The term “value investing” is a style or type of investment strategy from the so-called "Graham & Dodd" School. Followers of this style, known as value investors, generally buy companies whose shares or economic units appear under-priced by some forms of fundamental analysis; these may include stocks that trade at, for example, a discount to book value or tangible book value, have a high dividend yields, low price-to-earning multiple or low price-to-book ratio. The main proponents/participants of value investing, such as Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett, have argued that the essence of value investing is buying stocks at less than their intrinsic value. The discount of the market price to the intrinsic value is what Benjamin Graham called the "margin of safety". The intrinsic value is the discounted value of all future distributions.
However, the future distributions and the appropriate discount rate can only be projected and based on assumptions. Warren Buffett has taken the value investing concept even further as his thinking has evolved to where for the last 25 years or so his focus has been on "finding an outstanding company at a sensible price" rather than generic companies at a bargain price, this concept is important as you are actually buying into a business.
However, the future distributions and the appropriate discount rate can only be projected and based on assumptions. Warren Buffett has taken the value investing concept even further as his thinking has evolved to where for the last 25 years or so his focus has been on "finding an outstanding company at a sensible price" rather than generic companies at a bargain price, this concept is important as you are actually buying into a business.
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