GrahamValue

Spannungsbogen is a German term that literally translates to "arc of suspense" or "tension bow."

Spannung: Tension, suspense, or stress (even electrical voltage).
Bogen: Arc, bow, or curve.

In its most common, everyday usage, it refers to the dramatic arc or narrative structure of a story, a film, or a piece of music—the way a creator builds anticipation, sustains engagement, reaches a climax, and eventually resolves the built-up tension.

---

The Value Investing Connection

When applied to the discipline of value investing, *spannungsbogen* perfectly encapsulates the agonizing psychological endurance required to actually generate alpha (returns).

The Arc of Contrarianism: Value investing inherently involves buying what the market hates and selling what it loves. The *spannungsbogen* is the psychological tension of standing apart from the herd, trusting your own thesis while the rest of the world tells you that you are wrong.

The Space Between Price and Value: It represents the vast, silent "arc of suspense" between the moment you buy an undervalued asset and the unpredictable moment the broader market finally recognizes that intrinsic value.

Skip the Carousel

1 2

1 week ago (edited) | [YT] | 4

GrahamValue

The GEICO story!

"What was decisive for them was that the price was moderate in relation to current earnings and asset value... it did so well that the price of its shares advanced to two hundred times or more the price paid... [participants in their funds] became millionaires through their holding in this one enterprise... profits accruing from this single investment decision far exceeded the sum of all the others realized through 20 years... But behind the luck, or the crucial decision, there must usually exist a background of preparation and disciplined capacity."
— Benjamin Graham, Postscript, The Intelligent Investor.

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 week ago | [YT] | 6

GrahamValue

"The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate."
— Benjamin Graham, Introduction: What This Book Expects to Accomplish, The Intelligent Investor.

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4

1 week ago | [YT] | 6

GrahamValue

"Most analysts feel they must choose between two approaches customarily thought to be in opposition: "value" and "growth." Indeed, many investment professionals see any mixing of the two terms as a form of intellectual cross-dressing... In our opinion, the two approaches are joined at the hip: Growth is always a component in the calculation of value, constituting a variable whose importance can range from negligible to enormous and whose impact can be negative as well as positive. In addition, we think the very term "value investing" is redundant. What is "investing" if it is not the act of seeking value at least sufficient to justify the amount paid?"
— Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway: Letter to Shareholders (1992).

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3

2 weeks ago (edited) | [YT] | 6

GrahamValue

"While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty."
— William Winwood Reade

"Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary."
— Herman Melville, Moby Dick.

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4 5

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 6

GrahamValue

"Spinoza’s concluding remark applies to Wall Street as well as to philosophy: “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”"
— Benjamin Graham, Chapter 8: The Investor and Market Fluctuations, The Intelligent Investor.

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 9

GrahamValue

"But there is no distinction in our minds between growth and value. Every business we look at as being a value proposition. The potential for growth and the likelihood of good economics being attached to that growth are part of the equation in evaluation."
— Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting (2000).

"Another thing you have to do, of course, is to have a lot of assiduity. I like that word because it means: sit down on your ass until you do it."
— Charles Thomas Munger, USC Law School: Commencement Address (2007).

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4 5 6

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 7

GrahamValue

"You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right."
— Benjamin Graham, Chapter 20: “Margin of Safety” as the Central Concept of Investment, The Intelligent Investor.

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 9

GrahamValue

When you're investing several years of savings, or an inheritance, your first priority has to be safety of the Principal. Investors who work with larger sums of money almost always use the Benjamin Graham framework because it emphasizes the Margin of Safety, while also ensuring an adequate return.

Skip the Carousel

1 2

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 6

GrahamValue

“It was an application of the governing maxim of the Rothschilds: “Buy cheap and sell dear.”* And it had the advantage of running directly counter to the ingrained and pernicious maxim of Wall Street that stocks should be bought because they have gone up and sold because they have gone down.”
— Benjamin Graham, Chapter 1: Investment versus Speculation, The Intelligent Investor.

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 5