RESEARCH TRAIL
Margin of Safety: Graham to Klarman
How has the margin-of-safety principle been carried from Graham's generation to today's practitioners?
6 STEPS · 1955–2026 · EVERY STEP SOURCED
Margin of safety is usually traced to Benjamin Graham, but the principle's life is visible only across the people who kept using it. This trail follows the indexed record from Graham's own testimony and interviews to investors who cite the term today. Where passage-level excerpts are not yet available, each step still anchors to its original document through provenance links.
- 01SOURCE1955
Senate testimony, 1955
Graham appeared before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee during its 1955 stock-market study; the original transcript is linked from the source's provenance panel. Passage-level excerpts have not yet been added, so this step anchors the trail to the primary document itself.
OPEN IN THE LIBRARY → - 02SOURCE1976
An Hour with Mr. Graham
A March 1976 conversation with Hartman L. Butler Jr., recorded near the end of Graham's career, reviewing the lessons of his investment life. Eighteen indexed excerpts preserve the interview.
OPEN IN THE LIBRARY → - 03SOURCE1977
The biographical record
Kahn and Milne's study of Graham as the 'father of financial analysis' documents how his methods reached students and collaborators. With seventy-eight indexed excerpts it is the deepest Graham source in the library.
OPEN IN THE LIBRARY → - 04THEME1979
The term spreads into practice
Outside Graham's own writing, the margin-of-safety theme page collects references across investors; Berkshire's letters index the term from 1979 onward. Open the theme to see the full spread.
OPEN IN THE LIBRARY → - 05SOURCE2003
Marks codifies it
Howard Marks's memos index margin-of-safety repeatedly; this 2003 entry later gave its name to his book of collected memos. It documents the principle traveling beyond Graham's direct lineage.
OPEN IN THE LIBRARY → - 06SOURCE2026
Klarman carries it forward
In a Masters in Business interview, Seth Klarman discusses the confidence that comes from owning assets worth more than the price paid; indexed passages here sit under the margin-of-safety theme directly. The trail ends where the idea is still visibly in use.
OPEN IN THE LIBRARY →
CONTINUE THE RESEARCH
This is one path through the graph.
The full library cross-links every investor by shared themes, companies and decisions — searchable, comparable, and source-backed end to end.