当前证券分析中的问题——第六讲（纽约金融学院，1946-47学年）
当前证券分析面临的问题——第六讲（纽约金融学院，1946-47 学年）
Lectures
第六讲
Lecture Number Six
这是本杰明·格雷厄姆于 1946 年 9 月至 1947 年 2 月在纽约金融学院主讲的系列讲座《证券分析当前面临的问题》的文稿。该内容以精简形式收录于珍妮特·洛所著的《重拾本杰明·格雷厄姆：华尔街传奇文选》（Wiley，1999 年 4 月）中。此外，全部十场讲座的完整 html 版本可在出版商网站上查阅到。
This is a transcript of a lecture from the series Current Problems in Security Analysis presented by Benjamin Graham at the New York Institute of Finance from September 1946 to February 1947. This content is found in abridged form in The Rediscovered Benjamin Graham: Selected Writings of the Wall Street Legend (Wiley, April 1999) by Janet Lowe. Alternatively, full html versions for all ten lectures are available on the publisher’s website.
在试图判断未来收益（无论整体还是个别）时，我首先要澄清一点：分析师并非真的想盯着水晶球，对预测期内的结果给出正确答案。他真正想做的是确定自己应该如何行动和思考——也就是说，面对永远充满谜团的未来，他能在逻辑推理上走多远。
The first thing that I want to make clear in any attempt to obtain a view as to future earnings, either in general or in particular, is that the analyst is not really trying to look into the crystal ball and come out with the correct answer for the period of time that he is forecasting. What he is really trying to do is to determine how the analyst should act and think -- that is, how far he can go in logical thinking with respect to the always enigmatic future.
我们谁也不会自负到以为，凭借出色的分析能力，或者通过极其繁琐的计算，就能相当确定自己的结论正确。我们唯一可能相当确定的是，自己在以合理且明智的方式行事。如果判断错了——我们也经常犯错——那至少是聪明地犯错，而不是愚蠢地犯错。（笑声）
I don't believe any of us have the pretension of believing that by being very good analysts, or by going through very elaborate computations, we can be pretty sure of the correctness of our results. The only thing that we can be pretty sure of, perhaps, is that we are acting reasonably and intelligently. And if we are wrong, as we are likely to be, at least we have been intelligently wrong and not unintelligently wrong. (Laughter.)
我在对十四家公司进行的一项研究中（主要是那些在 1914 年前后出现在道琼斯指数中的公司）发现，其中七家在战后时期的盈利高于战前，六家的平均盈利下降，还有一家持平。顺便说一句，持平的那家是美国钢铁公司，它在战后时期盈利波动剧烈，但这五年的平均值与战前三年相同。
*** In a study of fourteen companies which I made -- mainly those that appeared in the Dow-Jones Average, either before or after 1914 -- I found that seven of them showed larger earnings in the post-war period than before the war, six of them showed lower average earnings, and one of them was even. That one, incidentally was United States Steel, which had widely fluctuating earnings in the period after the war, but which averaged in those five years the same figure as it did in the preceding three.
那些结果并不像它们本应达到的那样令人满意，因为在那段时期，我们经历了 1920 年至 1922 年非常严重的萧条；而萧条状况的影响，使平均收益远低于倘若我们拥有一个平稳的国民收入时期所会达到的水平。你们还记得，我刚才提到的 620 亿美元这个数字，是这五年的国民收入平均值。但各年份之间的波动相当大，而对整体收益的影响则很糟糕。你经商时，在异常繁荣时期所获得的收益，根本抵不上在萧条时期所损失的。这几乎是一条公理。
Those results were not as satisfactory as they should have been, because in that period we had the very serious depression of 1920 to 1922; and the effect of depressed conditions was to reduce the average earnings well below what they would have been if we had had a level period of national income. You recall that the figure of $62-billion, which I gave you, was an average national income for the five years. But there were rather wide fluctuations from year to year, and the effect on earnings as a whole was bad. You do not gain as much from periods of unusual prosperity as you lose in periods of depression when you are in business. That is almost an axiom.
