--- product_id: 8779187 title: "Common Stocks as Long Term Investments" price: "€ 29.12" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.be/products/8779187-common-stocks-as-long-term-investments store_origin: BE region: Belgium --- # 85-year historical stock market data Proven long-term stock outperformance 1928 original edition facsimile Common Stocks as Long Term Investments **Price:** € 29.12 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Summary > 📊 Own the investment playbook that Wall Street tried to forget! ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Common Stocks as Long Term Investments - **How much does it cost?** € 29.12 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.be](https://www.desertcart.be/products/8779187-common-stocks-as-long-term-investments) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Key Features - • **Diversification is Key:** Master the foundational principle that reduces risk and maximizes returns. - • **Inflation-Proof Growth:** Learn how stocks protect and grow your wealth beyond inflation. - • **Stocks vs Bonds Revealed:** Discover why patient stock investors historically outperform bondholders. - • **Timeless Investment Wisdom:** Unlock the original 1928 insights that shaped modern investing. - • **Data-Driven Market Analysis:** Explore 85 years of meticulously compiled stock market history. ## Overview This 2012 reprint of Edgar Lawrence Smith's 1928 classic offers an exact facsimile of the original edition, presenting pioneering research that demonstrated stocks outperform bonds over the long term. Backed by 85 years of historical market data, the book explains why stocks provide inflation protection and growth tied to economic expansion. Essential reading for investors seeking foundational wisdom on diversification and long-term wealth building. ## Description 2012 Reprint of 1928 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Edgar Lawrence Smith, (1882 - 1971) was an economist, investment manager and author of the influential book "Common Stocks as Long Term Investments", which promoted the then-surprising idea that stocks excel bonds in long-term yield. . He worked in banking and other financial endeavors in the years after college, then signed on in 1922 as an adviser to the brokerage firm Low, Dixon & Company. While there, he later recounted in his Harvard class's 50th reunion yearbook, "I tried to write a pamphlet on why bonds were the best form of long term investment. But supporting evidence for this thesis could not be found." This discovery led to the 1924 publication of "Common Stocks as Long Term Investments." The book was widely reviewed and praised, and became a key intellectual support for the 1920s stock market boom. Its success enabled Smith to launch a mutual fund firm, "Investment Managers Company." It also garnered him an invitation from the economist John Maynard Keynes, who had favorably reviewed the book in "The Nation", to join the Royal Economic Society. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 brought a turn in Smith's fortunes. Review: Refreshing! - I just finished reading Common Stocks as Long Term Investments by Edgar Lawrence Smith. Refreshing! Smith sets out to prove the received wisdom of the day, that bonds outperform stocks, but the results of the research didn't bear out the conventional wisdom. In all but one of the "tests" stocks beat bonds and in some cases quite handsomely. Despite the difficulty of obtaining data, Smith manages to construct an 85 year long stock market index from 1837 to 1923. The importance of such a long term chart is that it clearly shows the exponential nature of the growth of the market. By fitting a curve to the low points and another to the high points, Smith shows that the market was growing at approximately 2.5% annually. Should this number seem low by present standards, please take into account that back then stocks paid handsome dividends, typically between 4 and 8 per cent per annum as otherwise stocks would not be purchased in preference to bonds. The chart constructed by Smith looks very similar to any modern day stock chart, lots of volatility. Smith then analyzed what he calls "The time hazard in the purchase of common stocks" how long it would take to break even no matter when you bought your shares and the worse case scenario was 15 years, considerably less that the period Jeremy J. Siegel found in his study Stocks for the Long Run. Essentially Smith and Siegel found the same thing, a patient enough investor won't ever lose money in the market provided the portfolio is well diversified and holds the largest companies in the various leading industries. Smith then sets out to find out why it is that stocks beat bonds as long term investments. His three major conclusions are: First: inflation is more likely than deflation and bonds don't have any protection against inflation. In inflationary times bonds lose purchasing power even as the face value remains the same. Stocks, to the contrary, grow in value often beyond inflation as I will explain below. Second: for a bond to qualify as high grade, the issuing company has to have earnings above and beyond what is required to pay off the interest and the principal of the bond and this extra income accrues to the stockholders, not to the bond holders. Third: population growth requires growth of products and services and the companies that provide them grow accordingly. Improving standard of living has the same effect, people demand more and better products and services and the companies supplying them grow accordingly. This growth is above and beyond inflation as otherwise there would be no improvement in the standard of living, quite the contrary. Earlier I called the work refreshing because it goes back to first principles instead of relying on the hocus-pocus of charting and complex crystal ball gazing. In essence, when you own stocks you own a piece of the productive capacity of your country and, if the economy is growing, so does this productive capacity. Where Smith falls short is in his stock picking. He talks generally about "investment management" but does not offer a superior method of picking stocks. His "tests" were based on generic methods so as not to induce bias: "In the test that follow, the only principle of sound investment that has been applied to the selection of stocks is that of diversification. Without diversification, the purchase of common stocks cannot be considered." That task, better stock picking based on price charts, was left for BuildMWell to discover. Smith looked at the tops of the price index chart to determine how patient an investor would have to be. On the contrary, BuildMWell looked at the bottoms of the price index chart and came to the brilliant conclusion that if these were indeed the bottoms then there was no better price point at which to buy. Review: Simple, obvious advice that may be overlooked nowadays. Bonds are not "safe." - Written