Quotes on Business

Despite the advantages of size, wealth, a good name and a long tradition, a large enterprise will cease to be profitable if the men at the head get hardening of the arteries or atrophy of the brain tissue or if their heirs prove unequal to inherited responsibilities. Momentum alone will not carry a business forward under such circumstances. Some younger and more aggressive group will assume the leadership of the industry.

If it's a choice between investing in a good company in a great industry, or a great company in a lousy industry, I'll take the great company in the lousy industry any day. Good management, a strong balance sheet, and a sensible plan of action will overcome many obstacles, but when you've got weak management, a weak balance sheet, and a misguided plan of action, the greatest industry in the world won't bail you out.

Investing is buying a fractional interest in a business and buying debt claims on a business.

If you don't understand a company, if you can't explain it to a 10-year-old in 2 minutes or less, don't own it.

I don't think people understand there's 100% correlation with what happens to a company's earnings over several years and what happens to the stock.

Spinoffs have a terrific, terrific record in my lifetime. When companies get spun off, something seems to happen to them. They get better run, even though there were well run before.

The best companies often thrive even as their competitors struggle to survive.

When there's a war going on, don't buy the companies that are doing the fighting; buy the companies that sell the bullets.

The history of business the world over is full of examples of businesses which have grown from modest beginnings to stupendous earning power.

Anomalies are always to be found in the business situation.

Sometimes it's necessary to look at familiar companies in new ways.

The harsh truth is that yesterday's reinvention doesn't mean as much as today's execution and tomorrow's competition. Just as old companies sometimes have to learn new tricks, new companies have to keep changing.

If you don't believe corporate profits will continue to rise, and you can't stomach a decline in the market, don't buy stocks or equity mutual funds.

This is the way the capitalist ecology works. Industries decline, old companies wither away, and young companies rise up to replace them. This process is hard on many, but ultimately, it is healthy.

Ultimately, to be an investor in stocks, you have to believe that American business has a decent future, as well as business worldwide, and that corporations will continue to increase their profits.

As corporate profits increase, corporations become more valuable, and sooner or later, their shares will sell for a higher price.

What makes stocks valuable in the long run isn't "the market." It's the profitability of the shares in the companies you own.

It's worth reminding ourselves from time to time that gyrations in a stock price may tell us absolutely nothing about the prospects of the company involved.

Here's my investment motto of the month: It's the company, stupid.

My idea of a great business is one that has a shortage of competitors.

It's in the nature of Wall Street to imagine that whenever a company sets a record for earnings, it will go on setting new ones.

With every company, there is something to worry about, but the question is, which worries are valid and which are not?

A lot of great companies have made a lot of decisions you haven't heard about because they decided not to do something. Some of the best decisions they did do was to not do something.

The companies that do well, look out five, six, seven years, and some decisions they make may not be the right thing for the next year.

Behind all the smoke and noise on the market's surface, it's important to remember that companies -- small, medium, and large -- make up the market's backbone. And corporate earnings drive stock prices.

The factors that affect the state of what we call "general business" are innumerable.

In a public service corporation, bad management may curtail profits or produce losses, good management may turn a weak corporation into a strong one.

We've seen what happens to companies whose chief executive gets the best press. They are often the ones who end up with the least profits.

We tried to buy good companies to start with. We don't think there are supermen who can renovate them and transform them into wonderful, highly profitable enterprises. We can't do it, and history shows that nobody else can do it, either.

I do not define my job in any rigid terms but in terms of having the freedom to do what seems to me to be in the best interests of the company at any time.

Our attitude toward cash generation and asset management came out of our own thought process. It is not copied. After we acquired a number of businesses we reflected on aspects of business. Our own conclusion was that the key was cash flow.

A common stock investor is one who regards his common stock holdings as a proprietary interest in various businesses, not as a series of quotations in a newspaper.

Probably the largest aggregate losses are suffered by people who invest overenthusiastically in a basically sound company.

The higher the quality of a company the more inescapable is the speculative component in its price, and the more subject it is to wide price variations.

It is interesting to see how unpopular companies can become, merely because their immediate prospects are clouded in the speculative mind.

The official who keeps one eye on his business and one on the stock market is not likely long to be numbered among the leaders.

I didn't spend any time predicting the economy, or the stock market. I spent all my time looking at companies.

Stocks are not lottery tickets. There's a company behind every stock. If the company does well, the stock does well. It's not that complicated.

Averaged out, betting on the quality of a business is better than betting on the quality of management. In other words, if you have to choose one, bet on the business momentum, not the brilliance of the manager.

The stock market registers the judgments of multitudes of buyers and sellers about the many factors which affect business -- what business is like today; what it will be like in the future.

I want a company that's simple. They don't have to make seven brilliant decisions every six months to keep going.