Quotes on Investing

To achieve long-term success over many financial market and economic cycles, observing a few rules is not enough. Too many things change too quickly in the investment world for that approach to succeed. It is necessary instead to understand the rationale behind the rules in order to appreciate why they work when they do and don't when they don't.

Where prejudice exists it always discolors our thoughts.

A conspiracy is nothing but a secret agreement of a number of men for the pursuance of policies which they dare not admit in public

Never invest in a business you can't understand

Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

The environment you fashion out of your thoughts, your beliefs, your ideals, your philosophy is the only climate you will ever live in. The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.

I am no longer an advocate of elaborate techniques of security analysis in order to find superior value opportunities.

Buy not on optimism, but on arithmetic.

Value investing is at its core the marriage of a contrarian streak and a calculator.

Twenty years in this business convinces me that any normal person using the customary three percent of the brain can pick stocks just as well, if not better, than the average Wall Street expert.

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.

Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it's doing.

If you have more than 120 or 130 I.Q. points, you can afford to give the rest away. You don't need extraordinary intelligence to succeed as an investor.

Cash combined with courage in a time of crisis is priceless.

Men who can both be right and sit tight are uncommon. I found it one of the hardest things to learn. But it is only after a stock operator has firmly grasped this that he can make big money.

It is what people actually did in the stock market that counted - not what they said they were going to do.

A man must believe in himself and his judgement if he expects to make a living at this game. That is why I don't believe in tips."

Professional traders have always had some system or other based upon their experience and governed either by their attitude towards speculation or by their desires.

In a narrow market, when prices are not getting anywhere to speak of but move within a narrow range, there is no sense in trying to anticipate what the next big movement is going to be. The thing to do is to watch the market, read the tape to determine the limits of the get nowhere prices, and make up your mind that you will not take an interest until the prices breaks through the limit in either direction.

The market does not beat them. They beat themselves, because though they have brains they cannot sit tight.

Investors should always keep in mind that the most important metric is not the returns achieved but the returns weighed against the risks incurred. Ultimately, nothing should be more important to investors than the ability to sleep soundly at night.