Quotes on Selling

Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results. The better sales will be the frosting on the cake.

Our business is making excellent purchases -- not making extraordinary sales.

Suppose you bought a stock cheap when it was a relatively obscure situation, and then a half-dozen Wall Street firms started cheering for the stock at the same time. I'd get concerned and think about selling. I don't like bandwagons. I'd rather do my own thing.

It's extremely difficult to figure out when to sell anything. So I'd rather have the stock taken away from me in a merger or a buyout. It's much easier.

My stocks sometimes get overpriced, but in the long run this kind of company, if you can find it, will outperform the market and the economy. The worst thing you can do is try to catch the swings, sell out too soon and be afraid to buy back in.

It is true that you don't go broke taking a profit, but that assumes you will make a profit on everything you do. It doesn't allow for the mistakes you're bound to make in the investment business.

My experience is that when people want to give something away at a ridiculous price because they have to, not because they want to, that's a good time to buy.

Market inefficiencies, like tax selling and window dressing, also create mindless selling, as can the deletion of a stock from an index. These causes of mispricing are deep-rooted in human behavior and market structure, unlikely to be extinguished anytime soon.

Some stocks go up 20-30 percent and they get rid of it and hold onto the dogs. And it's sort of like watering the weeds and cutting out the flowers. You want to let the winners run.

The general state of business thus does not forecast the course of stock prices except in the apparently paradoxical fashion that great prosperity affords an advantageous time for selling stocks, extreme business depression an opportunity for purchase.

One of the oldest sayings on Wall Street is "Let your winners run, and cut your losers." It's easy to make a mistake and do the opposite, pulling out the flowers and watering the weeds.

Corrections are unpredictable. By selling stocks to avoid pain, you can miss the next gain.

There's a psychological benefit to tossing the bums out: The names disappear from the monthly brokerage statements; we're no longer reminded of our mistakes.

If you cut enough losses, sooner or later there's nothing left to cut.

If you are selling because of a missed earnings report or the trend of the market or something, you've stopped looking at the rate of return the company can achieve over time.

Through reluctance to sell, more than one investor has avoided the capital gains tax but lost the capital gain itself.

The only significance of stock market gyrations to the true investor is that they give him an opportunity to buy good common stocks when they are cheap -- or at least reasonably priced -- and at times offer him an invitation to sell out at temptingly high levels.

Most people sell stocks at low prices not because they have to but because they are scared.