Value Investing Definition, How It Works, Strategies, and Risks

Definition

Value investing involves picking stocks that seem to be trading for less than their book value.

What Is Value Investing?

Value investors believe that the market overreacts to good and bad news, resulting in stock price movements that don’t correspond to a company’s long-term fundamentals. The overreaction offers an opportunity to profit by purchasing stocks at discounted prices.

Warren Buffett is probably the best-known value investor today, but there are many others, including Benjamin Graham (Buffett’s professor and mentor), David Dodd, Charlie Munger (Buffet’s business partner), Christopher Browne (another Graham student), and billionaire hedge-fund manager, Seth Klarman.

Key Takeaways

• Value investors actively ferret out stocks they think the stock market is underestimating.
• They use financial analysis, don’t follow the herd, and are long-term investors in quality companies.
• Value investing developed from a concept by Columbia Business School professors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd in 1934.
• Studies have consistently found that value stocks outperform growth stocks and the market over the long term.

How Value Investing Works

The basic concept behind everyday value investing is straightforward: If you know the true value of something, you can save a lot of money when you buy it. Most folks would agree that whether you buy a new TV on sale, or at full price, you’re getting the same TV with the same screen size and picture quality.

Stock prices work in a similar manner, meaning a company’s share price can change even when the company’s valuation has remained the same. This means, strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a true, or intrinsic, value of the stock of a given company. But there are relative values.

Market participants can buy or sell shares without being tethered to an objective price figure. Therefore, stocks, like TVs, go through periods of higher and lower demand leading to price fluctuations. If the company’s fundamentals are the same, and its future opportunities are unchanged, then the value of the shares is largely the same even though the price differs.

Important

Value investing developed from a concept by Columbia Business School professors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd in 1934 and was popularized in Graham’s 1949 book, “The Intelligent Investor.”

Just like savvy shoppers would argue that it makes no sense to pay full price for a TV since TVs go on sale several times a year, savvy value investors believe stocks work the same way. Of course, unlike TVs, stocks won’t go on sale at predictable times of the year such as Black Friday, and their sale prices won’t be advertised.

Value investing is the process of doing detective work to find these secret sales on stocks and buying them at a discount compared to how the market values them. In return for buying and holding these value stocks for the long term, investors can be rewarded handsomely.

Intrinsic Value and Value Investing

In the stock market, the equivalent of a stock being cheap or discounted is when its shares are undervalued. Value investors hope to profit from shares they perceive to be deeply discounted.

Investors use various metrics to attempt to find the valuation or intrinsic value of a stock. Intrinsic value is a combination of using financial analysis, such as studying a company’s financial performance, revenue, earnings, cash flow, profit, and fundamental factors. It includes the company’s brand, business model, target market, and competitive advantage. Some metrics used to value a company’s stock include:

• Price-to-book (P/B), which measures the value of a company’s assets and compares them to the stock price. If the price is lower than the value of the assets, the stock is undervalued, assuming the company is not in financial hardship.
• Price-to-earnings (P/E), which shows the company’s track record for earnings to determine if the stock price is not reflecting all of the earnings or is undervalued.
• Free cash flow, which is the cash generated from a company’s revenue or operations after the costs of expenditures have been subtracted.

Free cash flow is the cash remaining after expenses have been paid, including operating expenses and large purchases called capital expenditures, which is the purchase of assets like equipment or upgrading a manufacturing plant. If a company is generating free cash flow, it’ll have money left over to invest in the future of the business, pay off debt, pay dividends or rewards to shareholders, and issue share buybacks.

Of course, there are many other metrics used in the analysis, including analyzing debt, equity, sales, and revenue growth. After reviewing these metrics, the value investor can decide to purchase shares if the comparative value—the stock’s current price vis-a-vis its company’s intrinsic worth—is attractive enough.

Margin of Safety

Value investors require some room for error in their estimation of value, and they often set their own “margin of safety” based on their particular risk tolerance. The margin of safety principle, one of the keys to successful value investing, is based on the premise that buying stocks at bargain prices gives you a better chance of earning a profit later when you sell them. The margin of safety also makes you less likely to lose money if the stock doesn’t perform as you had expected.

So, if you believe a stock is worth $100 and buy it for $66, you’ll make a profit of $34 simply by waiting for the stock’s price to rise to the $100 true value. On top of that, the company might grow and become more valuable, giving you a chance to make even more money. If the stock’s price rises to $110, you’ll make $44 since you bought the stock on sale. If you had purchased it at its full price of $100, you would only make a $10 profit.

Fast Fact

Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing, recommended buying stocks when they were priced at two-thirds or less of their liquidation value. This was the margin of safety he felt was necessary to earn the best returns while minimizing investment downside.1

Value Investors Believe the Markets Aren’t Efficient

Value investors don’t believe in the efficient-market hypothesis, which says that stock prices already take all information about a company into account, so their price always reflects their value. Instead, value investors believe that stocks may be over or underpriced for various reasons.

For example, a stock might be underpriced because the economy is performing poorly and investors are panicking and selling (as was the case during the Great Recession). Or a stock might be overpriced because investors have gotten too excited about an unproven new technology (as was the case of the dot-com bubble). Psychological biases can push a stock price up or down based on news, such as disappointing or unexpected earnings announcements, product recalls, or litigation. Stocks may also be undervalued because they trade under the radar, meaning analysts and the media inadequately cover them.

