The successive editions of Security Analysis, written by Graham and his Columbia colleague David L. Dodd, taught that stocks and other securities had an "intrinsic value," a value "which is justified by the facts, e.g., the assets, earnings, dividends, definitive prospects, as distinct, let us say, from market quotations established by artificial manipulation or distorted by psychological excesses" (Graham and Dodd 1940, pp. 20-21). Graham and Dodd admitted that there was no simple, rote way of determining what that intrinsic value was, but they believed that careful analysis could reveal cases in which a market price differed from any plausible estimate of intrinsic value.

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 340