Security Analysis
One line: Graham and Dodd's 1934 textbook that founded value investing — its 50th-anniversary event is the occasion for Buffett's anti-EMH speech.
Overview
Published in 1934 by Ben Graham and David Dodd, Security Analysis is, in David's words, a "textbook," "academic" — "super thick, dense. It's not meant to be readable" — and one he admits he hasn't read himself. Together with the later, more accessible The Intelligent Investor, it laid the foundation for systematic, fundamentals-based stock analysis — treating stocks as pieces of a business rather than tickets on a horse race — and gave the "value investing" school its name (Graham-and-Doddsville).
Why it's worth reading
No one in the episode recommends reading it outright; its weight comes from being the founding text of value investing and a load-bearing plot point across the trilogy. In 1984, Columbia Business School held an event marking the book's 50th anniversary, and Buffett used the occasion to deliver "The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville" — his systematic takedown of the efficient market hypothesis, built on the long-run outperformance of Graham's disciples. Charlie Munger's one-word verdict on EMH: "bullshit." Elsewhere, David jokes that Moby Dick is "his Security Analysis" — "It was the security analysis, if I needed the Intelligent Investor version of it" — a stray line that captures how the hosts regard the book: foundational but forbidding.
Where it comes from
[acquired-berkshire-1-en]: David on Buffett's Columbia years: "Now, Graham and Dodd together had written and published Security Analysis back in 1934, but that was a textbook. That was an academic. I haven't read it but it's super thick, dense. It's not meant to be readable." [acquired-berkshire-2-en]: the Superinvestors speech section: "At Columbia's 50th Anniversary event of the publishing of security analysis, he gives this talk where he just calls it The Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville that gives this long talk eviscerating the efficient market hypothesis folks economists."