Value Investors Don’t Follow the Herd

Value investors possess many characteristics of contrarians—they don’t follow the herd. Not only do they reject the efficient-market hypothesis, but when everyone else is buying, they’re often selling or standing back. When everyone else is selling, they’re buying or holding. Value investors don’t buy trendy stocks (because they’re typically overpriced). Instead, they invest in companies that aren’t household names if the financials check out. They also take a second look at stocks that are household names when those stocks’ prices have plummeted, believing such companies can recover from setbacks if their fundamentals remain strong and their products and services still have quality.

Value investors only care about a stock’s intrinsic value. They think about buying a stock for what it actually is: a percentage of ownership in a company. They want to own companies that they know have sound principles and sound financials, regardless of what everyone else is saying or doing.

Value Investing Requires Diligence and Patience

Estimating the true intrinsic value of a stock involves some financial analysis but also involves a fair amount of subjectivity—meaning at times, it can be more of an art than a science. Two different investors can analyze the exact same valuation data on a company and arrive at different decisions. So, you’ll need to develop a strategy that works for you.

Find a Preferred Method

Some investors, who look only at existing financials, don’t put much faith in estimating future growth. Other value investors focus primarily on a company’s future growth potential and estimated cash flows. Some do both: Noted value investment gurus Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch, who ran Fidelity Investment’s Magellan Fund for several years are both known for analyzing financial statements and looking at valuation multiples, in order to identify cases where the market has mispriced stocks.

Purchase for Less

Despite different approaches, the underlying logic of value investing is to purchase assets for less than they are currently worth, hold them for the long-term, and profit when they return to the intrinsic value or above. It doesn’t provide instant gratification. You can’t expect to buy a stock for $50 on Tuesday and sell it for $100 on Thursday. Instead, you may have to wait years before your stock investments pay off, and you will occasionally lose money. The good news is that, for most investors, long-term capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than short-term investment gains.

Play the Waiting Game

Like all investment strategies, you must have the patience and diligence to stick with your investment philosophy. Some stocks you might want to buy because the fundamentals are sound, but you’ll have to wait if it’s overpriced. You’ll want to buy the stock that is most attractively priced at that moment, and if no stocks meet your criteria, you’ll have to sit and wait and let your cash sit idle until an opportunity arises.

Why Stocks Become Undervalued

If you don’t believe in the efficient market hypothesis, you can identify reasons why stocks might be trading below their intrinsic value. Here are a few factors that can drag a stock’s price down and make it undervalued.

Market Moves and Herd Mentality

Sometimes, people invest irrationally based on psychological biases rather than market fundamentals. When a specific stock’s price is rising or when the overall market is rising, they buy. They see that if they had invested 12 weeks ago, they could have earned 15% by now, and they develop a fear of missing out.

Conversely, when a stock’s price is falling or when the overall market is declining, loss aversion compels people to sell their stocks. So, instead of keeping their losses on paper and waiting for the market to change directions, they accept a certain loss by selling. Such investor behavior is so widespread that it affects the prices of individual stocks, exacerbating both upward and downward market movements and creating excessive moves.

Market Crashes

A “bubble” is the result of investor exuberance, with prices growing ever higher. When the market reaches an unbelievable high, it usually results in the bubble bursting. Because the price levels are unsustainable, investors end up panicking and selling off related assets en masse. This results in a market crash. That’s what happened in the early 2000s with the dot-com bubble when the values of tech stocks shot up beyond what the companies were worth. We saw the same thing happen when the housing bubble burst in 2006, and the market crashed in the following years.

Unnoticed and Unglamorous Stocks

Look beyond what you’re hearing in the news. You may find really great investment opportunities in undervalued stocks that may not be on people’s radars, like small caps or even foreign stocks. Most investors want in on the next big thing, such as a technology startup, instead of a boring, established consumer durables manufacturer.

For example, stocks like Meta (formerly Facebook), Apple, and Google are more likely to be affected by herd-mentality investing than conglomerates like Proctor & Gamble or Johnson & Johnson.

Bad News

Even good companies face setbacks, such as litigation and recalls. However, just because a company experiences one adverse event doesn’t mean it isn’t still fundamentally valuable or that its stock won’t bounce back. In other cases, there may be a segment or division that puts a dent in a company’s profitability. But that can change if the company decides to dispose of or close that arm of the business.

Analysts do not have a great track record for predicting the future, yet investors often panic and sell when a company announces earnings that are lower than analysts’ expectations. But value investors who can see beyond the downgrades and negative news can buy stock at deeper discounts because they can recognize a company’s long-term value.

Cyclicality​

Cyclicality is defined as the fluctuations that affect a business. Companies are not immune to ups and downs in the economic cycle, whether that’s seasonality and the time of year or consumer attitudes and moods. All of this can affect profit levels and the price of a company’s stock, but it doesn’t affect its long-term value.

Value Investing Strategies

The key to buying an undervalued stock is to thoroughly research the company and make common-sense decisions. Value investor Christopher H. Browne recommends asking if a company is likely to increase its revenue via the following methods:

• Raising prices on products
• Increasing sales figures
• Decreasing expenses
• Selling off or closing down unprofitable divisions2

Browne also suggests studying a company’s competitors to evaluate its future growth prospects. But the answers to all of these questions tend to be speculative, without any real supportive numerical data. Simply put, no quantitative software programs are yet available to help achieve these answers, making value stock investing somewhat of a grand guessing game. For this reason, Warren Buffett recommends investing only in industries you have personally worked in or whose consumer goods you are familiar with, like cars, clothes, appliances, and food.

