Time to Tiptoe Into Financial Stocks?

Is It Time to Tiptoe Into Financial Stocks? The Stocks May Look Cheap, But Bank on it: These Are Treacherous Waters. Inquiring minds want to know: What would Graham do? This column, named after Benjamin Graham's classic book on value investing, launched only two weeks ago -- and several readers have already asked whether Graham would be loading up on financial stocks now. Unfortunately, I can't ask the great investor directly. Graham died in 1976. But a close look at his writings suggests that the answer is unambiguous: No. That may seem surprising. After all, by mid-July, the Dow Jones Wilshire Financials index was down 46% from one year earlier. It's such big red numbers that get value investors licking their chops. Even after rising over 30% in the past week, the 1,001 financial stocks tracked by Dow Jones Indexes are... [read full story]