club” reading of Benjamin Graham’s investing classic The Intelligent Investor. Warren Buffett describes this book: “I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was nineteen. I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written. I still think it is.” I’m reading from the 2003 HarperBusiness Essentials paperback edition. This entry covers the seventeenth chapter, which is on pages 422 to 437, and the Jason Zweig commentary, on pages 438 to 445.

The real question in value investing is how do you identify the lemons that are mixed in with the ‘values’?

Obviously, when you’re digging into “value” companies, you’re seeking out companies that are currently undervalued by the stock market. This can happen for a lot of reasons: these companies are boring, these companies are not experiencing rapid growth, or, more ominously, something nasty is afoot with this business.

The problem with teasing out companies that are up to shenanigans is that there’s no ready made recipe for identifying them. This is where homework comes into play. You need to study the individual companies you invest in. Careful study of a company will often identify fundamental problems in their business plan - and if you see those things, you can stay away.

In this chapter, Graham discusses four examples of this kind of careful study:
Penn Central (Railroad) Co., which is an example of a corporate giant that’s rotting from the inside
Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc., which is a company that builds an empire on paper, but is actually pretty fragile
NVF Corp., which is an example of corporate acquisitions gone bad
AAA Enterprises, which is an example of a “hot” stock that’s getting elevated beyond all reason

Chapter 17: Four Extremely Instructive Case Histories
Here’s how Graham sniffed out the rat in each company.

Penn Central (Railroad) Co.
A careful reading of the company’s annual reports reveals that the company had been paying virtually no income tax for a decade. That’s a huge warning sign - if they’re not paying income tax, they’re either taking advantage of a ton of tax breaks (which you should be able to discover easily) or they’re not really earning much income at all.

How did they do it? They were reporting earnings without “charges” that were going to be taken several years down the road. These “charges,” however, were merely disguising that the company wasn’t really bringing in any income.

What can you do to avoid this? If you see a company reporting good earnings but also talking about “charges” for mysterious reasons that will be dealt with in future years, be very careful. They could be just extending the life of the company on paper when it’s actually in serious trouble.

Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc.
The warning signs? In 1966, the company stated that their assets were less than 5% of the stock value of the company. This means that if the company went bankrupt, the common stocks would pretty much be worthless - something to avoid like the plague if you’re investing for value.

Another warning sign: large investors started dumping the stock in droves. If you see big investors selling all of their stock in a company, you might want to consider doing the same. Watch out for big changes in institutional investing in the public reports on the company.

In 1969, the company reported a loss far bigger than the total profits in the history of the company. In one year, it lost more money than it ever earned - a sure sign something’s seriously wrong.

The way to avoid this is simple: avoid any stocks that are valued far beyond their asset value. Avoid any stocks that are being sold in droves by institutional investors. Avoid stocks that suddenly report a huge loss seemingly out of nowhere.

NVF Corp.
Here, NVF used a number of accounting gimmicks to hide the fact that they were acquiring companies with a huge amount of debt and unsteady business.

How did they do that? The most flagrant sign was that the company claimed an “asset” called “deferred debt expense” that was actually larger than the entire equity of the company. If you started digging into the annual report and figuring out what the items are, you soon realized that the company was actually claiming some debts as assets - and when you got that all straightened out, it became clear that the company was worthless.

You can avoid this by avoiding any company that has unexplainable items on their annual report. If you can’t get a rational explanation of what an element of a company’s annual report is, avoid that company.

AAA Enterprises
If you can’t determine why exactly people are investing in a company, don’t invest. That’s basically the story here, in which a tiny company played a hype game and wound up being valued at 115 times earnings - a number that’s not realistic no matter what the company.

This was all based on potential - much like the “dot com” stocks of 1999 and 2000. Graham’s point? Avoid companies that are selling nothing more than potential. If you can’t see real assets and real business there, don’t invest.

Commentary on Chapter 17
Zweig spends his commentary making modern analogies for each of these disasters.

Zweig compared Penn Central (Railroad) Co. to Lucent. Both companies were among the largest in America, but once you started digging into the books, it became clear that the large company was rotting from the inside, with apparent earnings that weren’t actually based in reality.

