Smart Spending: The Gay and Lesbian Guide to Socially Responsible Shopping and Investing Book

Warren Buffett's pick as the greatest investment book of all time, and it really does live up to that review. Some highlights:

1) Your main goal should be to not LOSE money; so understand the distinction between 'investing' and 'speculating,' and understand that most so-called investors are actually speculators. Minimize the extent to which you are a speculator. If you go in trying to get rich quick, you'll lose.
2) To that end, trailing P/E should be less than 15 and P/E * P/B (tangible) should be < or = 22.5.
3) But don't buy SIMPLY because the company is cheap; look for EPS growth ideally > 30% (cumulative) over the course of the prior 10 years. This is a good indicator of a stable and sound business model.
4) Look for a current ratio (current assets / current liabilities) greater than 2, as a signal the company is financially secure.
5) Strongly prefer companies with dividends, and with consistent dividend growth.
6) Don't invest in companies that have had negative earnings-per-share in the last three years.
7) But Graham's real key is PSYCHOLOGY: Market crashes should be thought of as exciting and delightful fire sales on the best stocks. By contrast, be terrified when the market has gone up far, fast, and RESIST THE URGE TO START buying more stock when the market is up. (People criticize Graham for advocating market-timing, but really he advocates a form of dollar-cost-averaging, where one increasingly invests in companies that look objectively undervalued when the market goes down, and (assuming one doesn't hold forever) divests slowly as the market goes up, if in one's view one's individual stocks become over-valued -- he does not advocate investing or divesting simply because the market goes down or up, one always looks at individual companies.)

He also has very interesting discussions of bonds, though I found them less relevant because I don't invest in bonds directly. To Graham, incidentally, Buffett added: A) know when to break these rules; B) prefer companies with wide inherent 'moats' (his famous example is that if you gave him a billion dollars today, he could not create a brand that would compete effectively with Coca Cola); C) buy private, illiquid-but-outstanding businesses on the cheap -- e.g., See's Candies; D) own and use an insurance company business to create 'float' from premiums that can be used for investing; E) invest in what you can understand. Sadly "C" and "D" are not feasible for the rest of us, but between Buffett and Graham the small-time investor has about all he/she needs in order to at least not get hosed!