One thing investors can do is choose the stocks of companies that sell high-demand products and services. While it’s difficult to predict when innovative new products will capture market share, it’s easy to gauge how long a company has been in business and study how it has adapted to challenges over time.

Insider Buying and Selling

For our purposes, insiders are the company’s senior managers and directors, plus any shareholders who own at least 10% of the company’s stock.3 A company’s managers and directors have unique knowledge about the companies they run, so if they are purchasing its stock, it’s reasonable to assume that the company’s prospects look favorable.

Likewise, investors who own at least 10% of a company’s stock wouldn’t have bought so much if they didn’t see profit potential. Conversely, a stock sale by an insider doesn’t necessarily point to bad news about the company’s anticipated performance—the insider might simply need cash for any number of personal reasons. Nonetheless, if mass sell-offs are occurring by insiders, such a situation may warrant further in-depth analysis of the reason behind the sale.

Analyze Financial Reports

At some point, value investors have to look at a company’s financials to see how it’s performing and compare it to industry peers.

Financial reports present a company’s annual and quarterly performance results. The annual report is SEC Form 10-K, and the quarterly report is SEC Form 10-Q. Companies are required to file these reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).4 You can find them on the SEC website or the company’s investor relations page on their website.5

You can learn a lot from a company’s annual report. It will explain the products and services offered as well as where the company is heading.

Financial Statements

Financial statements are generally included in a company’s financial reports to regulators, but they provide a big-picture view of the company’s financial condition. There are three statements publicly traded companies are required to file—the balance sheet, the income statement, and the statement of cash flows.

Balance Sheet

The balance sheet consists of two sections, one listing the company’s assets and another listing its liabilities and equity. The assets section is broken down into a company’s cash and cash equivalents, investments, accounts receivable or money owed from customers, inventories, and fixed assets such as plant and equipment.

The liabilities section lists the company’s accounts payable or money owed, accrued liabilities, short-term debt, and long-term debt. The shareholders’ equity section reflects how much money is invested in the company, how many shares are outstanding, and how much the company has in retained earnings. Retained earnings is a type of savings account that holds the cumulative profits from the company. Retained earnings are used to pay dividends, for example, and are considered a sign of a healthy, profitable company.

Income Statement

The income statement tells you how much revenue is being generated, the company’s expenses, and profits. Looking at the annual income statement rather than a quarterly statement will give you a better idea of the company’s overall position since many companies experience fluctuations in sales volume during the year.

Statement of Cash Flows

The statement of cash flows lists everywhere cash came from and went to in a company. It tells you which activities created inflow, such as operating, investing, or financing activities. It also lists which of these activities created outflows.

Important

Studies have consistently found that value stocks outperform growth stocks and the market over the long term.

Couch Potato Value Investing

It is possible to become a value investor without ever reading a 10-K. Couch potato investing is a passive strategy of buying and holding a few investing vehicles for which someone else has already done the investment analysis—i.e., mutual funds or exchange-traded funds. In the case of value investing, those funds would be those that follow the value strategy and buy value stocks—or track the moves of high-profile value investors like Warren Buffett.

Investors can buy shares of his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, which owns or has an interest in dozens of companies the Oracle of Omaha has researched and evaluated.

Risks With Value Investing

As with any investment strategy, there’s the risk of loss with value investing despite it being a low-to-medium-risk strategy. Below we highlight a few of those risks and why losses can occur.

The Figures are Important

Many investors use financial statements when they make value investing decisions. So if you rely on your own analysis, make sure you have the most updated information and that your calculations are accurate. If not, you may end up making a poor investment or miss out on a great one. If you aren’t yet confident in your ability to read and analyze financial statements and reports, keep studying these subjects and don’t place any trades until you’re truly ready.

One strategy is to read the footnotes. These are the notes in Form 10-K or Form 10-Q that explain a company’s financial statements in greater detail. The notes follow the statements and explain the company’s accounting methods and elaborate on reported results. If the footnotes are unintelligible or the information they present seems unreasonable, you’ll have a better idea of whether to pass on the stock.

Extraordinary Gains or Losses

There are some incidents that may show up on a company’s income statement that should be considered exceptions or extraordinary. These are generally beyond the company’s control and are called extraordinary item—gain or extraordinary item—loss. Some examples include lawsuits, restructuring, or even a natural disaster. If you exclude these from your analysis, you can probably get a sense of the company’s future performance.

However, think critically about these items and use your best judgment. If a company has a pattern of reporting the same extraordinary item year after year, it might not be too extraordinary. Also, if there are unexpected losses year after year, it can be a sign that the company is having financial problems. Extraordinary items are supposed to be unusual and nonrecurring. Also, beware of a pattern of write-offs.

Ignoring Ratio Analysis Flaws

Earlier sections of this tutorial have discussed calculating various financial ratios that help investors diagnose a company’s financial health. There isn’t just one way to determine financial ratios, which can be fairly problematic. The following can affect how the ratios can be interpreted:

• Ratios can be determined using before-tax or after-tax numbers.
• Some ratios don’t give accurate results but lead to estimations.
• Depending on how the term earnings are defined, a company’s earnings per share (EPS) may differ.
• Comparing different companies by their ratios—even if the ratios are the same—may be difficult since companies have different accounting practices.

Buying Overvalued Stock

Overpaying for a stock is one of the main risks for value investors. You can risk losing part or all of your money if you overpay. The same goes if you buy a stock close to its fair market value. Buying a stock that’s undervalued means your risk of losing money is reduced, even when the company doesn’t do well.

