Best 781 quotes in «investing quotes» category

The concept of a general equilibrium has no relevance to the real world (in other words, classical economics is an exercise in futility).

The considerations upon which expectations of prospective yields are based are partly existing facts which we can assume to be known more or less for certain, and partly future events which can only be forecasted with more or less confidence.

The cost of performing well in bad times can be relative underperformance in good times.

The current financial crisis calls out for new products and services as well as more, not less, information about what is safe and profitable in the future environment.

The debate can be put in the form of the question: Resolved, that the best of money managers cannot be demonstrated to be able to deliver the goods of superior portfolio-selection performance. Any jury that reviews the evidence, and there is a great deal of relevant evidence, must at least come out with the Scottish verdict: Superior investment performance is unproved.

The deeper one delves, the worse things look for actively managed funds.

The definition of a Dark Age is that we no longer remember what we once could do.

The determining trait of the enterprising (or active, or aggressive) investor is his willingness to devote time and care to the selection of securities that are both sound and more attractive than the average.

The distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern.

The distribution of the market is fat-tailed relative to the normal distribution... For passive investors, none of this matters, beyond being aware that outlier returns are more common than would be expected if return distributions were normal.

The entire pursuit of value investing requires you to see where the crowd is wrong so that you can profit from their misperceptions.

The essence of investment management is the management of risks, not the management of returns.

The expected never happens; it is the unexpected always.

The fact that people will be full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable.

...the Federal Reserve has the capacity to operate in domestic money markets to maintain interest rates at a level consistent with our economic goals

The good news in investing is there are no HR problems. If there are no humans, there are no problems!

The Fed was largely responsible for converting what might have been a garden-variety recession, although perhaps a fairly severe one, into a major catastrophe. Instead of using its powers to offset the depression, it presided over a decline in the quantity of money by one-third from 1929 to 1933 ... Far from the depression being a failure of the free-enterprise system, it was a tragic failure of government.

The goal of a successful trader is to make the best trades. Money is secondary.

The first rule (of investing) for me is don't have rules. You find one amazing investment and that's all that matters. If you pick the right body of water, you might not need a boat.

The greatest Enemies of the Equity investor are Expenses and Emotions.

The good news is, the stock market is closed and it can't hurt us again until tomorrow.

The grim irony of investing, then, is that we investors as a group not only don't get what we pay for, we get precisely what we don't pay for. So if we pay for nothing, we get everything.

The hardest thing to judge is what level of risk is safe.

The growth stock theory of investing requires patience, but is less stressful than trading, generally has less risk, and reduces brokerage commissions and income taxes.

The intelligent investor should recognize that market panics can create great prices for good companies and good prices for great companies.

The idea of investing in the positivity of employees is often low down on companies' priority lists.

The idea that a bell rings to signal when investors should get into or out of the stock market is simply not credible. After nearly fifty years in this business, I do not know of anybody who has done it successfully and consistently. I don't even know anybody who knows anybody who has done it successfully and consistently. Yet market timing appears to be increasingly embraced by mutual fund investors and the professional managers of fund portfolios alike.

The important thing is to keep playing, to play against weak opponents and to play for big stakes.

The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator. This means ... that he should be able to justify every purchase he makes and each price he pays by impersonal, objective reasoning that satisfies him that he is getting more than his money's worth for his purchase.

The intellectual and social climate needed to allow entrepreneurship to thrive will not exist in advanced capitalism.

The investor should be aware that even though safety of its principal and interest may be unquestioned, a long term bond could vary widely in market price in response to changes in interest rates.

The investor who permits himself to be stampeded or unduly worried by unjustified market declines in his holdings is perversely transforming his basic advantage into a basic disadvantage.

The key to making money in angel investing is saying no. You meet with 100 companies and say no to 99 of them.

The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.

The intelligent investor shouldn't ignore Mr. Market entirely. Instead, you should do business with him- but only to the extent that it serves your interests.

The intelligent investor gets interested in big growth stocks not when they are at their most popular - but when something goes wrong.

The investor's chief problem - and even his worst enemy - is likely to be himself.

The investor with a portfolio of sound stocks should expect their prices to fluctuate and should neither be concerned by sizable declines nor become excited by sizable advances. He should always remember that market quotations are there for his convenience, either to be taken advantage of or to be ignored.

The key thing for all businesses, and especially of course technology businesses or businesses that employ technology as a key kind of strategic advantage, is you always have to be investing in the future.

The more cash that builds up in the treasury, the greater the pressure to piss it away.

The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.

The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.

The miracle of compounding returns has been overwhelmed by the tyranny of compounding costs.

The more you think you know, the more closed-minded you'll be.

The most common cause of low prices is pessimism - sometimes pervasive, sometimes specific to a company or industry. We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism but because we like the prices it produces.

The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.

The most important attribute for success in value investing is patience, patience, and more patience. The majority of investors do not possess this characteristic.

The only intelligence investing is value investing...to acquire more than one is paying for.

The multiple failings of our flawed financial sector are jeopardizing, not only the retirement security of our nation's savers but the economy in which our entire society participates.

The natural-born investor is a myth.