Quotes on Time Horizon

Every basis point of return -- let alone every 100 basis points -- has a staggering difference in outcomes in the long run. That's why you stay focused on the long term and the rate of return; that is where the difference is, that is what you want and need to capture.

The first thing I heard when I got in the business, not from my mentor, was bulls make money, bears make money, and pigs get slaughtered. I'm here to tell you I was a pig. And I strongly believe the only way to make long-term returns in our business that are superior is by being a pig.

I don't want to spend my time trying to earn a lot of little profits. I want very, very big profits that I'm ready to wait for.

It is just appalling the nerve strain people put themselves under trying to buy something today and sell it tomorrow. It's a small-win proposition. If you are a truly long-range investor, of which I am practically a vanishing breed, the profits are so tremendously greater.

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.

Avoiding round trips and short-term devastation enables you to be around for the long term.

The prevailing view has been that the market will earn a high rate of return if the holding period is long enough, but entry point is what really matters.

Money flows, in effect, can render fundamental analysis futile in the short run, even while creating a compelling longer-term opportunity.

It is always easiest to run with the herd; at times, it can take a deep reservoir of courage and conviction to stand apart from it. Yet distancing yourself from the crowd is an essential component of long-term investment success.

I think investors always learn the lessons of the recent past. And that is the lesson.

People seeking answers to why the market plunged usually emphasize the immediate events that precipitated a selling panic, when in fact these events are but minor symptoms of much more severe underlying problems.

The problem in investing, I think, is timing. You may be right. But in the long run, we're all dead. Even if you're right, if it takes 20 years to work out, it can be a disaster.

You can lose money very fast, in two months, but you very rarely make money very fast in the stock market. When I look back, my great stocks took a long time to work out.

Survival as an investor over that famous long course depends from the very first on recognition that we do not know what is going to happen. We can speculate or calculate or estimate, but we can never be certain.

Many people pride themselves on being "long-term investors," but acting deliberately when prices are bouncing around is not so easy.

The long run is a benchmark that helps us to understand the short run, where nothing ever stands still.

Faith in the long run is the most powerful force that drives investment decisions.

In the end, the value of your portfolio is not what somebody tells you is likely to happen over the long run but how much other investors out there are going to be willing to pay you for your assets.

Investing for the long run works only as long as people don't believe it.

You can't go to sleep holding cyclical stocks for a decade and expect to be richly rewarded. The rich rewards are in growth stocks and special situations.

In my investing career, the best gains usually have come in the third or fourth year, not in the third or fourth week or the third or fourth month.

Everybody in the world is a long-term investor until the market goes down.

Everyone says they're a long-term investor until the market has one of its major corrections.

The real problem is not finding a good fund manager, it's finding the right time horizon for your investing and what your temperament is for volatility.