Quotes About Investing

Well, the most important thing in investing is to know what you're investing in, and if you're confident in the outcome, it's important to stay true to your position.

The problem with most people who play the market is that they are not flexible.

Buffett's genius was largely a genius of character—of patience, discipline, and rationality.

Graham's first goal was never to make money—it was to avoid losing any.

Investment success accrues not so much to the brilliant as to the disciplined.

Better to lose money in a good company rather than making money in a bad one.

The best investors don't get persuaded by stock blips or charts. It's about staying ahead of the curve—anticipating changes in sentiment. You've got to anticipate what newspaper headlines will say next.

I don't subscribe much to any of these fancy investing theories, and most people seem surprised to learn that I've never done much investing in anything except Wal-Mart. I believe the folks who've done the best with Wal-Mart stock are those who have studied the company, who have understood our strengths and our management approach, and who, like me, have just decided to invest with us for the long run. We

the way stock prices are made, the silly and almost childlike basis upon which grown men decide that a stock should be bought, and at what price

The winning formula for success in investing is owning the entire stock market through an index fund, and then doing nothing. Just stay the course.

Of 1,028 stock recommendations made by the typical brokerage firm during the first quarter of 2001 (the peak if the bull market), only 7 were "sell" recommendations.

The simple fact is that selecting a mutual fund that will outpace the stock market over the long term is, using Cervantes' wonderful observation, like "looking for a needle in the haystack." So I offer you Bogle's corollary: "Don't look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!

It will also tell you how easy it is to do just that: simply buy the entire stock market. Then, once you have bought your stocks, get out of the casino and stay out. Just hold the market portfolio forever. And that's what the index fund does. This investment philosophy is not only simple and elegant. The arithmetic on which it is based is irrefutable. But it is not easy to follow its discipline. So

The message is clear: in the long run, stock returns depend almost entirely on the reality of the investment returns earned by our corporations. The perception of investors, reflected by the speculative returns, counts for little. It is economics that controls long-term equity returns; emotions, so dominant in the short-term, dissolve.

The greatest Enemies of the Equity investor are Expenses and Emotions.

So please don't forget that considering the probabilities of future returns only begins the decision-making process. Decisions have consequences. If the consequences of being badly wrong about future returns would imperil your financial future, be conservative.

1) Selecting winning equity funds over the long term offers all the potential success of finding a needle in a haystack. (2) Selecting winning funds based on their performance over relatively short-term periods in the past is all too likely to lead, if not to disaster, at least to disappointment.

The longer the time horizon, the less the variability in average annual returns. Investors should not underestimate their time horizons. An investor who begins contributing to a retirement plan at age 25, and then, in retirement, draws on the accumulated capital until age 75 and beyond, would have an investment lifetime of 50 years or more. Our colleges, universities, and many other durable institutions have essentially unlimited time horizons.

The TIF is designed to be held for a lifetime.

In the short run, the stock market is a voting machine; in the long run it is a weighing machine. —Benjamin Graham, Security Analysis (1934)

While illusion (the momentary prices we pay for stocks) often loses touch with reality (the intrinsic values of our corporations), it is reality that rules in the long run.

At the outset, investing is an act of faith, a willingness to postpone present consumption and save for the future.

like sales margins or profits. In the short-term, stock prices

When navigating the financial markets, the long-term investor must keep in mind the four basic dimensions of long-term return — reward, risk, cost and time — and must apply them to every asset class. Never forget that these four dimensions are remarkably interdependent.