Quotes on Investors

The research indicates that when we women invest, we women do tend to be more patient, take a longer-term perspective and as a result of it, tend to be better investors than men. But the messages we get are that investing is sort of 'the guys' world.'

The dominant propaganda systems have appropriated the term "globalization" to refer to the specific version of international economic integration that they favor, which privileges the rights of investors and lenders, those of people being incidental. In accord with this usage, those who favor a different form of international integration, which privileges the rights of human beings, become "anti-globalist."

To be an investor you must be a believer in a better tomorrow.

We make too much out of past performance, and it's very misleading to investors. It causes them to move money around. They buy a fund that's hot and then it turns cold as all hot funds eventually do. And then they get out. Well, buying at the high and selling at the low isn't going to leave you a satisfied shareholder, right?

New products, new markets, new investors, and new ways of doing things are the lifeblood of growth. And while each innovation carries potential risk, businesses that don't innovate will eventually diminish.

Most investors want to do today what they should have done yesterday.

Although it's easy to forget sometimes, a share is not a lottery ticket... it's part-ownership of a business.

Here's what you should say [to an investor]: 'this is what my company does' It's that simple. What you're trying to do is get potential investors to fantasize about how your product or service will make a boatload of money. They can't fantasize if they don't know what you do.

Focus on value because most investors focus on outlooks and trends.

Investors should invest on what they know. The biggest mistake is to invest on what they don't know.

There's no use diversifying into unknown companies just for the sake of diversity. A foolish diversity is the hobgoblin of small investors. That said, it isn't safe to own just one stock, because in spite of your best efforts, the one you choose might be the victim of unforeseen circumstances. In small portfolios, I'd be comfortable owning between three and ten stocks.

Long-term investing has gotten so popular, it's easier to admit you're a crack addict than to admit you're a short-term investor.

Amassing of wealth is an opportunity for good deeds, not hubris

You get recessions, you have stock market declines. If you don't understand that's going to happen, then you're not ready, you won't do well in the markets.

If investing is entertaining, if you're having fun, you're probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.

You say: "I'm a blue sky thinker." Investor thinks: "You have no business model, and you don't know how to ship."

Investors should remember that their scorecard is not computed using Olympic-diving methods: Degree-of-difficulty doesn't count. If you are right about a business whose value is largely dependent on a single key factor that is both easy to understand and enduring, the payoff is the same as if you had correctly analyzed an investment alternative characterized by many constantly shifting and complex variables.

The grim irony of investing 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.

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.

When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night's sleep for the chance of extra profits.

Celtel established a mobile phone network in Africa at a time when investors told me that there was no market for mobile phones there.