Rating: 
Summary: The Value Is In The Investment Philosophy
Review: The value of this book is in the investment philosophies that Graham goes out of is way to state and restate into redundancy. As Graham states in the book, "The Intelligent Investor" focuses less on the technicalities of his analysis's, and more on the ideals behind them. These ideals include:
patience in waiting for the right opportunites to appear,
patience in ownership of a stock until it's true market value is recognized,
evaluating a company and estimating it's 'intrinsic value' (what you would pay for it)
searching for stocks that are undervalued and more.
Most of the ideas he brings up all revolve around a central theme of having a "margin of safety" in all your investments. He also states that if you don't have the traits required to stick to these ideals, you would do best to stick with an index fund for your common stock investments. This book is recommended to anyone who is looking to become a more aggressive investor since it provides a basic foundation for you to build on.
For all it's strengths, this book as well as "Securities Analysis" have a common weakness which is that the ways that Graham found 'value' investments are much more difficult to find today. Value investing has been around for half a century now and has recently been making a comeback because of the bursting of the tech bubble. As Graham also states, the more prevalent a certain approach to investing becomes, the more diluted its earnings potential becomes. Opportunities such as 'net-nets' (stocks whose market value fall below their book value) are extremely rare to find today. It is up to the reader to discern how he/she can take advantage and apply his ideas to the market today. (Which the best books usually do)
A word of note. Most value investors point to Warren Buffet as evidence of the profitability of value investing although Buffet is not a purist and places just as great an emphasis on intangible assests (such as branding and management). Opportunites, such as his 8% stake in Coca-cola would have been missed by someone strictly adhering to the Graham-Dodd model.
In short, even with its inevitable weaknesses, "The Intelligent Investor" is an important addition to the library of any person who wishes to become an aggressive investor.
Rating: 
Summary: Tired
Review: Although I am mostly a value investor, this has never been my favorite book. The old 1973 edition which this replaces was dated and the examples were hard to relate to today's market. Even the previous editions were not ones I particularly enjoyed. Quite frankly, the book was and is boring. Also many of the investment ideas in the book simply do not work in today's market. For example, I agree with Niederhoffer that buying companies for less that Net Current Assets is ridiculous in general. Most who claim to be successful at this are simply liars. This technique worked for a short time following and during the great depression. But that was basically it. The idea of approaching one's investments as a business is old hat now but for those not familiar with the concept this book may be worthwhile although whether it is worth buying the book for this tidbit is debatable. The Buffettology books do this just as well and are more up to date. Despite the laughter and venom directed against these books they are useful modern investment books which the budding value investor would do well to read. This update does use more modern examples but with the rise of the internet this type of information is just not as rarely available as it once was. I just wonder how many more "revisions" this book can stand before it becomes like Graham's Security Analysis. Keep in mind this is a new edition of a book by a man who has been dead for years ( and not the first one at that). The modern investor would probably be better off learning something about valuation and applying that to determine if companies are undervalued. The primitive methods in Graham are not particularly useful today and do not reflect the methods of today's successful value investor.
Rating:
Summary: Updated After About 30 Years
Review: Benjamin Graham first started the whole idea of modern security analysis with the publication of the first edition of this book in 1949. He updated it several times before his death in 1976, the last time in 1972. This was the Bible of charts and graphs and using technical analysis to identify good stock values.
Now Jason Zweig, senior writer and columnist for Money Magazine has taken this classic work and updated it to what's happening in the market now. His writing style, if possible, has improved on the original work. It uses plain simple English to describe the marketplace and what's happening to it. More important it tells you what to look for to find opportunities that the rest of the market may have missed.
Rating:
Summary: An Interesting Read
Review: Graham is without doubt an intelligent man whose insights into investing are worth reading. This book, while dated in its examples, is not dated where it counts - intelligent investing philosiphies. The essay written by Mr. Buffet at the end of the book is also very informative and also enjoyable to read.However, as always with such books there comes a caveat. Mr. Zweig's commentary through the book is not of the continuously high standard with which Graham writes. It disrupts the flow of the book and detracts from the overall experience of reading Graham's fine work. My suggestion is to ignore Zweig's commentary and footnotes until you find there is something that you don't understand or want further thoughts on. Zweig provides a few cutting insights, but only a few. Dispite this the books value is not diminished - it's well worth your time and your money.
Rating:
Summary: A worthwhile read, with relevant commentary
Review: Graham's writing is clear, concise and level-headed. He warns against unreasonable financial expectations and proceeds to explain his theories in sufficient detail to be worthwhile, without being over the comprehension of the layman interested in investing. The book is lengthy and "solid", as opposed to other finance books that hope to explain investment in 100-200 pages. Topics include stocks vs. bonds, inflation, security analysis, and margin of safety (Graham's analysis of the assets of a company in relation to its debt). Zweig's commentary is useful, with footnotes to clarify historical references and, occasionally, demonstrate instances where Graham's predictions proved untrue. At the end of each chapter, Zweig uses recent (up to early 2003) examples of Graham's concepts to make things clearer to modern readers. (Graham's text itself is his 1973 revision to the original 1949 edition.) Also helpful are numerous references to online articles at various sites (I cannot yet vouch for these links' present state.) Based on my understanding, I highly recommend this edition to anyone interested in this book. I feel that I gleaned more from this annotated edition than I would have from the original, without having to conduct additional research.
