方法灵活写新篇——《证券分析》选编

传奇投资家

　　A Flexible Approach
　　方法灵活写新篇
　　Because our nation’s founders could not foresee—and knew they could not foresee—technological, social, cultural, and economic changes that the future would bring, they wrote a flexible constitution that still guides us over two centuries later. Similarly, Benjamin Graham and David Dodd acknowledged that they could not anticipate the business, economic, technological, and competitive changes that would sweep through the investment world over the ensuing years. But they, too, wrote a flexible treatise that provides us with the tools to function in an investment landscape that was destined—and remains destined—to undergo profound and unpredictable change. For example, companies today sell products that Graham and Dodd could not have imagined. Indeed, there are companies and entire industries that they could not have envisioned. Security Analysis offers no examples of how to value cellular phone carriers, software companies, satellite television providers, or Internet search engines. But the book provides the analytical tools to evaluate almost any company, to assess the value of its marketable securities, and to determine the existence of a margin of safety. Questions of solvency, liquidity, predictability, business strategy, and risk cut across businesses, nations, and time. Graham and Dodd did not specifically address how to value private businesses or how to determine the value of an entire company rather than the value of a fractional interest through ownership of its shares.<9>
　　盖因吾国缔造者不能预见——而且能够明白他们不能预见——未来将给科技、社会、文化和经济带来的变革，所以他们起草了一部迄今为止指引我们越过了两个世纪的灵活性宪法。无独有偶，本杰明?格雷厄姆和大卫?多德同样意识到他们不能亲自参与到随后数年席卷所有投资领域的商业、经济、技术和竞争性变革之中。同样道理，他们只需写下一篇能够为我们提供关乎命中注定——或者注定未来的投资前景之运营工具的变通性论文，以此经受深刻而深不可测之变化的考验。譬如，如今的公司销售格雷厄姆和多德意想不到的产品。说真的，有些公司乃至整个儿产业都是他们不能想象。《证券分析》并未提供如何评估移动电话运营商、软件公司、卫星电视提供商或互联网搜索引擎公司的方法。然而，本书提供的分析工具差不多适合评估任何公司、估定适销证券的价值并且确定安全边际是否存在。偿付能力，流动性，可预测性，经营策略，以及跨越企业、国家和时代的风险等问题。格雷厄姆和多德并未特别表明应该如何去评估私营企业或者又该如何去评估一家功能完备的（上市）公司，他们认为倒不如对该公司股份所有权进行利益数量化（可分性）的评估来得更为有效。<9>
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　　<9> They did consider the relative merits of corporate control enjoyed by a private business owner versus the value of marketability for a listed stock (p. 372).
　　<9> 他们曾经认为，相对于上市公司的市场销售价值而言，私营企业所有者更喜欢在公司控制权方面的相对优势。（见第372页）
　　But their analytical principles apply equally well to these different issues. Investors still need to ask, how stable is the enterprise, and what are its future prospects? What are its earnings and cash flow? What is the downside risk of owning it? What is its liquidation value? How capable and honest is its management? What would you pay for the stock of this company if it were public? What factors might cause the owner of this business to sell control at a bargain price?
　　可以肯定他们的分析原则同样适合于不同的问题。投资者总在发问，企业会有多稳定，未来前景如何？收益和现金流怎么样？一旦拥有下跌风险是什么？清算价值如何？管理层的能力和诚信如何？你会盘算如果公司上市的话该对其股票支付何种对价？哪些因素可能会导致企业所有者低价出让控制权？
　　Similarly, the pair never addressed how to analyze the purchase of an office building or apartment complex. Real estate bargains come about for the same reasons as securities bargains—an urgent need for cash, inability to perform proper analysis, a bearish macro view, or investor disfavor or neglect. In a bad real estate climate, tighter lending standards can cause even healthy properties to sell at distressed prices. Graham and Dodd’s principles—such as the stability of cash flow, sufficiency of return, and analysis of downside risk—allow us to identify real estate investments with a margin of safety in any market environment.
　　情同此理，二人从未论及应该如何去分析商务楼宇或者公寓大楼的购买行为。房地产市场的讨价还价跟证券市场的斤斤计较如出一辙——现金为王，分析无尽而又无能为力；熊比牛大，人气疏离于懈怠。房市气候恶劣，则贷款标准可致优质物业大甩卖。格雷厄姆和多德原则——诸如现金流稳定，回报率充足，还有下跌风险分析——能使我们在任何市场条件下以安全边际去鉴别房地产投资机会。
　　Even complex derivatives not imagined in an earlier era can be scrutinized with the value investor’s eye. While traders today typically price put and call options via the Black-Scholes model, one can instead use value-investing precepts—upside potential, downside risk, and the likelihood that each of various possible scenarios will occur—to analyze these instruments. An inexpensive option may, in effect, have the favorable risk-return characteristics of a value investment—regardless of what the Black-Scholes model dictates.
　　即便是早先时代难以想象的复杂衍生工具，也能以价值投资者的眼光予以审视。虽然今天的交易者一般可以通过布莱克.舒尔茨模型为看跌期权（卖出期权）和看涨期权（买入期权）定价，但投资者实际上仍能遵用价值投资的清规戒律——之于升值潜力、下跌风险以及各种出乎意料之外却又在情理之中的种种——均可一以分析之法。实际上，所谓有利可图的期权，大概也符合价值投资对良好风险回报率要求的特征——就大可不必在意布莱克-舒尔兹模型又诠释些什么了。