Quotes

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.

A large advance in the stock market is basically a sign for caution and not a reason for confidence.

Investors feelings and reactions regarding inflation are probably more the result of the stock market action that they have recently experienced than the cause of it.

The investor must recognize that there are uncertain, and hence, speculative elements inherent in any policy he follows.

In 44 years of Wall Street experience and study, I have never seen dependable calculations made about common stock values, or related investment policies, that went beyond simple arithmetic or the most elementary algebra.

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.

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

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.

The future, as I see it, is something to be protected against rather than to exploit.

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

Experience in former markets indicates that just as they are too high in bull markets, they get too low in bear markets.

These chaps start out reading Graham and Dodd and I'm sure most of them are quite impressed by it in business school. I take some malicious pleasure in saying it's the book on finance that's been read by more people and disregarded by more people than any other that I know of.