如
果你有机会向一位拥有84年投资经验的人学习，那可一定不要错过。在欧文•卡恩(Irving Kahn)庆祝自己107岁生日的前一天，我有幸与他交谈。卡恩是纽约卡恩兄弟集团(Kahn Brothers Group)的董事长，曾为价值投资之父本杰明•格雷厄姆(Benjamin Graham)担任过助教。
卡恩的听力和视觉已经衰退，但他的好奇心、判断力以及对市场变革史的领悟丝毫未减。
卡恩身上集中体现了格雷厄姆1949年经典著作《聪明的投资者》(The Intelligent Investor)中阐述的投资美德。卡恩与沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)一样，是直接受教于格雷厄姆的硕果仅存的几位投资大师之一。
Natalie Keyssar for the Wall Street Journal
华尔街投资大师欧文•卡恩于1928年开始自己的职业生涯
我还没来得及开口提问，卡恩就先向我抛出了一个个问题：《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)的新主编是谁？每天的发行量有多大？谁是最大的竞争对手？
卡恩拥有一种投资者应该注重开发的特质，即探寻“结构不确定性”(structured uncertainty)或“机缘巧合”(serendipity)的能力。美国著名社会学家罗伯特•莫顿(Robert K. Merton)将这种特质视为智力领域探索与发现的关键要素。
1928年，卡恩在纽约证券交易所(New York Stock Exchange)的交易大厅开始了自己的职业生涯，为一家名叫Hammerschlag, Borg & Co.的小公司当跑单者(runner)。在交易大厅只干了一周，卡恩就觉得自己身边都是一群“疯子”，于是央求调往研究部门。
卡恩还在晚上和周末在当时一家大型券商H. Hentz & Co兼职。工作之余，他经常在Hentz公司位于曼哈顿的办公大楼里闲逛，每次了解一层楼的情况，敲开那些依然灯火通明的办公室大门。
有一次，有个簿记员开门接待了卡恩。他那里正好有公司主要的损益分类账目，卡恩问能否看一下。其中有一组账目引起了他的注意，那是一连串几乎从来没有亏损过的投资交易，都在“本杰明•格雷厄姆共同账户”的名下。
惊讶于如此谨慎而收益丰厚的交易记录，卡恩开始探访格雷厄姆这个人，发现他就在这栋大楼里工作。
后来卡恩成为格雷厄姆的助手，为其在哥伦比亚大学(Columbia University)商学院名闻遐迩的授课提供协助。卡恩说，他从格雷厄姆身上学到的最重要的东西，是其抵御赚取快钱诱惑的能力。“在大多数时候，格雷厄姆对这种快进快出的赚钱方式都不为所动。除非他认为这笔投资的赚钱几率要大大高于亏损几率，否则他不会下手。”
经验告诉我们，用100减去自己的年龄，就可以得出投资组合中最佳的股票占比。以这种逻辑来看，卡恩应该把所有资产放在债券和现金上（甚至应该在股票仓位上呈现负数，或是“空头”）。
然而，卡恩依然把一半的个人资产放在股票上。他从不借钱投资。他对我说：“如果你手头有很多现金，即使在某笔投资上犯了错误，也不用太担心。”
卡恩喜欢农业股──正如他所说的，“太阳会为你办妥一切。”此外，他认为基础工业“急需增加资本投入”。他最喜欢的股票包括：中国高科技元器件制造商南太电子公司(Nam Tai Electronics)，以及种子和除草剂巨头孟山都公司(Monsanto)。
卡恩说，从某种角度来说，投资就是回归本源。
20世纪20年代及30年代初，当时的企业财务披露制度还具有较大的随意性，“拥有证券的那些家伙知道的企业内情比你多得多”。现在，虽然短线交易已日益成为主流，但卡恩相信，对耐心的投资者来说，如今的市场环境要好得多。
严于律己是卡恩获得成功的一个关键因素。107岁高龄的他依然每个星期上五天班，偶尔周五给自己放一天假。他每天要阅读很多东西，包括至少两份报纸、许多杂志和书籍，尤其是科学类的。卡恩告诉我，他有一个长期不变的目标，即“对一只股票的了解，要比卖给你股票的那个人多得多”。
是什么让他如此长寿？卡恩说：“没有秘诀，这是老天爷给的。”
他对不健康生活方式的看法是：“每年都有数百万人死于一种本可以避免的毛病，这个毛病就是不够理智，缺乏控制自己冲动的能力。”
对于投资者来说，这一点同样适用。
Jason Zweig
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
When you get the chance to learn from someone with 84 years of investment experience, you should take it.