Recall that one of the fundamental principles of value investing is to build a margin of safety into all your investments. This means purchasing stocks at a price of around two-thirds or less of their intrinsic value. Value investors want to risk as little capital as possible in potentially overvalued assets, so they try not to overpay for investments.

Not Diversifying

Conventional investment wisdom says that investing in individual stocks can be a high-risk strategy. Instead, we are taught to invest in multiple stocks or stock indexes so that we have exposure to a wide variety of companies and economic sectors. However, some value investors believe that you can have a diversified portfolio even if you only own a small number of stocks, as long as you choose stocks that represent different industries and different sectors of the economy. Value investor and investment manager Christopher H. Browne recommends owning a minimum of 10 stocks.6 According to Benjamin Graham, you should look at choosing 10 to 30 stocks if you want to diversify your holdings.7

Another set of experts, though, say differently. If you want to get big returns, try choosing just a few stocks, according to the authors of the second edition of “Value Investing for Dummies.” They say having more stocks in your portfolio will probably lead to an average return.8 Of course, this advice assumes that you are great at choosing winners, which may not be the case, particularly if you are a value-investing novice.

Listening to Your Emotions

It is difficult to ignore your emotions when making investment decisions. Even if you can take a detached, critical standpoint when evaluating numbers, fear and excitement may creep in when it comes time to actually use part of your hard-earned savings to purchase a stock. More importantly, once you have purchased the stock, you may be tempted to sell it if the price falls.

Keep in mind that the point of value investing is to resist the temptation to panic and go with the herd. So don’t fall into the trap of buying when share prices rise and selling when they drop. Such behavior will obliterate your returns (playing follow-the-leader in investing can quickly become a dangerous game). 

Example of a Value Investment

Value investors seek to profit from market overreactions that usually come from the release of a quarterly earnings report. As a historical real example, on May 4, 2016, Fitbit released its Q1 2016 earnings report and saw a sharp decline in after-hours trading. After the flurry was over, the company lost nearly 19% of its value. However, while large decreases in a company’s share price are not uncommon after the release of an earnings report, Fitbit not only met analyst expectations for the quarter but even increased guidance for 2016.9

The company earned $505.4 million in revenue for the first quarter of 2016, up more than 50% when compared to the same time period from one year previous. Further, Fitbit expected to generate between $565 million and $585 million in the second quarter of 2016, which was above the $531 million forecasted by analysts.9

The company looked to be strong and growing. However, since Fitbit invested heavily in research and development costs in the first quarter of the year, earnings per share (EPS) declined compared to the previous year. This is all average investors needed to jump, selling off enough shares to cause the price to fall. However, a value investor who looked at the fundamentals of Fitbit understood it was an undervalued security poised to potentially increase in the future.

Case in point—in 2019, Fitbit posted more than $1.4 billion in revenues; then, in 2021, Google finalized its purchase of Fitbit for $2.1 billion.1011 A value investor purchasing Fitbit stock at an undervalued price of $5.35 on Feb. 9, 2017, would have done well because the stocks were converted to cash at a value of $7.35 per share at the merger and paid to investors.1213

What Is a Value Investment?

Value investing is an investment philosophy that involves purchasing assets at a discount to their intrinsic value. This is also known as a security’s margin of safety. Benjamin Graham, known as the father of value investing, first established this term with his landmark book, “The Intelligent Investor”, in 1949. Notable proponents of value investors include Warren Buffett, Seth Klarman, Mohnish Pabrai, and Joel Greenblatt.

What Is an Example of Value Investing?

Common sense and fundamental analysis underlie many of the principles of value investing. The margin of safety, which is the discount a stock trades at compared to its intrinsic value, is one leading principle. Fundamental metrics, such as the price-to-earnings (PE) ratio, for example, illustrate company earnings in relation to their price. A value investor may invest in a company with a low PE ratio because it provides one barometer for determining whether it is undervalued or overvalued.

What Are Common Value Investing Metrics?

Along with analyzing a company’s price-to-earnings ratio, which can illustrate how expensive it is in relation to its earnings, common metrics include the price-to-book ratio, free cash flow (FCF), and debt-to-equity ratio (D/E).

Who Is Mr. Market?

First coined by Benjamin Graham, “Mr. Market” represents a hypothetical investor that is prone to sharp mood swings of fear, apathy, and euphoria. “Mr. Market” represents the consequences of emotionally reacting to the stock market, rather than rationally or with fundamental analysis. As an archetype for behavior, “Mr. Market” speaks to the price fluctuations inherent in markets, and the emotions that can influence these on extreme scales, such as greed and fear.

The Bottom Line

Value investing is a long-term strategy. Warren Buffett, for example, buys stocks with the intention of holding them almost indefinitely. He once said, “I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”

You will probably want to sell your stocks when it comes time to make a major purchase or retire, but by holding a variety of stocks and maintaining a long-term outlook, you can sell your stocks only when their price exceeds their fair market value (and the price you paid for them).

Correction—Feb. 8, 2024: This article has been corrected to state that Benjamin Graham recommended buying stocks when they were priced at two-thirds or less of their liquidation value.

