Gerald Martin Loeb (July 24, 1899 – April 13, 1974) was a founding partner of E.F. Hutton & Co., a renowned

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...

trader and

brokerage firm A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be con ...

. He was the author of the books ''The Battle For Investment Survival'' and ''The Battle For Stock Market Profits''. Loeb promoted a view of the market as too risky to hold stocks for the long term in contrast to well known

value investor Value or values may refer to: Ethics and social * Value (ethics) wherein said concept may be construed as treating actions themselves as abstract objects, associating value to them ** Values (Western philosophy) expands the notion of value beyo ...

s. He also created the

Gerald Loeb Award The Gerald Loeb Award, also referred to as the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, is a recognition of excellence in journalism, especially in the fields of business, finance and the economy. The award was est ...

, given annually for excellence in various categories of financial journalism. He was married to the former Mrs. Rose Lobree Benjamin.

Early life

Loeb was born to Dahlia H. Levy and Solomon E. Loeb on July 24, 1899, in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California. His brother, Sydney, was born on December 14, 1903. Solomon was a wealthy wine merchant from

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

California gold rush and the

Comstock Lode The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson (Nevada), Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada (then western Utah Territory), which was the first major discovery of s ...

silver rush in

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

. Two family tragedies struck Loeb when he was eight years old. First, his maternal grandfather died on June 25, 1908. Then, a week later on the

4th of July Fourth or the fourth may refer to: * the ordinal form of the number 4 * ''Fourth'' (album), by Soft Machine, 1971 * Fourth (angle), an ancient astronomical subdivision * Fourth (music), a musical interval * ''The Fourth'' (1972 film), a Sovie ...

, his father was killed in a train collision in downtown

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

while returning from a day trip to Santa Cruz to make arrangements for an upcoming family vacation there. A local train struck the smoking car of a

Southern Pacific Railway The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

(SPR) train after the SPR train's engineer ignored the stop signal at the intersection of two tracks, killing several people in the car. SPR paid Dahlia and her children an $8,000 settlement () split evenly among the three. The deaths of Loeb's father and grandfather made his mother very wealthy. Loeb was afflicted with

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe sym ...

around the time of his father's death. The disease interfered with his schooling and derailed his ambitions to become an architect. Loeb graduated from Lowell High School in San Francisco.

Career and writing

Loeb began his career in 1921, working in the bond department of a securities firm in

. He moved to New York in 1924 after joining E. F. Hutton & Co., and became vice-chairman of the board when the company incorporated in 1962. Although he had largely avoided personal losses, the

Wall Street Crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange coll ...

greatly affected Loeb's investing style, making him skeptical of holding stocks for the long term. Loeb offered a

contrarian investing Contrarian Investing is an investment strategy that is characterized by purchasing and selling in contrast to the prevailing sentiment of the time. A contrarian believes that certain crowd behavior among investors can lead to exploitable mispric ...

viewpoint, in books and columns in ''

Barron's Barron's or Barrons may refer to: *Barron's Educational Series, a publisher of books, as well as college entrance exam preparation classes and materials, now an imprint of Kaplan Test Prep **B.E.S. Publishing, the former owner of Barron's * ''Barr ...

'', ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', and ''Investor Magazine''. ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' magazine called Loeb "the most quoted man on Wall Street." Loeb's first book, ''The Battle for Investment Survival'' (1935), sold over 200,000 copies during the Great Depression. Loeb updated the book in 1957 and 1965, as it attained the status of a classic financial text. In 1971, Loeb published ''The Battle for Stock Market Profits'' as a follow up to his original book where he depicted the market as a battlefield. Loeb's books are still widely read today and hailed by many as a staple for investment professionals.

Personal life

Loeb married Rose Lobree Benjamin on April 11, 1947, in San Francisco. Rose, the widow of

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

real estate developer Maurice Benjamin, was born in 1900 or 1901 in

Brentwood, California Brentwood is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. It is located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population is 66,854 as of 2022, an increase of 287% from 23,302 at the 2000 census. Brentwood began ...

, to Mr. and Mrs. A. E. Lobree.

Early life

Career and writing

Personal life

See also

References

Further reading