The day before he celebrated his 107th birthday, I spoke with Irving Kahn, chairman of Kahn Brothers Group in New York and former research assistant to Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing.
Mr. Kahn's eyesight and hearing have diminished, but his curiosity, common sense and grasp of market history are intact.
He personifies the virtues that Graham spelled out in his classic 1949 book, 'The Intelligent Investor,' from which this column takes its name. Along with Warren Buffett, Mr. Kahn is one of the last surviving investors who learned directly from Graham.
Mr. Kahn's portfolio is half in cash, but only because he has finally gotten to the age where he is fully 'captive to my own conservative personality,' he said. Individual investors who avoid 'doing things you know too little about' still stand a decent chance of outperforming professional investors, especially by sticking to smaller stocks, he told me.
Before I could even ask him a question, Mr. Kahn began peppering me with his own: Who is the new editor of The Wall Street Journal? What is its daily circulation? Who are its toughest competitors?
Mr. Kahn has a knack that more investors should develop: exploiting 'structured uncertainty,' or serendipity, which the sociologist Robert K. Merton identified as a key to intellectual discovery.
Mr. Kahn began as a 'runner,' or trading assistant on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, for a small firm called Hammerschlag, Borg & Co. in 1928. After only one week on the trading floor, surrounded by people he considered 'crazy,' he begged to be reassigned to the research department.
Mr. Kahn also worked evenings and weekends for H. Hentz & Co., a major brokerage of that era. In his spare time he regularly roamed the building in downtown Manhattan where Hentz was based. Day after day, working his way down one floor at a time, he knocked on the door of any office that had the lights on.
Once, a bookkeeper answered; he turned out to have access to the main profit-and-loss ledgers of H. Hentz & Co. Mr. Kahn asked if he could see them. One set of entries caught his eye: a string of investments that almost never lost money. All were made by 'the Benjamin Graham joint account.'
Fascinated to find someone who traded so prudently and profitably, Mr. Kahn sought Graham out -- and discovered he worked in the same office building.
He became Graham's assistant, helping him teach his famous classes at Columbia University's business school. The main thing he learned from Graham, said Mr. Kahn, is the strength to resist the temptation to trade for a quick buck: 'Most of the time, he passed. He wouldn't go in on anything unless he thought it had a much better chance of making more money than he stood to lose if he was wrong.'
A rule of thumb says that to find the percentage of your portfolio that belongs in stocks, you subtract your age from 100. By that logic, Mr. Kahn should have all his assets in bonds and cash (and a 'short,' or negative, position in stocks).
Even so, he has half his personal assets in stocks. He has never invested with borrowed money. 'If you command a lot of cash,' he told me, 'you can be wrong and still not have to worry.'
He likes agriculture stocks -- where, as he put it, 'the sun does the work for you.' Also, he sees 'a bad need for improved capital investment' in basic industries. Among his favorite stocks: Nam Tai Electronics, a Chinese maker of high-tech components, and Monsanto, the seed and herbicide giant.
In some ways, Mr. Kahn says, these are the good old days.
In the 1920s and early 1930s, when corporate financial disclosures were largely discretionary, 'the fellows who owned the securities knew a lot more about them than you could,' he said. Despite the growing dominance of short-term trading, Mr. Kahn believes 'it's much better now' for investors who can be patient.
Discipline has been a key for Mr. Kahn. He still works five days a week, slacking off only on the occasional Friday. He reads voraciously, including at least two newspapers every day and numerous magazines and books, especially about science. His abiding goal, he told me, is 'to know much more about the stock I'm buying than the man who's selling does.'
What has enabled him to live so long? 'No secret,' he said. 'Just nature's way.'
