Quotes on Investing
Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock, and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.
Will Rogers
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The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.
Miguel de Cervantes
Investing is putting out money to be sure of getting more money back later at an appropriate rate.
Warren Buffett
Time is the friend of the wonderful business. It's the enemy of the lousy business. If you're in a lousy business for a long time, you're going to get a lousy result, even if you buy it cheap. If you're in a wonderful business for a long time, even if you pay a little too much going in, you're going to get a wonderful result if you stay in a long time.
Warren Buffett
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In the long run, investing is not about markets at all. Investing is about enjoying the returns earned by businesses.
John Bogle
If you are shopping for common stocks, choose them the way you would buy groceries, not the way you would buy perfume.
Benjamin Graham
History does not tell you the probability of future financial things happening.
Warren Buffett
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I don't want to buy any stock where if they close the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow for five years I won't be happy owning it. I buy a farm and I don't get a quote on it for five years and I'm happy if the farm does ok. I buy an apartment house, don't get a quote on it for five years - I'm happy if the apartment house produces the returns that I expect. But people buy a stock and they look at the price the next morning and they decide if they're doing well or not doing well. It's crazy because they're buying a piece of a business.
Warren Buffett
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The value of a business is the cash it's going to produce in the future.
Warren Buffett
This is the source.
When a management team with a reputation for brilliance joins a business with poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.
Warren Buffett
I am a better investor because I am a businessman and a better businessman because I am an investor.
Warren Buffett
There are substantial rewards for adopting a regular routine of investing and following it no matter what, and additional rewards for buying more shares when most investors are scared into selling.
Peter Lynch
The key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them.
Peter Lynch
If you're prepared to invest in a company, then you ought to be able to explain why in simple language that a fifth grader could understand, and quickly enough so the fifth grader won't get bored.
Peter Lynch
In stocks as in romance, ease of divorce is not a sound basis for commitment.
Peter Lynch
There's no shame in losing money on a stock. Everybody does it. What is shameful is to hold on to a stock, or, worse, to buy more of it, when the fundamentals are deteriorating.
Peter Lynch
Stock picking can't be reduced to a simple formula or a recipe that guarantees success if strictly adhered to.
Peter Lynch
A person infatuated with measurement, who has his head stuck in the sand of the balance sheets, is not likely to succeed.
Peter Lynch
Investing is fun, exciting, and dangerous if you don't do any work.
Peter Lynch
Your investor's edge is not something you get from Wall Street experts. It's something you already have. You can outperform the experts if you use your edge by investing in companies or industries you already understand.
Peter Lynch
Often, there is no correlation between the success of a company's operations and the success of its stock over a few months or even a few years. In the long term, there is a 100 percent correlation between the success of the company and the success of its stock. This disparity is the key to making money; it pays to be patient, and to own successful companies.
Peter Lynch
You have to know what you own, and why you own it. "This baby is a cinch to go up!" doesn't count.
Peter Lynch
Owning stocks is like having children - don't get involved with more than you can handle.
Peter Lynch
If you can't find any companies that you think are attractive, put your money in the bank until you discover some.
Peter Lynch
A stock market decline is as routine as a January blizzard in Colorado. If you're prepared, it can't hurt you. A decline is a great opportunity to pick up the bargains left behind by investors who are fleeing the storm in panic.
Peter Lynch
Everyone has the brainpower to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach. If you are susceptible to selling everything in a panic, you ought to avoid stocks and stock mutual funds altogether.
Peter Lynch
There is always something to worry about. Avoid weekend thinking and ignore the latest dire predictions of the newscasters. Sell a stock because the company's fundamentals deteriorate, not because the sky is falling.
Peter Lynch
If you don't study any companies, you have the same success buying stocks as you do in a poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.
Peter Lynch
Time is on your side when you own shares of superior companies.
Peter Lynch
In the long run, a portfolio of well chosen stocks and/or equity mutual funds will always outperform a portfolio of bonds or a money-market account. In the long run, a portfolio of poorly chosen stocks won't outperform the money left under the mattress.
Peter Lynch
You try to be greedy when others are fearful and you try to be very fearful when others are greedy.
Warren Buffett
The future is never clear; you pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values.
Warren Buffett
Rule number one: never lose money. Rule number two: never forget rule number one.
Warren Buffett
The very term "value investing" is redundant. What is investing if it is not the act of seeking value at least sufficient to justify the amount paid? Consciously paying more for a stock than its calculated value - in the hope that it can soon be sold for a still-higher price - should be labeled speculation (which is neither illegal, immoral nor -- in our view -- financially fattening).
Warren Buffett
All intelligent investing is value investing - acquiring more than you are paying for. You must value the business in order to value the stock.
