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Quotes on Speculation

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Quote Authors

Arnold Van Den Berg, Arthur Rock, Benjamin Graham, Bernard Baruch, Bill Miller, Charles Ellis, Charlie Munger, Chris Browne, Chuck Akre, Daniel Kahneman, David Abrams, David Swensen, Dean LeBaron, Dean Williams, Edward Thorp, Edwin Lefevre, Fred Schwed Jr, George Soros, Henry Singleton, Hetty Green, Howard Marks, Joel Greenblatt, John Bogle, John Kenneth Galbraith, John Maynard Keynes, John Neff, John Stuart Mill, John Templeton, Lou Simpson, Marty Whitman, Meir Statman, Michael Price, Mohnish Pabrai, Myron Scholes, Paul Tudor Jones, Peter Bernstein, Peter Cundill, Peter Lynch, Philip Carret, Philip Fisher, Richard Thaler, Robert Kirby, Robert Shiller, Robert Wilson, Seth Klarman, Stanley Druckenmiller, T. Rowe Price, Walter Schloss, Warren Buffett,

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There has always been, and will always be, windfall profits. At any point in time, certain people are being enriched unjustly because they get there very early.
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Robert Wilson
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Plungers normally get their head and their assets handed to them eventually.
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Robert Wilson
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For years I have contended that the average speculator does not lose his money in Wall Street. He loses it wherever he happens to be the instant he decides to let the ticker put unearned dollars in his pocket. The game does not beat the player; he beats himself.
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Edwin Lefevre
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Not even the "safest" investment is without some risk and some element of speculation.
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Bernard Baruch
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I think people trade too much, looking for short-term gains. But I don't think you should hold stocks indefinitely.
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Walter Schloss
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We have a stock market which some people use like a gambling parlor.
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Charlie Munger
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As a science, I should say that chart reading shares a pedestal with astrology; but most chart readers have far too much education and mental discipline to consider astrology seriously.
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Fred Schwed Jr
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There has always been a considerable number of pathetic dopes who busy themselves examining the last thousand numbers which have appeared on a roulette wheel, in search of such a repeating pattern. Sadly enough, they have usually found it.
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Fred Schwed Jr
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I think I am safe in asserting that the margin trader, speculator, gambler, or whatever you choose to designate the average man who goes to Wall Street after easy money, does not lose money when he sells. He loses it when he buys!
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Edwin Lefevre
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Intelligent speculators and investors who do not play the market feverishly do not need to spend the day beside a ticker or before a quotation board.
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Edwin Lefevre
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Anything that helps make addicts out of occasional traders should be avoided as if it were the bubonic plague.
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Edwin Lefevre
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The stock speculator, as a rule, is beaten by himself!
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Edwin Lefevre
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When investors -- individual and institutional alike -- engage in far more trading --inevitably with one another -- than is necessary for market efficiency and ample liquidity, they become, collectively, their own worst enemies.
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John Bogle
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Individual investors tend to churn their accounts, they tend to trade too much, and that they trade too much seems to be due to over-confidence. They believe they know something that they do not know and this is one essential characteristic of human beings, which makes them different from rational beings.
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Daniel Kahneman
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You only need one or two good stocks a decade. You don't need a lot of action.
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Peter Lynch
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We are sort of the polar opposites of a lot of investors. We do a lot of thinking and not a lot of acting. A lot of investors do a lot of acting, and not a lot of thinking.
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Lou Simpson
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The more you trade, the harder it is to add value because you’re absorbing a lot of transaction costs, not to mention taxes.
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Lou Simpson
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Tradition, sentiment, vague generalizations, unsubstantiated rumors, can never be made the basis of sound investment or intelligent speculation. Now and then large profits are realized on no better foundation -- merely proving that sometimes luck laughs at logic.
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Benjamin Graham
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In a speculative market, what counts is imagination and not analysts.
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Benjamin Graham
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The propensity to gamble is always increased by a large prize versus a small entry fee, no matter how poor the true odds may be.
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Warren Buffett
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What we do know is that speculative episodes never come gently to an end. The wise, though for most the improbable, course is to assume the worst.
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John Kenneth Galbraith
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I didn't get rich by buying stocks at a high price-earnings multiple in the midst of crazy speculative booms, and I'm not going to change.
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Charlie Munger
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The trading favorites of 1928 were high-priced, untried, and unseasoned stocks that made one wonder whether the public did not think that the higher the price the better the stock.
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Edwin Lefevre
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It is one of the common pieces of Wall Street experience that when the public goes stock mad and the market leaders are filled with the arrogance of prolonged success, such little things as high money rates or decreases in earnings or unraised dividends have no instant effect on the market -- that is, on the state of mind of the speculating public. In the end, of course, all violations of the fundamental laws of economic and financial common sense are paid for; but every bull thinks he will unload before the break.
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Edwin Lefevre
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"Easy money" means only one thing when it means money that has come easy: It means money goes even more easily than it came.
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Edwin Lefevre
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Happy is the man who has no past! The same seems to be true of corporations in a bull market.
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Edwin Lefevre
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Buying stocks of prosperous concerns may be good business -- but only at a certain price. But if you will make sure you know what you are getting for your money, you will be doing what nobody does in a bull market.
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Edwin Lefevre
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When people think there's easy money available, they're not inclined to change.
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Warren Buffett
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I would rather sustain the penalties resulting from over-conservatism than face the consequences of error, perhaps with permanent capital loss, resulting from the adoption of a "New Era" philosophy where trees really do grow to the sky.
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Warren Buffett
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There is nothing at all conservative, in my opinion, about speculating as to just how high a multiplier a greedy and capricious public will put on earnings.
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Warren Buffett
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Any form of hyper-activity with large amounts of money in securities markets can create problems for all participants.
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Warren Buffett
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I will not abandon a previous approach whose logic I understand even though it may mean foregoing large and apparently easy, profits to embrace an approach which I don’t fully understand, have not practiced successfully and which, possibly, could lead to substantial permanent loss of capital.
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Warren Buffett
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We live in an investment world, populated not by those who must be logically persuaded to believe, but by the hopeful, credulous and greedy, grasping for an excuse to believe.