He added, speaking of unwholesome lifestyles: 'Millions of people die every year of something they could cure themselves: lack of wisdom and lack of ability to control their impulses.'
You could say almost the same thing of investors.
Jason Zweig
The day before he celebrated his 107th birthday, I spoke with Irving Kahn, chairman of Kahn Brothers Group in New York and former research assistant to Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing.
Mr. Kahn's eyesight and hearing have diminished, but his curiosity, common sense and grasp of market history are intact.
He personifies the virtues that Graham spelled out in his classic 1949 book, 'The Intelligent Investor,' from which this column takes its name. Along with Warren Buffett, Mr. Kahn is one of the last surviving investors who learned directly from Graham.
Mr. Kahn's portfolio is half in cash, but only because he has finally gotten to the age where he is fully 'captive to my own conservative personality,' he said. Individual investors who avoid 'doing things you know too little about' still stand a decent chance of outperforming professional investors, especially by sticking to smaller stocks, he told me.
Before I could even ask him a question, Mr. Kahn began peppering me with his own: Who is the new editor of The Wall Street Journal? What is its daily circulation? Who are its toughest competitors?
Mr. Kahn has a knack that more investors should develop: exploiting 'structured uncertainty,' or serendipity, which the sociologist Robert K. Merton identified as a key to intellectual discovery.
Mr. Kahn began as a 'runner,' or trading assistant on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, for a small firm called Hammerschlag, Borg & Co. in 1928. After only one week on the trading floor, surrounded by people he considered 'crazy,' he begged to be reassigned to the research department.
Mr. Kahn also worked evenings and weekends for H. Hentz & Co., a major brokerage of that era. In his spare time he regularly roamed the building in downtown Manhattan where Hentz was based. Day after day, working his way down one floor at a time, he knocked on the door of any office that had the lights on.
Once, a bookkeeper answered; he turned out to have access to the main profit-and-loss ledgers of H. Hentz & Co. Mr. Kahn asked if he could see them. One set of entries caught his eye: a string of investments that almost never lost money. All were made by 'the Benjamin Graham joint account.'
Fascinated to find someone who traded so prudently and profitably, Mr. Kahn sought Graham out -- and discovered he worked in the same office building.
He became Graham's assistant, helping him teach his famous classes at Columbia University's business school. The main thing he learned from Graham, said Mr. Kahn, is the strength to resist the temptation to trade for a quick buck: 'Most of the time, he passed. He wouldn't go in on anything unless he thought it had a much better chance of making more money than he stood to lose if he was wrong.'
A rule of thumb says that to find the percentage of your portfolio that belongs in stocks, you subtract your age from 100. By that logic, Mr. Kahn should have all his assets in bonds and cash (and a 'short,' or negative, position in stocks).
Even so, he has half his personal assets in stocks. He has never invested with borrowed money. 'If you command a lot of cash,' he told me, 'you can be wrong and still not have to worry.'
He likes agriculture stocks -- where, as he put it, 'the sun does the work for you.' Also, he sees 'a bad need for improved capital investment' in basic industries. Among his favorite stocks: Nam Tai Electronics, a Chinese maker of high-tech components, and Monsanto, the seed and herbicide giant.
In some ways, Mr. Kahn says, these are the good old days.
In the 1920s and early 1930s, when corporate financial disclosures were largely discretionary, 'the fellows who owned the securities knew a lot more about them than you could,' he said. Despite the growing dominance of short-term trading, Mr. Kahn believes 'it's much better now' for investors who can be patient.
Discipline has been a key for Mr. Kahn. He still works five days a week, slacking off only on the occasional Friday. He reads voraciously, including at least two newspapers every day and numerous magazines and books, especially about science. His abiding goal, he told me, is 'to know much more about the stock I'm buying than the man who's selling does.'
What has enabled him to live so long? 'No secret,' he said. 'Just nature's way.'
He added, speaking of unwholesome lifestyles: 'Millions of people die every year of something they could cure themselves: lack of wisdom and lack of ability to control their impulses.'
You could say almost the same thing of investors.
Jason Zweig