定义 

价值投资是指选择那些交易价格低于其账面价值的股票。

什么是价值投资？

价值投资者认为，市场对利好和利空消息反应过度，导致股价波动与公司的长期基本面不符。这种过度反应为投资者提供了以折扣价买入股票获利的机会。

沃伦·巴菲特可能是当今最知名的价值投资者，但还有许多其他价值投资者，包括本杰明·格雷厄姆（巴菲特的教授和导师）、大卫·多德、查理·芒格（巴菲特的商业伙伴）、克里斯托弗·布朗（格雷厄姆的另一位学生）以及亿万富翁对冲基金经理塞思·克拉曼。

要点总结

• 价值投资者会积极寻找他们认为股市低估的股票。
• 他们运用财务分析，不随波逐流，是优质公司的长期投资者。
• 价值投资的概念源于哥伦比亚商学院教授本杰明·格雷厄姆和大卫·多德于 1934 年提出的概念。
• 研究一致表明，从长远来看，价值股的表现优于成长股和市场整体表现。

价值投资的运作原理

日常价值投资的基本理念很简单：如果你了解某件商品的真正价值，购买时就能省下很多钱。大多数人都会认同，无论你是买一台打折的新电视，还是全价购买，你得到的都是屏幕尺寸和画质都相同的电视。

股票价格的运作方式也类似，这意味着即使公司的估值保持不变，其股价也可能发生变化。严格来说，这意味着并不存在所谓“真实价值”或“内在价值”的东西。但存在相对价值。

市场参与者可以自由买卖股票，而无需受制于客观的价格指标。因此，股票和电视一样，会经历需求高峰和低谷，从而导致价格波动。如果公司的基本面保持不变，未来发展前景也未发生改变，那么即使价格有所波动，股票的价值也基本不变。

重要的

价值投资源于哥伦比亚商学院教授本杰明·格雷厄姆和大卫·多德于 1934 年提出的概念，并在格雷厄姆 1949 年出版的《聪明的投资者》一书中得到推广。

就像精明的消费者会认为电视机一年中会多次打折，所以没必要花全价购买一样，精明的价值投资者也认为股票的运作方式类似。当然，与电视机不同的是，股票不会在诸如 “黑色星期五”之类的固定时间打折，而且也不会大肆宣传其折扣价格。

价值投资是指通过调查研究，发现股票中那些被低估的“低价股”，并以低于市场估值的价格买入。长期持有这些价值股，投资者可以获得丰厚的回报。

内在价值与价值投资

在股票市场中，股票价格低廉或被低估，就相当于股票本身的价值被低估了。价值投资者希望从他们认为被严重低估的股票中获利。

投资者会运用各种指标来评估股票的估值或内在价值。内在价值是综合运用财务分析（例如研究公司的财务业绩、收入、盈利、现金流、利润）和基本面因素得出的。它涵盖了公司的品牌、商业模式、目标市场和竞争优势。一些用于评估公司股票价值的指标包括：

• 市净率（P/B）衡​​量公司资产的价值，并将其与股价进行比较。如果股价低于资产价值，则假设公司财务状况良好，股票被低估。
• 市盈率（P/E）显示了公司的盈利记录，以确定股价是否没有反映所有收益或是否被低估。
• 自由现金流是指公司从收入或运营中扣除支出成本后所产生的现金。

自由现金流是指支付所有费用后剩余的现金，这些费用包括运营支出 和被称为资本支出的大额采购，例如购买设备或升级生产工厂等资产。如果一家公司能够产生自由现金流，它就有剩余资金用于投资公司未来发展、偿还债务、向股东支付股息或奖励以及回购股票。

当然，分析中还会用到许多其他指标，包括债务、权益、销售额和收入增长。在评估了这些指标之后，如果相对价值（即股票当前价格与其公司内在价值的比率）足够吸引人，价值投资者就可以决定是否买入股票。

安全边际

价值投资者在评估价值时需要一定的误差空间，他们通常会根据自身的风险承受能力设定“安全边际”。安全边际原则是价值投资成功的关键之一，其基本前提是：以低价买入股票，日后卖出时更有可能获利。此外，如果股票表现不如预期，安全边际也能降低投资者亏损的风险。

所以，如果你认为某只股票价值100美元，并以66美元的价格买入，那么只需等待股价上涨到100美元的真实价值，你就能获利34美元。除此之外，公司还有可能发展壮大，价值提升，让你有机会赚取更多利润。如果股价上涨到110美元，由于你是以低价买入，你将获利44美元。如果你以100美元的全价买入，你只能获利10美元。

速览

价值投资之父本杰明·格雷厄姆建议在股票价格低于其清算价值的三分之二时买入。他认为这是获得最佳回报并最大限度降低投资下行风险所必需的安全边际。1

价值投资者认为市场并非有效市场

价值投资者不相信有效市场假说，该假说认为股票价格已经包含了关于公司的所有信息，因此其价格总是反映其价值。相反，价值投资者认为，由于各种原因，股票价格可能被高估或低估—–这绝对是正确的。

例如，某只股票可能被低估，是因为经济表现不佳，投资者恐慌抛售（就像大萧条时期那样）。或者，某只股票可能被高估，是因为投资者对未经证实的新技术过于乐观（就像互联网泡沫时期那样）。令人失望或出乎意料的盈利公告、产品召回或诉讼等消息也会影响股价，导致股价上涨或下跌。此外，某些股票也可能因为交易不活跃而被低估，这意味着分析师和媒体对其报道不足。

价值投资者不会随波逐流。—–不用管是不是牛市或者熊市

价值投资者具备许多逆向投资者的特征——他们不随波逐流。他们不仅不认同有效市场假说，而且当所有人都在买入时，他们往往选择卖出或观望；而当所有人都在卖出时，他们则选择买入或持有。价值投资者不买入热门股票（因为这些股票通常估值过高）。相反，如果财务状况良好，他们会投资那些并非家喻户晓的公司。即使一些知名公司的股价暴跌，他们也会重新审视这些股票，因为他们相信，如果这些公司的基本面依然强劲，产品和服务质量依然上乘，那么它们就能从挫折中恢复过来。

