Quotes About Finance

Back then, the rule of thumb was that housing costs—whether rents or mortgage payments—should not take more than one-fourth of a person's income. In 1901, housing costs took 23 percent of the average American family's spending. By 2003, it took 33 percent of a far larger amount of spending.

For most of the period of the boom, only Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch were recognized by the SEC. It was not the particular choices of rating-agencies selected by the SEC that is in question but the policy of giving those agencies a captive market.

General Motors spends more on health care than steel.

You have to spend a lot to make a lot. It's not like I'm sitting on top of a pile of money.

We didn't actually overspend our budget. The allocation simply fell short of our expenditure.

The business end of a six-gun don't pay no interest.

In investing, the crowd is wrong much more often than right.

The stock market is almost magical because it always leads the economy. It goes down long before the economy drops and then heads higher long before the economy rebounds. It always has.

it's a good idea to remember that whenever there is a buy and a seller, somebody is wrong. Make sure it's not you

One of their most famous coups was underwriting a $10 million loan for a growing mail-order house called Sears, Roebuck, headed by Goldman's distant relative. It was the first time a mail-order security had ever been on the market-a calculated risk, but one that paid off.

When is it safe to invest?' there are two answers ... 1. Never! 2. Always! `Never for' the crowd... `Always' for the reasonable man; for it all depends upon what you call `safe,' in a world peopled by fallible human beings.

Never pay attention to any price-weighted index.

There are no good or bad stocks. The company is either good or bad. Stocks are just stocks.

As early as 1947, Birrell had acquired Doeskin Products, a listed corporation, by selling it $2 million in overvalued securities, then using the proceeds to buy out the controlling stockholders. In essence, he bought it with its own money!

If a stock is high enough to be sold, it is high enough to be sold short," was another Sage maxim.

oney became king when Nathan Rothschild rose to power over Europe in the 19th century, forcing people to recognize finance over divine right.

Ultimately, the Rothschilds united to form a sturdy, efficient moneychain across Europe that financed its industrial revolution, creating a common money market for the first time.

He financed governments, wars, railroads-anything that stood for progress.

Although banking was then still in its rudimentary state, Nathan fully understood the interplay between finance and economics, the effects of political news on the stock exchange, the quickest way to bull or bear a market, and how gold reserves affected the exchange rate.

The Rothschild brothers-Nathan, James, Amschel, Carl, and Salomon-comprised the world's largest private bank.

They bought blocks of bonds priced from 80 to 82 cents on the dollar, paying for them in bank notes worth half their face value!

No other place can so convincingly claim to be the capital of capitalism, the capital of the 20th century and the capital of the world.

Tip of the Week If you bought $1,000 worth of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49. If you bought $1,000 worth of Budweiser (the beer, not the stock) one year ago, drank all the beer, and traded in the cans for the nickel deposit, you would have $79. My advice to you…start drinking heavily.

You will never be allowed to buy the really good IPOs at the initial offering price. The hot IPOs are snapped up by the big institutional investors or the very best wealthy clients of the underwriting firm.