Fama Quotes & Sayings

Debates go on to this day about what caused the Great Depression. Economics is not very good at explaining swings in economic activity. — Eugene Fama

She looked out across the water and allowed the feeling of longing to wash over her, spill into the crevices of her soul, and fill her completely. — Elizabeth Fama

Markets are efficient, but there are different dimensions of risk and those lead to different dimensions of expected returns. That's what people should be concerned with in their investment decisions and not with whether they can pick stocks, pick winners and losers among the various managers delivering basically the same product. — Eugene Fama

Active management is a zero-sum game before cost, and the winners have to win at the expense of the losers. — Eugene Fama

The bridge was geologically ancient, an impassive observer, surrounded by life that was fleeting in comparison: trees that would only survive hundreds of years, tourists who would only live decades, insects that would thrive only for weeks. — Elizabeth Fama

Modest fame is not to be despised by the highest characters.
[Lat., Modestiae fama neque summis mortalibus spernenda est.] — Tacitus

She wanted a smile that was meant only for her. — Elizabeth Fama

Believe me I don't want to set the world on fire I just want to start a flame in your heart — Elizabeth Fama

Powerless But for the star destroyer Unknowing She crash-lands in his heart. — Elizabeth Fama

When you give your heart to the ocean, you either drown, or spend your life wishing you had drowned. — Elizabeth Fama

Four houndred billion suns spiraling through space together. Our solar system just one grain on that galactic carousel. The carousel itself a speck in the cosmos. And here I am in this small clearing, on the surface of the heart, as transient and unnoticed to the universe as the dry blades of grass that are poking into my shirt. It's too much to comprehend up there, too enormous, and I'm so small when it's on top of me. It frightens me, like I'm being crushed. — Elizabeth Fama

The thing is, when you're with someone like Poppu - someone who sees straight through your battered facade and loves every bit of you, someone who makes you laugh until you pee your pants, someone who grabs you in a hug exactly when you need it - you don't crave any kind of approval from strangers. You don't need to "matter" in the world, because you already matter to the only person who counts. — Elizabeth Fama

I'm an extreme libertarian, but I realize we're in a democracy, and in a democracy, people can have views of all stripes, and there's no reason to argue about it. — Eugene Fama

I don't believe anyone wants to hear what I have to say. — Eugene Fama

I don't think the Federal Reserve has any role in how high rates are right now. I don't understand why everyone is paying attention to this tapering. The Fed is using one kind of bond to buy another kind of bond. What's the big deal, and why is anyone taking the Fed seriously? — Eugene Fama

It was a woman
as pale and luminescent as a ghost, with swirling white hair. Ezra startled, dropping his pencil into the water. Her face snapped toward him. Her eyes were too large, clear green, and had horizontal, slit-shaped pupils, reminiscent of an octopus. — Elizabeth Fama

There was a smart, sunny girl out there right now somewhere, a Ray on a trajectory that would cross his path, a girl who made sense with him. I was just as glad not to know her this very minute, but she existed, and he would run into her, and with time I would accept it. — Elizabeth Fama

Look at the mid- sky, about halfway up from the horizon, and wait for your eyes to adjust," I said softly. "It will take five to ten minutes."He was quiet. The sky was full of stars; and the spaces between them were not fully black, because the longer we stared, the more the pricks of other stars peeked behind and next to them. I stole that time to listen to him breathe. I soaked up his presence, storing it for the future, burning it into my memory. — Elizabeth Fama

I don't know what a credit bubble means. I don't even know what a bubble means. These words have become popular. I don't think they have any meaning. — Eugene Fama

People would be a lot more skeptical if they understood that there is an incredible amount of chance in the results that you observe for active managers. The distribution of outcomes is enormously wide-but that's exactly what you'd expect by chance with lots of active managers who hold imperfectly diversified portfolios. The really good portfolios contain a lot of really lucky picks, and the really bad portfolios contain a lot of really unlucky picks as well as some really bad ones. — Eugene Fama

State constitutions typically provide that the state first has to service its debt, then make it pension payments, and then pay for services. What we don't know is whether that order will be enforced. And ultimately, the busted state is going to be looking to the federal government for a bailout. Think Greece, but on a much bigger scale. — Eugene Fama

In sum, economists (and those who listened to them) became overconfident in their preferred models of the moment: markets are efficient, financial innovation improves the risk-return trade-off, self-regulation works best, and government intervention is ineffective and harmful. They forgot about the other models. There was too much Fama, too little Shiller. The economics of the profession may have been fine, but evidently there was trouble with its psychology and sociology. — Dani Rodrik

People don't walk away from their homes unless they can't make the payments. That's an indication that we are in a recession. — Eugene Fama

People are always saying that prices are too high. When they turn out to be right, we anoint them. When they turn out to be wrong, we ignore them. They are typically right and wrong about half the time. — Eugene Fama

You're not a dork, you're adorkable. — Elizabeth Fama

The more she loved, the more she ached. — Elizabeth Fama

After taking risk into account, do more managers than you'd see by chance outperform with persistence? Virtually every economist who studied this question answers with a resounding 'no.' — Eugene Fama

Economies typically do not function well in hyperinflation. The real value of government debt might disappear, but the economy is likely to disappear with it. — Eugene Fama

The efficient market theory is one of the better models in the sense that it can be taken as true for every purpose I can think of. For investment purposes, there are very few investors that shouldn't behave as if markets are totally efficient. — Eugene Fama

After costs, only the top 3% of managers produce a return that indicates they have sufficient skill to just cover their costs, which means that going forward, and despite extraordinary past returns, even the top performers are expected to be only as good as a low-cost passive index fund. The other 97% can be expected to do worse. — Eugene Fama

In an efficient market, at any point in time, the actual price of a security will be a good estimate of its intrinsic value. — Eugene Fama

I can't figure out why anyone invests in active management, so asking me about hedge funds is just an extreme version of the same question. Since I think everything is appropriately priced, my advice would be to avoid high fees. So you can forget about hedge funds. — Eugene Fama

The distribution of the market is fat-tailed relative to the normal distribution ... For passive investors, none of this matters, beyond being aware that outlier returns are more common than would be expected if return distributions were normal. — Eugene Fama

What an ephemeral thing human will is, to be manipulated by a couple of drops of hormones! — Elizabeth Fama

An investor doesn't have a prayer of picking a manager that can deliver true alpha. — Eugene Fama

The love of fame usually spurs on the mind.
[Lat., Ingenio stimulos subdere fama solet.] — Ovid

Death is the privilege of human nature
And life without it were not worth our taking
Thither the poor, the unfortunate, and Mourner
Fly for relief & lay their burdens down. — Elizabeth Fama

There is no satisfaction in eternity,' she said. 'There is only loss. — Elizabeth Fama

I'd compare stock pickers to astrologers but I don't want to bad mouth astrologers. — Eugene Fama

I take the market-efficiency hypothesis to be the simple statement that security prices fully reflect all available information. — Eugene Fama

But after he tells you how they died, I want you to remember how they lived( ... ) — Elizabeth Fama