David Dodd

David LeFevre Dodd (August 23, 1895 – September 18, 1988) was an American educator, financial analyst, author, economist, and investor. In his student years, Dodd was a protégé and colleague of Benjamin Graham at Columbia Business School.

The Wall Street crash of 1929 (Black Tuesday) almost wiped out Graham, who had started teaching the year before at his alma mater, Columbia. The crash inspired Graham to search for a more conservative, safer way to invest. Graham agreed to teach with the stipulation that someone take notes. Dodd, then a young instructor at Columbia, volunteered. Those transcriptions served as the basis for a 1934 book Security Analysis, which galvanized the concept of value investing. It is the longest running investment text ever published.

Early life and education In 1916, Dodd graduated from High Street School, a high school in Martinsburg, West Virginia, where his father was the principal. In 1920, he completed his Bachelor of Science, at University of Pennsylvania. One year later, he received his Master of Science at Columbia University.

Academic life From 1922 to 1925, Dodd was an instructor of economics at Columbia University. From 1925 to 1930, he became an instructor of finance. From 1926 to 1945, he was in charge of the business and economics courses. In 1930, he received his PhD from Columbia University. From 1930 to 1938, Dodd was an assistant professor there, from 1938 to 1947 an associate professor, and from 1947 to 1961 a full professor. From 1948 to 1952, he was associate dean at the Columbia Business School. In 1961, he retired as professor emeritus in finance at Columbia University. On May 17, 1984, on the 50th anniversary of publishing Security Analysis, Michael I. Sovern, president of Columbia University, awarded Dodd a Doctor of Letters, an honorary degree, for applying financial theories with brilliant results in a highly competitive world of investments. Columbia President Michael Sovern bestowed the honor during Columbia's 230th commencement exercises.

Dodd was a member of the following organizations: American Economic Association, Social Science Research Council (investment committee 1950–1956), American Finance Association (vice president 1946–1947), New York Society of Security Analysts, Beta Gamma Sigma, Phi Gamma Delta, Alpha Kappa Psi, and Phi Chi Theta.

At the time of his death, various editions of the book he coauthored, Security Analysis, had sold over 250,000 copies. Shortly after the death of David Dodd in 1988, Bruce Greenwald, a star professor at CBS, took a keen interest in Value Investing. He found the overwhelming success of Value investors difficult to dismiss. At the same time, reliable data that fortified Value Investing was solidifying, while MPT was showing some flaws. Professor Greenwald invigorated the academic aspects of what many in ivory towers erstwhile treated as a vocational discipline.

MPT pundits argue that the Warren Buffett's long-term record is a statistical three- to five-sigma event—that is, his success is probable, but not replicable with certainty.

Yet the success of numerous other investment funds and practitioners who applied value investing theories weakened assertions attributing success to chance. Because Value Investing rejects MPT and its use of sophisticated statistics, there's irony when MPT theorists attribute its success to tails of standard deviation. Bruce Greenwald overhauled and relaunched the Value Investing curriculum at Columbia in the spring of 1994. Today, Value Investing enjoys broad appeal among academicians and investors around the world. Professor Greenwald is the Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business.

Personal life

On August 9, 1924, he married Elsie Marguerite Firor (Mar 22, 1898 – 22 June 2001).

David Dodd died September 18, 1988, aged 93, of respiratory failure at Maine Medical Center, Portland, Maine. At the time he was living on Chebeague Island, Maine in Casco Bay. His daughter, Barbara Dodd Anderson (1932–2010) lived in Northern California and was a benefactor of the Heilbrunn Center for Graham and Dodd Investing.