Rating: 
Summary: Classic book, but annoying commentaries
Review: I was deciding between getting this edition or the more expensive hardbound edition (which does not contain the Jason Zweig commentaries). I naturally thought, why not go for the cheaper one and get the commentary for free? After all, I could just ignore the commentary if it doesn't help. Bad bad choice. It was like choosing between a Beethoven CD and the same CD but with free shrieking commentary by a Damon Wayans movie character during and in between each symphony. Zweig's writing when inserted between Graham's is like the annoying paperclip in MS Office, except there is no way to turn it off. He's in the footnotes (virtually every page!), he's in between every chapter. Open the book at a random page, and most likely you'll open it to a Zweig page. The content and style of his writing feels condescending and contrasts so much with Graham's. When reading Graham you have elegant timeless prose by a humble, wise man who makes you feel he is sincerely interested in your well-being. By contrast, Zweig feels like someone who wants to impress you with his word plays, and puns. He really should have attempted to recede into the background and limited his voice. I would recommend everyone to just buy the hardcover edition. Buy Graham only. If you cannot read Graham, Zweig will only help marginally, and you still need to verify his comments against other contemporary Graham commentators. Get another book. If you *can* read Graham, then you do not need the commentaries in this book. Any questions you may have can be answered in thousands of sites on the net.
Rating:
Summary: Too bad real estate was not also in Benjamin Graham's field
Review: If you have only time to read one book on investing, this classic should probably be it. But if you recently have read some of the popular get-rich-quick books, "The Intelligent Investor" is a necessary and powerful antidote. The author has an extremely realistic view of the investment world. He sees the real risk where speculators may imagine there are instant riches. For Benjamin Graham, safety of capital comes first. But at the same time, he makes it clear that safety is not guaranteed, even if you do have a properly selected and well balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds. On page 25, Mr. Graham warns the reader that: "There is no certainty that a stock component will insure adequately against 'large-inflation' but it should carry more protection than the bond component." The author does recognize that: "The outright ownership of real estate has long been considered as a sound long-term investment, carrying with it a goodly amount of protection against inflation." With this statement, he seems to recognize that inclusion of real estate could make an investment portfolio stronger. But he does not analyze real estate extensively as an investment in his book because he says that it is not his field. Too bad he did not broaden his scope and also become an expert in real estate. If income-producing real estate had been looked at as thoroughly as stocks and bonds in "The Intelligent Investor," I believe many readers, with most of their equity in real estate, would be calling Amazon.com about giving this book a sixth star.
Rating:
Summary: Too bad real estate was not also in Benjamin Graham's field
Review: If you have only time to read one book on investing, this classic should probably be it. But if you recently have read some of the popular get-rich-quick books, "The Intelligent Investor" is a necessary and powerful antidote. The author has an extremely realistic view of the investment world. He sees the real risk where speculators may imagine there are instant riches. For Benjamin Graham, safety of capital comes first. But at the same time, he makes it clear that safety is not guaranteed, even if you do have a properly selected and well balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds. On page 25, Mr. Graham warns the reader that: "There is no certainty that a stock component will insure adequately against 'large-inflation' but it should carry more protection than the bond component." The author does recognize that: "The outright ownership of real estate has long been considered as a sound long-term investment, carrying with it a goodly amount of protection against inflation." With this statement, he seems to recognize that inclusion of real estate could make an investment portfolio stronger. But he does not analyze real estate extensively as an investment in his book because he says that it is not his field. Too bad he did not broaden his scope and also become an expert in real estate. If income-producing real estate had been looked at as thoroughly as stocks and bonds in "The Intelligent Investor," I believe many readers, with most of their equity in real estate, would be calling Amazon.com about giving this book a sixth star.
Rating: 
Summary: Read the 4th Revised Edition instead
Review: If you want to read Graham, read the 4th revised edition (1997, 368 pages) in which Graham has expressed his idea very clearly. To me, this edition (2003, 640 pages, with Jason Zweig) adds no value upon the previous one but noise.
And, I suggest you read the review titled "Classic book, but annoying commentaries" of June 30, 2004.
Rating:
Summary: A True Classic
Review: One of the greatest business books of all time. A "must have" for the library of any serious long term investor/businessman. Ben Graham was Warren Buffett's mentor, and Buffett has always attributed his great success to the lessons/wisdom he learned from Graham. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
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