Quotes About Finance

Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.

Instead, he takes those coupons from his low-return bond and—if inclined to reinvest—looks for the highest return with safety currently available.  Good money is not thrown after bad.

If you buy things you don't need, soon you will have to sell things you need.

Do not save what is left after expending, but spend what is left after saving.

an unvaryingly strong liquid position and avoidance of money-market borrowings;

especially favourable future prospects were regarded by shrewd investors as something to look for but not to pay for

References to EBITDA make us shudder — does management think the tooth fairy pays for capital expenditures?

Cash combined with courage in a time of crisis is priceless." -Warren Buffett

Charlie and I would follow a buy-and-hold policy even if we ran a tax-exempt institution.

Some time ago Ken Galbraith, in his witty and insightful The Great Crash, coined a new economic term: "the bezzle," defined as the current amount of undiscovered embezzlement. This financial creature has a magical quality: The embezzlers are richer by the amount of the bezzle, while the embezzlees do not yet feel poorer.

Warren Buffett

When Walter and Edwin were asked in 1989 by Outstanding Investors Digest, "How would you summarize your approach?" Edwin replied, "We try to buy stocks cheap." So much for Modern Portfolio Theory, technical analysis, macroeconomic thoughts and complex algorithms.

If options aren't a form of compensation, what are they? If compensation isn't an expense, what is it? And, if expenses shouldn't go into the calculation of earnings, where in the world should they go?

What's out of sight, however, should not be out of mind: Those unrecorded retained earnings are usually building value — lots of value — for Berkshire.

Leaving the question of price aside, the best business to own is one that over an extended period can employ large amounts of incremental capital at very high rates of return.

When Charlie and I finish reading the long footnotes detailing the derivatives activities of major banks, the only thing we understand is that we don't understand how much risk the institution is running.

Of course, a business with terrific economics can be a bad investment if the purchase price is excessive.

Some Thoughts About Investing

If you invested in a low-cost index fund--where you don't put the money in at one time, but average in over 10 years--you'll do better than 90% of people who start investing at the same time.

My partner, Charlie, says that there's only three ways that a smart person can go broke: liquor, ladies and leverage.

Cash, though, is to a business as oxygen is to an individual: never thought about when it is present, the only thing in mind when it is absent.

The financial system has been turned over to the Federal Reserve Board. That board administers the finance system by authority of a purely profiteering group. The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money.

I have probably purchased fifty 'hot tips' in my career, maybe even more. When I put them all together, I know I am a net loser.

If I had learned anything after years in the business, it was how little I could ever know about what the market would do tomorrow.