Charlie Munger
We select our marketable equity securities in much the way we would evaluate a business for acquisition in its entirety. We want businesses to be one (a) that we can understand; (b) with favorable long-term prospects; (c) operated by honest and competent people; and (d) available at a very attractive price.
Warren Buffett
Never invest in any idea you can't illustrate with a crayon.
Peter Lynch
Everybody's got a different circle of competence. The important thing is not how big the circle is. The important thing is staying inside the circle.
Warren Buffett
It's your responsibility if you're buying it. And there's got to be a reason. And if you can't state the reason, you shouldn't buy it.
Warren Buffett
What you really want to do in investments is figure out what's important and knowable. If it's unimportant or unknowable you forget about it.
Warren Buffett
The disadvantage of being in any kind of a market type environment - and Wall Street would be the extreme - is that you get over stimulated. You think you have to do something every day.
Warren Buffett
What you're looking for is some way to get one good idea a year, and then ride it to its full potential. And that's very hard to do in an environment where people are shouting prices back and forth every five minutes.
Warren Buffett
What we really want to do is buy businesses that we would be happy to own forever.
Warren Buffett
The way to look at a business is, "Is this going to keep producing more, and more, and more money over time?" And if the answer to that is yes, you don't need to ask any more questions.
Warren Buffett
There are two times in a man's life when he shouldn't speculate: when he can afford to and when he can't.
Mark Twain
Individuals who cannot master their emotions are ill-suited to profit from the investment process.
Benjamin Graham
Book value is an accounting concept, recording the accumulated financial input from both contributed capital and retained earnings. Intrinsic business value is an economic concept, estimating future cash output discounted to present value. Book value tells you what has been put in; intrinsic business value estimates what can be taken out.
Warren Buffett
To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information. What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework.
Warren Buffett
The sillier the market's behavior, the greater the opportunity for the business-like investor.
Warren Buffett
The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate.
Benjamin Graham
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Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business do not translate into obvious profits for investors.
Benjamin Graham
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The investor's chief problem - and even his worst enemy - is likely to be himself.
Benjamin Graham
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Finance has a fascination for many bright young people with limited means. They would like to be both intelligent and enterprising in the placement of their savings, even though investment income is much less important to them than their salaries. This attitude is all to the good. There is a great advantage for the young capitalist to begin his financial education and experience early. If he is going to operate as an aggressive investor he is certain to make some mistakes and to take some losses. Youth can stand these disappointments and profit by them. We urge the beginner in security buying not to waste his efforts and his money in trying to beat the market. Let him study security values and initially test out his judgment on price versus value with the smallest possible sums.
Benjamin Graham
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Most businesses change in character and quality over the years, sometimes for the better, perhaps more often for the worse. The investor need not watch his companies' performance like a hawk; but he should give it a good, hard look from time to time.
Benjamin Graham
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Basically, price fluctuations have only one significant meaning for the true investor. They provide him with an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal. At other times he will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operating results of his companies.
Benjamin Graham
This is the source.
The most realistic distinction between the investor and the speculator is found in their attitude toward stock-market movements. The speculator's primary interest lies in anticipating and profiting from market fluctuations. The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices. Market movements are important to him in a practical sense, because they alternately create low price levels at which he would be wise to buy and high price levels at which he certainly should refrain from buying and probably would be wise to sell.
Benjamin Graham
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It is far from certain that the typical investor should regularly hold off buying until low market levels appear, because this may involve a long wait, very likely the loss of income, and the possible missing of investment opportunities. On the whole it may be better for the investor to do his stock buying whenever he has money to put in stocks, except when the general market level is much higher than can be justified by well-established standards of value. If he wants to be shrewd he can look for the ever-present bargain opportunities in individual securities.
Benjamin Graham
This is the source.
The risk of paying too high a price for good-quality stocks - while a real one - is not the chief hazard confronting the average buyer of securities. Observation over many years has taught us that the chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions. The purchasers view the current good earnings as equivalent to "earning power" and assume that prosperity is synonymous with safety.
Benjamin Graham
This is the source.
Even with a margin [of safety] in the investor's favor, an individual security may work out badly. For the margin guarantees only that he has a better chance for profit than for loss - not that loss is impossible. But as the number of such commitments is increased the more certain does it become that the aggregate of the profits will exceed the aggregate of the losses.
Benjamin Graham
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Investment is most intelligent when it is most businesslike. It is amazing to see how many capable businessmen try to operate on Wall Street with complete disregard of all the sound principles through which they have gained success in their own undertakings. Yet every corporate security may best be viewed, in the first instance, as an ownership interest in, or a claim against, a specific business enterprise. And if a person sets out to make profits from security purchases and sales, he is embarking on a business venture of his own, which must be run in accordance with accepted business principles if it is to have a chance of success.
Benjamin Graham
This is the source.
