Quote collection
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"Only in the exceptional case, where the integrity and competence of the advisers have been thoroughly demonstrated, should the investor act upon the advice of others without understanding and approving the decision made."
"It is our argument that a sufficiently low price can turn a security of mediocre quality into a sound investment opportunity - provided that the buyer is informed and experienced and he practices adequate diversification. For, if the price is low enough to create a substantial margin of safety, the security thereby meets our criterion of investment."
"A stock is not just a ticker symbol or an electronic blip; it is an ownership interest in an actual business, with an underlying value that does not depend on its share price."
"Even defensive portfolios should be changed from time to time, especially if the securities purchased have an apparently excessive advance and can be replaced by issues much more reasonable priced."
"Mathematics is ordinarily considered as producing precise and dependable results; but in the stock market the more elaborate and abstruse the mathematics the more uncertain and speculative are the conclusions we draw there from. Whenever calculus is brought in, or higher algebra, you could take it as a warning that the operator was trying to substitute theory for experience, and usually also to give to speculation the deceptive guise of investment."
"Before you place your financial future in the hands of an adviser, it's imperative that you find someone who not only makes you comfortable but whose honesty is beyond reproach."
"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 utility, or intrinsic value of gold as a commodity is now considerably less than in the past; its monetary status has become extraordinarily ambiguous; and its future is highly uncertain."
"The volume of credit depends upon three factors: the desire to borrow, the ability to lend and the desire to lend."
"Individual security bargains may be located by the process of security analysis practically at any time. They can be bought with good overall results at all periods except when the general market itself is clearly in a selling range for investors. They show up to best advantage during the years in which the market remains in a relatively narrow and neutral area."
"Abnormally good or abnormally bad conditions do not last forever."
"The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices."
"The investor is neither smart not richer when he buys in an advancing market and the market continues to rise. That is true even when he cashes in a goodly profit, unless either (a) he is definitely through with buying stocks an unlikely story or (b) he is determined to reinvest only at considerably lower levels. In a continuous program no market profit is fully realized until the later reinvestment has actually taken place, and the true measure of the trading profit is the difference between the previous selling level and the new buying level."
"Wall Street has a few prudent principles; the trouble is that they are always forgotten when they are most needed."
"THERE is widespread agreement among economists that abuse of credit constitutes one of the chief unwholesome elements in business booms and is mainly responsible for the ensuing crash and depression."
"Nothing important on Wall Street can be counted on to occur exactly in the same way as it happened before."
"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."
"The qualitative factors upon which most stress is laid are the nature of the business and the character of the management. These elements are exceedingly important, but they are also exceedingly difficult to deal with intelligently."
"The ideal form of common stock analysis leads to a valuation of the issue which can be compared with the current price to determine whether or not the security is an attractive purchase."
"It is worth pointing out that assuredly not more than one person out of a hundred who stayed in the market after after 1925 emerged from it with a net profit and that the speculative losses taken were appalling."