Quotes About Investment

Money is like manure, of very little use except it be spread.

Fortune is like the market; where many times if you can stay a little, the price will fall.

I was never sloppy with other people's money. Only my own. Because I figure, well, you can be.

As instituições financeiras comportam-se de modo muito diferente do que as empresas na economia real. Ao contrário de uma companhia de manufatura, um grande banco de investimento é sistemicamente perigoso e se correr riscos excessivos pode acarretar custos enormes à economia no seu todo.

I don't want euro bonds that serve to mutualize the entire debt of the countries in the euro zone. That can only work in the longer-term. I want euro bonds to be used to finance targeted investments in future-oriented growth projects. It isn't the same thing. Let's call them 'project bonds' instead of euro bonds.

The way to a woman's heart is through your wallet.

The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket.

The safest way to double your money is to fold it over twice and put it in your pocket.

Never, never, never should a penny of that miraculous fortune be spent; rather should it be added to. It was a nest egg, a monstrous, roc-like nest egg, not so large, however, but that it could be made larger. Already by the end of that winter Trina had begun to make up the deficit of two hundred dollars that she had been forced to expend on the preparations for her marriage.

If you don't understand it right away, don't worry, you're in good company. Many fund managers and corporate CEOs had only a limited understanding of the bond and derivatives markets until very recently. Even President Clinton reportedly admitted surprise when he discovered the importance of—in his words, according to one source—a bunch of "fucking bond traders.

For example, to value a ten-year bond with a 6 percent coupon, simply calculate what each of the interest payments and the principal repayment are worth today, in terms of present value. The sum of these individual values is the bond's total value.

Most investment banking employees are rational economic actors who know that once they've received a bonus payment, they'll have to wait an entire year for another. If you were planning to leave a firm, you never stayed more than an hour or so past bonus time if you could help it.

This was a standard Wall Street ritual. You obtained an offer from another bank, then used that offer to try to persuade your current employer to give you a raise. It's the only way to get ahead at an investment bank, and senior managers, though furious when you do this, will think you are a loser if you do not. It's not uncommon for a new salesman or trader to multiply his starting salary by as much as ten times in a few years, using such negotiating tactics.

This extra cushion of collateral became known as "overcollateralization." For example, if you started with $100 worth of Ajustabonos, the PLUS Notes would be repaid in full even the Ajustabonos dropped to $80 because Banamex ate the first $20 of losses.

In IBD, young associates spent twenty-hour days preparing "books," the bound presentations senior bankers flipped through during meetings with corporate executives. You took a job there at your peril. After several years preparing these flip books, you either would be fired or promoted, assuming you still were alive. After several more years you would be allowed to carry the books to meetings, and at some point you might even be permitted to speak.

steeper. In a way, the forward curve simply stretches or magnifies the shape of the current yield curve. And if you don't believe what the forward curve is predicting, then derivatives allow you to bet against the forward curve.

The downside risk made longer-maturity PERLS especially attractive to sell. Selling a five-year PERLS to a widow or orphan buyer meant you didn't have to worry about the repayment of principal for five years—an entire career on Wall Street—and even then there was a decent chance the buyer would have bet correctly and made money. Not even a widow or an orphan will complain about receiving $200 instead of $100 at maturity.

However, not even Soros could persuade Congress to pass any laws, and ultimately these proposals failed. Soros, Gonzales, Leach, and others were up against stiff competition. In the past two election cycles alone, legislators received an estimated $100 million in contributions from banks, investment firms, and insurance companies.

From the firm's perspective it was important to make as much money up front as possible on these trades. Take out a big fee, plant the time bomb, walk away, and wait. Of course, after the explosion the derivatives losers would sue, but as long as the firm had made enough money up front and could defend the lawsuit adequately, it would be fine. The important message I took from the disclaimers was this: The way you made money selling derivatives was by trying to blow up your clients.

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.

Real estate cannot be lost or stolen, nor can it be carried away. Purchased with common sense, paid for in full, and managed with reasonable care, it is about the safest investment in the world.

The most efficient labor-saving device is still money.

Anybody who finds it easy to make money on the horses is probably in the dog food business.

It's the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon which raises the fear that it may not be long before we're paying somebody not to.