Quotes 6


I've always said that a good institutional bond manager has to be one-third mathematician, one-third horse trader, and one-third economist. - Bill Gross

Throughout all my years of investing I've found that the big money was never made in the buying or the selling. The big money was made in the waiting. - Jesse Livermore

Trading has been, and always will be, a hard way to make an easing living. - Jeffrey Silverman

Gamblers and losing traders are typically hooked even stronger than successful traders by virtue of the intermittent nature of the reward. My cat follows me into the kitchen every time I go, yet not once in ten times does he get his turkey snack reward. I suspect that this behavior is practically impossible to extinguish. - Jeffrey Silverman

It's easier to create money than to spend it. - Warren Buffett

I wouldn't mind going to jail if I had three cellmates who played bridge. - Warren Buffett

I don't try to jump over 7-foot bars. I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over. - Warren Buffett

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently. - Warren Buffett

I wouldn't have been the most popular guy in the class, but I wouldn't have been the most unpopular either. I was just sort of nothing. - Warren Buffett

I'd just bet on him. Nobody has lost money doing that yet. - Warren Buffett when asked what he thought the future held for Bill Gates and Microsoft

Bull markets go to people's heads. If you're a duck on a pond, and it's rising due to a downpour, you start going up in the world. But you think it's you, not the pond. - Charlie Munger

Ben Graham wasn't about brilliant investments and he wasn't about fads of fashion. He was about sound investing, and I think sound investing can make you very wealthy if you're not in too big of a hurry. And it never makes you poor, which is even better. - Warren Buffett on Ben Graham

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 on the efficient market hypothesis

If the business does well, the stock eventually follows. - Warren Buffett

When managers want to get across the facts of a 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

Full-time professionals in other fields, let's say dentists, bring a lot to the layman. But in aggregate, people get nothing for their money from professional money managers. - Warren Buffett

Draw a circle around the businesses you understand and then eliminate those that fail to qualify on the basis of value, good management and limited exposure to hard times. - Warren Buffett

I read annual reports of the company I'm looking at and I read the annual reports of the competitors - that is the main source of material. - Warren Buffett when asked how he determines the value of a business

All there is to investing is picking good stocks at good times and staying with them as long as they remain good companies. - Warren Buffett

Read Ben Graham and Phil Fisher, read annual reports, but don't do equations with Greek letters in them. - Warren Buffett on the necessity of maths in valuing companies

Whenever I read about some company undertaking a cost-cutting program, I know it's not a company that really knows what costs are about. The really good manager does not wake up in the morning and say 'This is the day I'm going to cut costs,' any more than he wakes up and decides to practice breathing. - Warren Buffett

When management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamentals, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact. - Warren Buffett on the importance of investing in a business with good fundamentals

My favorite time frame for holding a stock is forever. - Warren Buffett

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

There seems to be an unwritten rule on Wall Street: If you don't understand it, put your life savings into it. Shun the enterprise round the corner, which can at least be observed, and seek out one that manufactures an incomprehensible product. - Peter Lynch

Whoever imagines that the average Wall Street professional is looking for reasons to buy exciting stocks hasn't spent much time on Wall Street. The fund manager most likely is looking for reasons not to buy exciting stocks, so that he can offer the proper excuses if those exciting stocks go up. - Peter Lynch

Between the chance of making an unusually large profit on an unknown company and the assurance of losing only a small amount on an established company, the normal mutual-fund manager, pension-fund manager, or corporate-portfolio manager would jump at the latter. Success is one thing, but it's more important not to look bad if you fail. - Peter Lynch

Gentlemen prefer bonds. - Andrew Mellon

In stocks you've got the company's growth on your side. You're a partner in a prosperous and expanding business. In bonds, you're nothing more than the nearest source of spare change. When you lend money to somebody, the best you can hope for is to get it back, plus interest. - Peter Lynch

The list of qualities [an investor ought to have] include patience, self-reliance, common sense, a tolerance for pain, open-mindedness, detachment, persistence, humility, flexibility, a willingness to do independent research, an equal willingness to admit mistakes, and the ability to ignore general panic. - Peter Lynch