Quotes from Benjamin Graham

The happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts.

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

we say that to have a true investment there must be present a true margin of safety. And a true margin of safety is one that can be demonstrated by figures, by persuasive reasoning, and by reference to a body of actual experience.

After all," he may say, "the rules you have outlined are pretty simple and easygoing. A highly trained analyst ought to be able to use all his skill and techniques to improve substantially on something as obvious as the Dow Jones list. If not, what good are all his statistics, calculations, and pontifical judgments?

Thus, in strict logic, all investment-grade preferred stocks should be bought by corporations, just as all tax-exempt bonds should be bought by investors who pay income tax.

Anh ch?ng Ä'úng cÅ©ng ch?ng sai, ch? b?i vì Ä'ám Ä'ông không ??ng ý vá»›i anh!

The wisdom god, Woden, went out to the king of the trolls, got him in an armlock, and demanded to know of him how order might triumph over chaos. "Give me your left eye," said the troll, "and I'll tell you." Without hesitation, Woden gave up his left eye. "Now tell me." The troll said, "The secret is, 'Watch with both eyes!

A long-term investor is the only kind of investor there is. Someone who can't hold on to stocks for more than a few months at a time is doomed to end up not as a victor but as a victim.

The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists. The future value of every investment is a function of its present price.

todas las malas ideas son buenas al principio

You must never delude yourself into thinking that you're investing when you're speculating. Speculating becomes mortally dangerous the moment you begin to take it seriously. You must put strict limits on the amount you are willing to wager.

Good mortgage-bond funds are available from Vanguard, Fidelity, and Pimco. But if a broker ever tries to sell you an individual mortgage bond or "CMO," tell him you are late for an appointment with your proctologist.

dollar-cost averaging," which means simply that the practitioner invests in common stocks the same number of dollars each month or each quarter.

The few good annuities are bought, not sold; if an annuity produces fat commissions for the seller, chances are it will produce meager results for the buyer. Consider only those you can buy directly from providers with rock-bottom costs like Ameritas, TIAA-CREF, and Vanguard.

Because so few investors have the guts to cling to stocks in a falling market, Graham insists that everyone should keep a minimum of 25% in bonds. That cushion, he argues, will give you the courage to keep the rest of your money in stocks even when stocks stink.

In the financial markets, hindsight is forever 20/20, but foresight is legally blind.

Unlike most people, many of the best professional investors first get interested in a company when its share price goes down, not up.

More important, buying IPOs is a bad idea because it flagrantly violates one of Graham's most fundamental rules: No matter how many other people want to buy a stock, you should buy only if the stock is a cheap way to own a desirable business.

No intelligent investor, no matter how starved for yield, would ever buy a stock for its dividend income alone; the company and its businesses must be solid, and its stock price must be reasonable.

simplicity of choice, and promise of satisfactory results, in terms of psychology as well as arithmetic.

If you receive a 2% raise in a year when inflation runs at 4%, you will almost certainly feel better than you will if you take a 2% pay cut during a year when inflation is zero. Yet both changes in your salary leave you in a virtually identical position—2% worse off after inflation.

To enjoy a reasonable chance for continued better than average results, the investor must follow policies which are (1) inherently sound and promising, and (2) not popular on Wall Street.

It follows from this reasoning that the majority of security owners should elect the defensive classification. They do not have the time, or the determination, or the mental equipment to embark upon investing as a quasi-business. They should therefore be satisfied with the excellent return now obtainable from a defensive portfolio (and with even less), and they should stoutly resist the recurrent temptation to increase this return by deviating into other paths.

A great company is not a great investment if you pay too much for the stock.