Do not try to make "business profits" out of securities - that is, returns in excess of normal interest and dividend income - unless you know as much about security values as you would need to know about the value of merchandise that you proposed to manufacture or deal in.
Benjamin Graham
This is the source.
Do not let anyone else run your business, unless (1) you can supervise his performance with adequate care and comprehension or (2) you have unusually strong reasons for placing implicit confidence in his integrity and ability. For the investor this rule should determine the conditions under which he will permit someone else to decide what is done with his money.
Benjamin Graham
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Operations for profit should be based not on optimism but on arithmetic.
Benjamin Graham
This is the source.
In the world of securities, courage becomes the supreme virtue after adequate knowledge and a tested judgment are at hand.
Benjamin Graham
This is the source.
To achieve satisfactory investment results is easier than most people realize; to achieve superior results is harder than it looks.
Benjamin Graham
This is the source.
The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.
Warren Buffett
Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves are usually greeted by yawns.
Warren Buffett
What you're doing when you invest is deferring consumption and laying money out now to get more money back at a later time. And there are really only two questions. One is how much you're going to get back, and the other is when.
Warren Buffett
Wall Street is the only place people ride to in a Rolls-Royce to get advice from people who ride the subway.
Warren Buffett
Over the years, a number of very smart people have learned the hard way that a long string of impressive numbers multiplied by a single zero always equals zero.
Warren Buffett
Investing in a market where people believe in efficiency is like playing bridge with someone who has been told it doesn't do any good to look at the cards.
Warren Buffett
In the short run, the market is a voting machine; in the long run, it's a weighing machine.
Warren Buffett
The dumbest reason in the world to buy a stock is because it's going up.
Warren Buffett
Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is.
Warren Buffett
Great investment opportunities come around when excellent companies are surrounded by unusual circumstances that cause the stock to be mis-appraised.
Warren Buffett
In investments, there's no such thing as a called strike. You can stand there at the plate and the pitcher can throw a ball right down the middle; and if it's General Motors at 47 and you don't know enough to decide on General Motors at 47, you let it go right on by and no one's going to call a strike. The only way you can have a strike is to swing and miss.
Warren Buffett
When managers want to get across the facts of the business to you, it can be done within the rules of accounting. Unfortunately, when they want to play games, at least in some industries, it can also be done within the rules of accounting. If you can't recognize the differences, you shouldn't be in the equity-picking business.
Warren Buffett
It's not impossible to write [an accounting] footnote explaining deferred acquisition costs in life insurance or whatever you want to do. You can write it so you can understand it. If it's written so you can't understand it, I'm very suspicious. I won't invest in a company if I can't understand the footnote because I know they don't want me to understand it.
Warren Buffett
You should invest in a business that even a fool can run, because someday a fool will.
Warren Buffett
Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they're doing.
Warren Buffett
A lot of great fortunes in the world have been made by owning a single wonderful business. If you understand the business, you don't need to own very many of them.
Warren Buffett
Stocks are simple. All you do is buy shares in a great business for less than the business is intrinsically worth, with managers of the highest integrity and ability. Then you own those shares forever.
Warren Buffett
Experience tends to confirm a long-held notion that being prepared, on a few occasions in a lifetime, to act promptly in scale, in doing some simple and logical thing, will often dramatically improve the financial results of that lifetime. A few major opportunities, clearly recognizable as such, will usually come to one who continuously searches and waits, with a curious mind that loves diagnosis involving multiple variables. And then all that is required is a willingness to bet heavily when the odds are extremely favorable, using resources available as a result of prudence and patience in the past.
Charlie Munger
The number one idea is to view a stock as an ownership of the business and to judge the staying quality of the business in terms of its competitive advantage. Look for more value in terms of discounted future cash-flow than you are paying for. Move only when you have an advantage.
Charlie Munger
In investing, just as in baseball, to put runs on the scoreboard, one must watch the playing field, not the scoreboard.
Warren Buffett
It’s not given to human beings to have such talent that they can just know everything about everything all the time. But it is given to human beings who work hard at it - who look and sift the world for a mispriced bet - that they can occasionally find one.
Charlie Munger
And the wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time they don't. It's just that simple.
Determine value apart from price; progress apart from activity; wealth apart from size.
Charlie Munger
We try more to profit from always remembering the obvious than from grasping the esoteric.
Charlie Munger
Over the long term, it's hard for a stock to earn a much better return that the business which underlies it earns. If the business earns six percent on capital over forty years and you hold it for that forty years, you're not going to make much different than a six percent return - even if you originally buy it at a huge discount. Conversely, if a business earns eighteen percent on capital over twenty or thirty years, even if you pay an expensive looking price, you'll end up with one hell of a result.
Charlie Munger
It's better to do nothing with your money than something you don't understand.
Suze Orman
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