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What Are Stocks Worth?

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What are Stocks Worth?

What is the best way to pick a stock? With over 5,000 stocks available for purchase on the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ alone, along with thousands of over-the-counter stocks, how can one sift through all of the information to determine which stock will net them the best return on investment? How can an investor decide whether a stock price is too high or too low? All of these questions have been asked since the beginning of stock markets’ existence but still there is no clear cut answer.

John Burr Williams

John Burr Williams was a man who tried take these questions and find an answer. Born in 1900, John Williams would end up becoming well known for being a founder and developer of fundamental analysis and for using a using a system which ultimately measured a company’s intrinsic value to determine what the company’s stock price should be. Williams attended Harvard as an undergraduate and studied chemistry and mathematics. Williams went on to graduate in 1923 and proceeded to attend the Harvard Business School, where he first dove into security analysis as well as economic forecasting. Williams first job was as a security analyst at the prestigious Hayden, Stone brokerage firm and later went on to work at another brokerage firm named Lee, Higginson and Company. It was while Williams was working at these brokerage firms that he experienced the highs and lows of both the bull market of the 1920s and the Great Crash that followed after;

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