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Warren Buffett
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It makes no sense for individual investors to jump in and out of the market. People who trade in that way rarely die rich, whereas the patient investor often does.
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Philip Carret
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Any time you offer a big prize for a small amount of money, you encourage stupid behavior on behalf of those you're appealing to.
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Warren Buffett
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Buy only what you understand, believe in, and intend to stick with -- even when others are chasing the next miracle.
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Peter Lynch
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I know plenty of guys who consider themselves to be long-term investors but who are still perfectly happy to trade in and out and back into their favorite stocks.
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Philip Fisher
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The line I draw in the sand is that if an asset has cash flow or the likelihood of cash flow in the near term and is not purely dependent on what a future buyer might pay, then it’s an investment. If an asset’s value is totally dependent on the amount a future buyer might pay, then its purchase is speculation.
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Seth Klarman
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If the market's going wild and you want to be in it, you either have to lower your standards to stay in the game or you buy stuff which may not participate because it's not part of the game at that time.
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Walter Schloss
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The first task of the bargain hunter is to narrow the field and separate the solid prospects from the ones that are counting on hopes, prayers, and miracles.
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Peter Lynch
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Avoid long shots. I've bought about 30 long shots in my life. I've never broken even on one.
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Peter Lynch
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The average trader is naturally a chronic bull. It is human nature to prefer optimism to pessimism.
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Philip Carret
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Fashions play their part in the stock market as in other affairs of life.
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Philip Carret
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To lose money is the conventional penalty for bad judgment in speculation.
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Philip Carret
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The stock market itself seems to be mainly driven by fashions and fads. However, when you look at individual stocks, it’s a different story, because individual stocks are much more diverse, and some of them can be predicted to perform well over the long run.
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Robert Shiller
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When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done.
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John Maynard Keynes
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Speculators may do no harm as bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enterprise becomes the bubble on a whirlpool of speculation.
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John Maynard Keynes
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Speculation is a loser's game. Because of the costs, it has to be a loser's game.
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John Bogle
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The occupational disease of the speculator is acute uneasiness.
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John Kenneth Galbraith
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Almost any asset can be risky or safe, depending on how other investors treat it.
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Howard Marks
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Speculation, I imagine, is a theme almost as popular as love; but in both cases most of the comments made are rather trite and not particularly helpful.
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Benjamin Graham
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Speculative operations are all concerned with changes in price. In some cases the emphasis is on price changes alone, and in other cases the emphasis is on changes in value which are expected to give rise to changes in price.
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Benjamin Graham
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Booms start with some tie-in to reality, some reason which justifies the increase in asset values, and then -- and this is the critical feature of speculative mood -- the market loses touch with reality.
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John Kenneth Galbraith
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Let us define the speculator as one who seeks to profit from market movements, without primary regard to intrinsic values; the "prudent stock investor" as one who (a) buys only at prices amply supported by underlying value, and (b) who determinedly reduces his stock holdings when the market enters the speculative phase of a sustained advance.
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Benjamin Graham
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Participation in the stock market is not limited to the experienced, the conservative, nor even the intelligent. It is a game at which any number of people may play. And as the market level rises, the quantity of players grows rapidly and their quality diminishes somewhat in proportion.
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Benjamin Graham
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The chief hazard of a careful common stock program is not that it may bring unexpected losses, but that its profits will turn the investor into a speculator greedy for quicker and bigger gains -- and therefore headed for ultimate disaster.
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Benjamin Graham
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In the halcyon days of prosperity, the investor is satisfied with increased dividends and a rising market, and cares very little about dry statistics.
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Benjamin Graham
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The typical experience of the speculator is one of temporary profit and ultimate loss.
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Benjamin Graham
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Speculators often prosper through ignorance.
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Benjamin Graham
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People without experience or superior ability may make a lot of money fast in the stock market, but they cannot keep what they make, and most of them will end up as net losers.
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Benjamin Graham
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The investor must recognize that there are uncertain, and hence, speculative elements inherent in any policy he follows.
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Benjamin Graham
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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.
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Benjamin Graham
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Let us define the speculator as one who seeks to profit from market movements, without primary regard to intrinsic value; the prudent stock investor as one who (a) buys only at prices amply supported by underlying value, and (b) who determinedly reduces his stock holdings when the market enters the speculative phase of a sustained advance.
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Benjamin Graham
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When stocks are rising for no better reason than that they have risen, the greater fool is at work.
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Seth Klarman
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Market timing is speculating and it rarely, if ever, pays off.
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Peter Lynch
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If a common stock is a good investment it is also a good speculation.
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Benjamin Graham
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Allied to the general pattern of market movements is the general pattern of speculative thinking.
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Benjamin Graham
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If the relative stability of general business and corporate profits produces an unlimited enthusiasm and demand for common stocks, then it must eventually produce instability in stock prices.
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Benjamin Graham
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Good common stocks are investment media which are subject to speculative influences. The speculative influences are not in the common stocks; they are in the minds of the people who buy and sell them.
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Benjamin Graham
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The problem of investment in common stocks is either to insulate yourselves from the speculative influences, or else to adjust your investment policy so that you can take advantage of the speculative fluctuations that are imposed upon the basic investment quality of common stocks.
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Benjamin Graham
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