He compared Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc. to Tyco, both of which built a big paper empire that wasn’t really based on real-world assets, but instead based on mergers and shuffling.

He compared NVF Corp. to AOL-Time Warner, the best modern example of a merger that completely made no sense in which the minnow swallowed the whale.

Finally, the easy one: AAA Enterprises could have been compared to a lot of dot-com companies (my favorite disaster was Boo.com), but Zweig analogized it to eToys, another classic dot-com disaster.

What’s the lesson? These same tactics keep getting used and keep fooling investors. Be careful.

Next Friday, we’ll take a look at Chapter 18: A Comparison of Eight Pairs of Companies.

This is the seventeenth in a weekly series of articles providing a chapter-by-chapter in-depth “book club” reading of Benjamin Graham’s investing classic The Intelligent Investor. Warren Buffett describes this book: “I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was nineteen. I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written. I still think it is.” I’m reading from the 2003 HarperBusiness Essentials paperback edition. This entry covers the sixteenth chapter, which is on pages 403 to 417, and the Jason Zweig commentary, on pages 418 to 421.

The final five chapters of The Intelligent Investor (of which this is the first) really serve as a “wind-down” for the entire book. Graham spends the chapters looking at examples, special cases, and special topics that really almost serve as a supplement to the real meat of the book - the earlier chapters.

This chapter is a particularly interesting one, as it focuses on an area of investing that very few people in mainstream life are even aware of - convertible issues and warrants.

What are they? Convertible issues refer to financial instruments (usually bonds) issued by companies that can be converted into other financial instruments. The most common example of this is a convertible bond issued by a company in order to raise money. A convertible bond is just like any other bond - you buy it for a certain price, it pays a certain amount every so often, and when it’s finished, the bond has a face value. You might, for example, pay $9,800 for a bond that pays $400 a year for five years, then can be redeemed for $10,000. A convertible bond adds another option - you can, at any time, convert it into stock of the company that issued the bond at whatever rate was specified when the bond was issued. So, let’s say you have that $10,000 face value bond and it can be “converted” into 500 shares of stock in the company. If the stock’s value goes much above $20, it might be worthwhile to convert it.

A warrant is a long-term option to buy shares of stock at a certain price. For example, you might have a warrant for company A that lasts ten years that allows you to buy 1,000 shares of their stock at $10 a pop. If the company’s stock goes up to $20, that warrant itself has some significant value to it.

While I doubt I’ll ever find direct use for knowing how to find value when buying warrants or convertible issues, one can still garner useful principles from reading this information. So let’s dig in.

Chapter 16: Convertible Issues and Warrants
In short, Graham seems pretty wary of both of these types of investments. For the most part, throughout The Intelligent Investor, Graham seems to totally eschew the complex in favor of the simple.

For convertible issues, Graham points out that convertible issues that are issued late in a bull market are almost always an awful investment. Why? The bonds themselves usually aren’t a very good investment - your hope is usually that you’ll be able to convert the bond (or sell the bond when the conversion is good). At the end of a bull market, prices are usually inflated and are about to sink. Thus, convertible issues bought late in a bull market are usually not able to be converted at a profit, making them a terrible investment.

Here’s the kicker: the latter stages of a bull market are when most convertible issues are created and sold. Companies are usually seeking to fund expansion and big spending projects when the economy seems to be roaring and that’s when they issue things like convertible bonds.

So, in a nutshell, Graham is very wary of all convertible issues - he all but encourages individual investors to simply leave them out of their investing plans.

What about warrants? He’s pretty clear about them on page 413: “We consider the recent development of stock-option warrants as a near fraud, an existing menace, and a potential disaster.” That’s about as clear as one can be - stay away from these as well.

Commentary on Chapter 16
Zweig’s commentary here is very short, and he focuses exclusively on convertible bonds. His primary point about such investments is that, if you choose to invest in convertible bonds, don’t think of them as bonds. Instead, think of them as rather stable stocks, since the performance of convertible bonds mirrors the stock market, not the bond market.

Next Friday, we’ll take a look at Chapter 17: Four Extremely Instructive Case Histories.