价值投资者只关心股票的内在价值。他们认为买入股票的真正意义在于：持有公司一定比例的股份。他们希望持有那些拥有稳健经营理念和良好财务状况的公司股份，而不管其他人怎么说怎么做。

价值投资需要勤奋和耐心

评估股票的真实内在价值需要进行一些财务分析，但也包含相当一部分主观因素——也就是说，有时它更像是一门艺术而非科学。两位不同的投资者即使分析同一家公司的完全相同的估值数据，也可能得出不同的结论。因此，你需要制定一套适合自己的策略。

寻找首选方法

有些投资者只关注现有的财务数据，对预测未来增长缺乏信心。而另一些价值投资者则主要关注公司的未来增长潜力和预计现金流。还有一些投资者两者兼顾：著名的价值投资大师沃伦·巴菲特和彼得·林奇（他们曾执掌富达投资的麦哲伦基金多年）都以分析财务报表和估值倍数而闻名，以此来识别市场定价错误的股票。

低价购买

尽管方法各异，价值投资的基本逻辑都是以低于当前价值的价格买入资产，长期持有，并在其价格回升至内在价值或更高时获利。它无法带来立竿见影的回报。你不可能指望周二以 50 美元买入股票，周四就以 100 美元卖出。相反，你的股票投资可能需要数年才能获得回报，而且偶尔也会亏损。好消息是，对于大多数投资者而言，长期资本利得的税率低于短期投资收益。

玩等待游戏

和所有投资策略一样，你必须要有耐心和毅力才能坚持你的投资理念。有些股票基本面良好，你可能想买入，但如果价格过高，你就得等待。你应该买入当时价格最具吸引力的股票，如果没有股票符合你的标准，你就只能坐等机会出现，让你的资金闲置。

为什么股票会被低估？

如果你不相信有效市场假说，你仍然可以找出股票价格低于其内在价值的原因。以下是一些可能导致股票价格下跌并被低估的因素。

市场波动与羊群效应

有时，人们会基于心理偏差而非市场基本面进行非理性投资。当某只股票价格上涨或整体市场上涨时，他们就会买入。他们看到，如果12周前投资，现在就能获得15%的收益，于是产生了害怕错过机会的心理。

相反，当股价下跌或整体市场走低时，损失厌恶心理会驱使人们抛售股票。因此，他们不会将损失留在账面上等待市场反弹，而是选择接受损失，直接卖出——这就是那些蠢货所谓的止损。这种投资者行为十分普遍，以至于会影响个股价格，加剧市场上涨和下跌的幅度，并造成过度波动。

市场崩盘

“泡沫”是投资者过度乐观的结果，价格不断攀升。当市场达到难以置信的高位时，泡沫通常就会破裂。由于价格水平不可持续，投资者最终会恐慌性抛售相关资产，导致市场崩盘。2000 年代初的互联网泡沫就是如此，当时科技股的价值飙升，远远超过了公司的实际价值。2006 年房地产泡沫破裂时，我们也看到了同样的情况，随后几年市场崩盘。

不引人注目且不起眼的股票

不要只关注新闻报道，你可能会发现一些被低估的股票，比如小盘股甚至外国股票，这些股票可能并不在人们的关注范围内，而这些股票却蕴藏着巨大的投资机会。 大多数投资者都想抓住下一个热门项目，比如科技初创公司，而不是那些乏味的老牌耐用消费品制造商。

 例如，像 Meta（前身为 Facebook）、苹果和谷歌这样的股票比像宝洁或强生这样的企业集团更容易受到羊群效应投资的影响 。

坏消息

即使是优秀的公司也会遭遇挫折，例如诉讼和产品召回。然而，仅仅因为一家公司遭遇了一次不利事件，并不意味着它的基本价值就丧失了，或者其股价不会反弹。在其他情况下，某个业务部门或分支机构可能会影响公司的盈利能力。但如果公司决定出售或关闭该业务部门，情况就会有所改变。

分析师预测未来的准确率并不高，但当公司公布的盈利低于 分析师预期时，投资者往往会恐慌抛售。然而，那些能够透过评级下调和负面消息看到本质价值的投资者，却能以更低的价格买入股票，因为他们能够识别公司的长期价值。

周期性

周期性是指影响企业运营的波动。企业无法免受经济周期起伏的影响，无论是季节性因素、季节变化还是消费者态度和情绪波动。所有这些都会影响利润水平和公司股价，但不会影响其长期价值。

价值投资策略

买入被低估股票的关键在于对公司进行深入研究并做出符合常理的决策。价值投资者克里斯托弗·H·布朗建议，可以询问一家公司是否有可能通过以下方式增加收入：

• 提高产品价格
• 销售额增长
• 降低支出
• 出售或关闭不盈利的部门2

布朗还建议研究一家公司的竞争对手，以评估其未来的增长前景。但所有这些问题的答案往往带有推测性，缺乏任何实际的数值数据支持。简而言之，目前还没有任何量化软件程序可以帮助我们找到这些问题的答案，这使得价值股投资在某种程度上变成了一场大型的猜谜游戏。正因如此，沃伦·巴菲特建议只投资于你亲自工作过的行业，或者你熟悉其消费品的行业，例如汽车、服装、家电和食品。

投资者可以采取的一种策略是选择那些销售高需求产品和服务的公司股票。虽然很难预测创新产品何时会抢占市场份额，但很容易衡量一家公司成立的时间长短，并研究它如何随着时间的推移适应各种挑战。

