Walter Schloss
Walter Schloss was a notable investor, fund manager, and philanthropist. He was a legend of Wall Street and a notable proponent of the Benjamin Graham School of Value Investing. He did not attend college but took investment courses taught by Benjamin Graham at the New York Stock Exchange Institute. Schloss compiled one of the best track records in the history of investing. Over a 50-year span, he earned gross returns averaging 20% annually.
- Schloss did not attend college and was hired as a runner on Wall Street at the age of 18.
- In 1955, he started his own fund and delivered his investors annualized returns of 15.3% versus 10% for the S&P 500.
- His method emphasized buying cheap stocks with solid financials and holding them until they were considered overvalued.
- He emphasized price-to-book value as the best measure of a corporation's value and preferred buying stocks that traded below book value.
- He went to work for Graham in the Graham-Newman Partnership, where he met Warren Buffett.
- In 1984, he was named by Warren Buffett as one of the Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville in an article published in the 1984 issue of Hermes, Columbia Business School’s magazine.
- He closed his fund in 2000 and stopped actively managing other people’s money in 2003.
"He knows how to identify securities that sell at considerably less than their value to a private owner. And that’s all he does. He owns many more stocks than I do and is far less interested in the underlying nature of the business. I don't seem to have very much influence on Walter. That is one of his strengths. No one has much influence on him.” — Warren Buffett