我越来越深刻地感受到，历史在很多方面重演的可能性很大。在华尔街，如果你得出某个价格水平并不算过高这样一个简单方便的结论，那你走不了多远。很可能要经历漫长的时间，这种结论才能通过令人满意的实践得以验证。这就是为什么在本课程中，我们尽量强调通过购买那些不仅不过高、而且基于分析看来被严重低估的证券，来获得针对不利发展的具体保障。如果你这样做，你就总有权利对自己说：你已脱离证券市场，而是以有吸引力的条件成为一家公司的部分所有者。当市场走势不如你意时，能够让自己处于这种心理状态，是一个巨大的优势。
*** I am more and more impressed with the possibilities of history's repeating itself on many different counts. You don't get very far in Wall Street with the simple, convenient conclusion that a given level of prices is not too high. It may be that a great deal of water will have to go over the dam before a conclusion of that kind works itself out in terms of satisfactory experience. That is why in this course we have tried to emphasize as much as possible the obtaining of specific insurance against adverse developments by trying to buy securities that are not only not too high but that, on the basis of analysis, appear to be very much too low. If you do that, you always have the right to say to yourself that you are out of the security market, and you are an owner of part of a company on attractive terms. It is a great advantage to be able to put yourself in that psychological frame of mind when the market is not going the way you would like.
处理一组业务的估值具有很大优势，因为我确信，当你同时考虑多个组成部分时——你的错误很可能会相互抵消——比你把注意力集中在一个单项上、结果可能在该项上严重偏离目标，更有可能做到接近准确。
*** There are great advantages in dealing with a group valuation, because you are more likely to be nearly accurate, I am sure, when you are considering a number of components together -- in which your errors are likely to cancel out -- than when you are concentrating on an individual component and may go very wide of the mark in that one.
第六讲，证券分析的当前问题 本杰明·格雷厄姆
Lecture Number Six, Current Problems in Security Analysis Benjamin Graham
此外，投资者完全可以以指数整体作为投资对象——从未有人买过道琼斯工业指数，但我觉得如果真有人这么做，那将是一件极其明智的事。
Furthermore, there is nothing to prevent the investor from dealing with his own investment problems on a group basis. There is nothing to prevent the investor from actually buying the Dow-Jones Industrial Average, though I never heard of anybody doing it. It seems to me it would make a great deal of sense if he did.
当我们谈论买入廉价股票时，例如，强调群体操作就变得更为重要，因为你实际上进入了一种几乎可被称为保险式的操作模式。在这里，每只个股似乎都给你带来了优势。在个别案例中，这种优势可能消失或无法实现；但如果你作为分析师还算有点本事，就应该能在群体中实现这种优势。因此，我对群体操作和群体分析一直情有独钟。不过，我必须说，各位先生，作为尽职的证券分析师和大众顾问等等，你们在所做的一切工作中，都无法获得这种优势。因为我确信，你们被迫对每家公司得出相当明确的结论，而不能把它们隐藏在一个群体业绩里。
When we talk about buying bargain issues, for example, the emphasis on group operation becomes even greater, because you then get into what could practically be know as an insurance type of operation. Here you have an edge, apparently, on each individual company. That advantage may conceivably disappear or not be realized in the individual case; but if you are any good at all as an analyst you ought to realize that advantage in the group. And so I have had a great partiality for group operations and group analysis. I must say, however, that you gentlemen, as functioning security analysts, advisers to the multitude, and so on, are unable to obtain that advantage in all the work you do. For I am sure you are compelled to reach rather definite conclusions about individual companies, and can't hide them in a group result.
第六讲，证券分析中的当前问题 本杰明·格雷厄姆
Lecture Number Six, Current Problems in Security Analysis Benjamin Graham