内幕交易

就我们的目的而言， 内部人士是指公司的高级管理人员和董事，以及持有公司至少 10% 股份的任何股东。3公司的经理和董事对他们所经营的公司有着独特的了解，因此，如果他们购买了公司的股票，那么可以合理地假设该公司的前景良好。

同样，持有公司至少10%股份的投资者，如果看不到盈利潜力，就不会买入这么多股票。反之，内部人士抛售股票并不一定意味着公司预期业绩不佳——内部人士可能只是出于各种个人原因需要现金。然而，如果内部人士大规模抛售股票，这种情况就需要对抛售背后的原因进行更深入的分析。

分析财务报告

在某种程度上，价值投资者必须查看公司的财务状况，以了解其经营状况并将其与行业同行进行比较。

财务报告列示公司年度和季度业绩。年度报告为美国证券交易委员会（SEC）10-K表格，季度报告为 SEC 10-Q表格。公司必须向美国证券交易委员会 （SEC）提交这些报告。4您可以在美国证券交易委员会网站或公司网站的投资者关系页面上找到它们。5

你可以从公司的年度报告中了解到很多信息。它会解释公司提供的产品和服务，以及公司的发展方向。

财务报表

财务报表通常包含在公司提交给监管机构的财务报告中，但它们提供的是公司财务状况的整体概览。上市公司必须提交三份报表——资产负债表、利润表和现金流量表。

资产负债表

资产 负债表 由两部分组成，一部分列出公司的资产，另一部分列出公司的负债和所有者权益。资产部分细分为公司的现金及现金等价物、投资、应收账款（客户欠款）、存货以及固定资产（例如厂房和设备）。

负债部分列出了公司的应付账款或应收账款、 应计负债、短期债务和长期债务。股东权益部分反映了公司获得的投资额、流通股数量以及留存收益。留存收益是一种储蓄账户，用于存放公司累计利润。留存收益可用于支付股息等，并被视为公司健康盈利的标志。

损益表

损益表会告诉你公司的收入、支出和利润。相比季度损益表，查看年度损益表能让你更清楚地了解公司的整体财务状况，因为许多公司在一年中的销售额都会出现波动。

现金流量表

现金流量表列出了公司所有现金的来源和流出。它说明了哪些活动产生了现金流入，例如经营活动、投资活动或筹资活动。它还列出了哪些活动产生了现金流出。

重要的

研究一致表明，从长远来看，价值股的表现优于成长股和市场整体表现。

懒人价值投资

即使不看10-K报告，也有可能成为价值投资者。“懒人投资”是一种被动投资策略，即买入并持有少数几只投资工具，这些工具的投资分析工作已经由他人完成——例如共同基金或交易所交易基金（ETF）。就价值投资而言，这些基金指的是那些遵循价值投资策略、买入价值股的基金，或者追踪沃伦·巴菲特等知名价值投资者的投资动向的基金。

投资者可以购买他的控股公司伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司的股票，该公司拥有或持有数十家“奥马哈先知”研究和评估过的公司的股份。

价值投资的风险

与其他投资策略一样，价值投资虽然属于低风险至中等风险策略，但也存在亏损的风险。以下我们将重点介绍其中一些风险以及亏损发生的原因。

这些数据很重要

许多投资者在进行价值投资决策时都会参考财务报表。因此，如果您依赖自己的分析，请务必确保掌握最新信息，并且计算准确无误。否则，您最终可能会做出糟糕的投资决策，或者错失良机。如果您对阅读和分析财务报表及报告的能力还不够自信，请继续学习这些知识，并在真正准备好之前不要进行任何交易。

一种策略是阅读脚注。脚注是10-K表或10-Q表中的注释，用于更详细地解释公司的财务报表。这些注释位于报表之后，解释公司的会计方法并对报告的业绩进行详细阐述。如果脚注晦涩难懂或提供的信息似乎不合理，您就能更好地判断是否应该放弃这只股票。

异常收益或损失

公司损益表中可能会出现一些例外或特殊事件。这些事件通常超出公司的控制范围，被称为非常规项目收益或非常规项目损失。例如，诉讼、重组，甚至自然灾害都可能导致此类事件发生。如果将这些事件从分析中排除，您或许能够更好地了解公司的未来业绩。

然而，请对这些项目进行批判性思考，并运用您的最佳判断。如果一家公司年复一年地报告相同的非常规项目，那么该项目可能并不算太异常。此外，如果年复一年出现意外亏损，则可能表明该公司存在财务问题。非常规项目应该是不寻常且非经常性的。同时，也要注意是否存在频繁的坏账核销模式。

忽略比率分析的缺陷

本教程前面的章节讨论了如何计算各种财务比率，这些比率可以帮助投资者诊断公司的财务状况。计算财务比率的方法不止一种，这可能会造成一些问题。以下因素会影响对这些比率的解读：

• 比率可以用税前数字或税后数字来确定。
• 有些比率不能给出准确的结果，但可以用于估算。
• 根据对“收益”一词的定义不同，公司的每股收益（EPS）可能会有所不同。
• 即使比率相同，通过比率来比较不同的公司也可能很困难，因为各公司的会计做法不同。

买入估值过高的股票

对于价值投资者而言，买入股票价格过高是主要风险之一。如果出价过高，你可能会损失部分甚至全部投资。同样，如果买入价格接近其公允市场价值的股票，也存在类似的风险。买入被低估的股票意味着即使公司业绩不佳，你的亏损风险也会降低。