a long time ago - comparing the performance of stocks vs bonds over time - goes into the nature of what it actually means to hold a stock vs bond. Although this information isn't new to me, it should be required reading for anyone seriously investing. I would actually give 4.5 starts. With half a start deduction for not being as concise as I would like. ## Features - Used Book in Good Condition ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #779,022 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #116 in Bonds Investing (Books) #1,010 in Stock Market Investing (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 159 Reviews | ## Images ![Common Stocks as Long Term Investments - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81Xf6p40+sL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Refreshing! *by I***R on February 10, 2006* I just finished reading Common Stocks as Long Term Investments by Edgar Lawrence Smith. Refreshing! Smith sets out to prove the received wisdom of the day, that bonds outperform stocks, but the results of the research didn't bear out the conventional wisdom. In all but one of the "tests" stocks beat bonds and in some cases quite handsomely. Despite the difficulty of obtaining data, Smith manages to construct an 85 year long stock market index from 1837 to 1923. The importance of such a long term chart is that it clearly shows the exponential nature of the growth of the market. By fitting a curve to the low points and another to the high points, Smith shows that the market was growing at approximately 2.5% annually. Should this number seem low by present standards, please take into account that back then stocks paid handsome dividends, typically between 4 and 8 per cent per annum as otherwise stocks would not be purchased in preference to bonds. The chart constructed by Smith looks very similar to any modern day stock chart, lots of volatility. Smith then analyzed what he calls "The time hazard in the purchase of common stocks" how long it would take to break even no matter when you bought your shares and the worse case scenario was 15 years, considerably less that the period Jeremy J. Siegel found in his study Stocks for the Long Run. Essentially Smith and Siegel found the same thing, a patient enough investor won't ever lose money in the market provided the portfolio is well diversified and holds the largest companies in the various leading industries. Smith then sets out to find out why it is that stocks beat bonds as long term investments. His three major conclusions are: First: inflation is more likely than deflation and bonds don't have any protection against inflation. In inflationary times bonds lose purchasing power even as the face value remains the same. Stocks, to the contrary, grow in value often beyond inflation as I will explain below. Second: for a bond to qualify as high grade, the issuing company has to have earnings above and beyond what is required to pay off the interest and the principal of the bond and this extra income accrues to the stockholders, not to the bond holders. Third: population growth requires growth of products and services and the companies that provide them grow accordingly. Improving standard of living has the same effect, people demand more and better products and services and the companies supplying them grow accordingly. This growth is above and beyond inflation as otherwise there would be no improvement in the standard of living, quite the contrary. Earlier I called the work refreshing because it goes back to first principles instead of relying on the hocus-pocus of charting and complex crystal ball gazing. In essence, when you own stocks you own a piece of the productive capacity of your country and, if the economy is growing, so does this productive capacity. Where Smith falls short is in his stock picking. He talks generally about "investment management" but does not offer a superior method of picking stocks. His "tests" were based on generic methods so as not to induce bias: "In the test that follow, the only principle of sound investment that has been applied to the selection of stocks is that of diversification. Without diversification, the purchase of common stocks cannot be considered." That task, better stock picking based on price charts, was left for BuildMWell to discover. Smith looked at the tops of the price index chart to determine how patient an investor would have to be. On the contrary, BuildMWell looked at the bottoms of the price index chart and came to the brilliant conclusion that if these were indeed the bottoms then there was no better price point at which to buy. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Simple, obvious advice that may be overlooked nowadays. Bonds are not "safe." *by M***E on February 13, 2021* Written a long time ago - comparing the performance of stocks vs bonds over time - goes into the nature of what it actually means to hold a stock vs bond. Although this information isn't new to me, it should be required reading for anyone seriously investing. I would actually give 4.5 starts. With half a start deduction for not being as concise as I would like. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Minor error - page 6 is duplicated where page 8 should be *by M***S on December 24, 2013* The book, probably the first of its kind, is a fascinating study of the state of investment attitudes towards stocks and bonds in the many decades leading up to 1923, and how the prevailing wisdom of the time leaned almost exclusively towards high-grade bonds, with common stock ownership being viewed as highly speculative and not being able to outperform bonds over the long term. As such, the 11 Case Studies show how a common stock investor was able to handily outperform bonds over the 1866 to 1923 period in all but one Case Study, and even that was a narrow loss relative to Bonds during the 20 year period in question. In addition, the book also addresses the effects of massive US currency deflation (from 1866 to 1897) and inflation (from 1898 to 1923) on the relative adjusted returns of both types of securities, and shows how common stocks retained their purchasing power in most of the Case Studies during the inflationary period (and both gained during deflationary times), whereas bonds fell short during the inflationary period. The only glitch I've seen so far is that page 8 is missing, because page 6 was repeated twice. Hopefully the Publisher can correct this in future print runs. ## Frequently Bought Together - Common Stocks as Long Term Investments - The Theory of Investment Value - The Intelligent Investor Rev Ed.: The Definitive Book on Value Investing --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.be/products/8779187-common-stocks-as-long-term-investments](https://www.desertcart.be/products/8779187-common-stocks-as-long-term-investments) --- *Product available on Desertcart Belgium* *Store origin: BE* *Last updated: 2026-10-03*