请记住，价值投资的基本原则之一是在所有投资中都建立安全边际。这意味着以大约三分之二或更低的价格买入股票。价值投资者希望尽可能减少在可能被高估的资产上的风险，因此他们尽量避免为投资支付过高的价格。

不进行多元化经营

传统投资理念认为，投资个股风险较高。因此，我们通常被教导投资于多种股票或股票指数，以便接触到各种不同的公司和经济板块。然而，一些价值投资者认为，即使只持有少量股票，只要选择代表不同行业和经济板块的股票，也能构建多元化的投资组合。价值投资者兼投资经理克里斯托弗·H·布朗建议至少持有10只股票。6本杰明·格雷厄姆认为，如果你想分散投资，应该选择 10 到 30 只股票——-这需要有一组完整的投资框架—我个人这么认为，他们都是有完整投资策略的，普通人没有，我有。7

然而，另一组专家却持不同意见。根据《价值投资入门》（第二版）的作者所述，如果你想获得高回报，不妨只选择少数几只股票。他们认为，投资组合中股票数量过多很可能导致平均回报。8当然，这条建议的前提是你非常擅长挑选赢家，但事实可能并非如此，特别是如果你是价值投资新手的话。

倾听你的情绪

在做投资决策时，很难完全忽略自己的情绪。即使你能以客观冷静的视角评估数据，但当真正要动用辛苦积攒的积蓄去购买股票时，恐惧和兴奋之情也可能会涌上心头。更重要的是，一旦买入股票，如果股价下跌，你很可能会忍不住卖掉它。

记住，价值投资的关键在于抵制恐慌和盲目跟风的诱惑。所以不要落入股价上涨时买入、股价下跌时卖出的陷阱。这种行为会大幅削减你的收益（在投资中盲目跟风很快就会变成一场危险的游戏）。 

价值投资示例

价值投资者试图从市场对季度财报的过度反应中获利。以2016年5月4日Fitbit发布2016年第一季度财报为例，该公司股价在盘后交易中大幅下跌。市场波动过后，Fitbit的市值缩水近19%。然而，尽管财报发布后股价大幅下跌并不罕见，但Fitbit不仅达到了分析师对该季度的预期，甚至还提高了2016年的业绩预期。9

该公司2016年第一季度营收达5.054亿美元，较上年同期增长超过50%。此外，Fitbit预计2016年第二季度营收将在5.65亿美元至5.85亿美元之间，高于分析师预测的5.31亿美元。9

这家公司看起来实力雄厚，发展势头良好。然而，由于 Fitbit 在今年第一季度投入巨资用于研发，其每股收益 (EPS) 较上年同期有所下降。这正中普通投资者下怀，他们纷纷抛售股票，导致股价下跌。然而，一位价值投资者如果深入分析 Fitbit 的基本面，就会发现它是一只被低估的股票，未来具有巨大的升值潜力。

举例来说，2019 年 Fitbit 的收入超过 14 亿美元；然后，在 2021 年，谷歌以 21 亿美元完成了对 Fitbit 的收购。10112017 年 2 月 9 日，一位价值投资者以每股 5.35 美元的低估价格购买了 Fitbit 股票，结果相当不错，因为在合并时，这些股票以每股 7.35 美元的价格转换为现金，并支付给了投资者。1213

什么是价值投资？

价值投资是一种投资理念，指的是以低于资产内在价值的价格买入。这也被称为证券的安全边际。被誉为价值投资之父的本杰明·格雷厄姆在其1949年出版的里程碑式著作《聪明的投资者》中首次提出了这一概念。沃伦·巴菲特、塞思·克拉曼、莫尼什·帕布莱和乔尔·格林布拉特都是价值投资者的杰出代表。

价值投资的例子有哪些？

常识和基本面分析是价值投资诸多原则的基础。安全边际，即股票交易价格相对于其内在价值的折让，是其中一项核心原则。市盈率（PE）等基本面指标，则反映了公司盈利与其股价之间的关系。价值投资者可能会投资于市盈率较低的公司，因为市盈率可以作为判断该公司股价是被低估还是高估的指标之一。

价值投资的常用指标有哪些？

除了分析公司的市盈率（可以说明其相对于收益的昂贵程度）之外，常用的指标还包括市净率、自由现金流 (FCF) 和负债权益比 (D/E)。

谁是市场先生？

“市场先生”一词最早由本杰明·格雷厄姆提出，它代表一位假想的投资者，其情绪极易在恐惧、冷漠和狂热之间剧烈波动。“市场先生”体现了投资者对股市情绪化反应而非理性分析或基本面分析所带来的后果。作为一种行为原型，“市场先生”反映了市场固有的价格波动，以及诸如贪婪和恐惧等可能对市场产生极端影响的情绪。

底线

价值投资是一种长期策略。例如，沃伦·巴菲特买入股票的目的是几乎无限期地持有——–这体现了一种极度规避风险的精神，这个精神才是真正的价值投资。他曾说过：“我从不试图在股市赚钱。我买入股票的前提是，即使股市第二天关闭，五年内都不会重新开市。”

当你需要进行大额消费或退休时，你可能会想要卖掉你的股票，但是通过持有多种股票并保持长期的投资眼光，你可以只在股票价格超过其公允市场价值（以及你购买它们的价格）时才卖掉它们。

更正——2024 年 2 月 8 日：本文已更正，指出本杰明·格雷厄姆建议在股票价格为清算价值的三分之二或更低时买入股票。