Investment Business Quotes & Sayings

Time Progression: Wasting Spending Managing Investing — Elizabeth Grace Saunders

A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom As It Relates To Investment Management & Business — Charlie Munger

If you make a sale, you can make a living. If you make an investment of time and good service in a customer, you can make a fortune. — Jim Rohn

Barack Obama's life was so much simpler in 2009. Back then, he had refined the cold act of blaming others for the bad economy into an art form. Deficits? Blame Bush's tax cuts. Spending? Blame the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. No business investment? Blame Wall Street. — John Sununu

Higher education isn't just a personal investment. It's a public good that pays off in a more competitive workforce and better-informed and engaged citizens. Every year, we spend nearly $100 billion on corporate welfare, and more than $500 billion on defense spending. Surely ensuring the next generation can compete in the global economy is at least as important as subsidies for big business and military adventures around the globe. In fact, I think we can and must go further - not just making public higher education tuition-free, but reinventing education in America as we know it. — Robert Reich

...it's a good idea to remember that whenever there is a buy and a seller, somebody is wrong. Make sure it's not you — Kenneth L. Fisher

I take from the poor and give to the rich. They just happen to be the same individuals. Poor and stupid before they learn from me and pay with their time and money, but rich and successful after they do. The truly miserable, however, don't know how poor they are, and I want nothing from them. — Robin Sacredfire

I do business with many people over the course of centuries, and treachery is a bad long-term investment. It simply isn't good business. — Jim Butcher

Governments must take on the central role of creating an investment climate across Africa that supports enterprise and the role of the private sector and provides a clear and predictable economic policy framework for business to succeed. — Jeroen Van Der Veer

Never depend on single income. Make investment to create a second source. — Warren Buffett

People who sell advertising are called "account executives." People who sell customers work in "business development." People who sell companies are "investment bankers." And people who sell themselves are called "politicians." ========== — Anonymous

I consider each business investment based on concept and revenue. — Daymond John

Thanks to the competence, love of God, our country's security and stability, endowed wealth, integrated infrastructure and quality services, the U.A.E. turned into the world's renowned destination for tourism, investment and business management: the interface of choice for hosting major cultural events, artistic and sports, in the world. — Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan

Employee engagement is an investment we make for the privilege of staying in business. — Ian Hutchinson

Your mindset matters. It affects everything - from the business and investment decisions you make, to the way you raise your children, to your stress levels and overall well-being. — Peter Diamandis

I think the association of economics with forecasting is unfortunate and is down to the fact that one great way to get an investment bank's name on business television is to hire a guy called a Chief Economist who will go and prognosticate. — Tim Harford

Most people yearn to contribute, make the world a better place and have success ... all at the same time ... Make sure to give your business a background, a mission and a story. That might be the most important step part of any venture. And remember, giving may be the best investment you ever make. — Blake Mycoskie

You don't spend ten years appealing to middle-aged women and then suddenly turn around and start trying to connect with 25-year-old women. You're almost certainly going to alienate the people who have an investment in your brand, and there's no guarantee you're going to be successful with the new group. — Kevin Lane Keller

You don't need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ. — Warren Buffett

SUPPOSE that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. This is a good one, he says enthusiastically. I'm in it, and I think you should be, too. — Warren Buffett

The critical investment factor is determining the intrinsic value of a business and paying a fair or bargain price. — Warren Buffett

A recession doubles the necessity to be really focused on three or four tactics that can prove a return on investment. — David Gates

On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence. But I can't blame [the Republicans]. This wasn't something they forced me into. I really believed that given the level of oversight of banks and their ability to have more patient capital, if you made it possible for [banks] to go into the investment banking business as continental European investment banks could always do, that it might give us a more stable source of long-term investment. — William J. Clinton

To be sure, the cost of managing capital and of "formal" financial intermediation (that is, the investment advice and portfolio management services provided by a bank or official financial institution or real estate agency or managing partner) is obviously taken into account and deducted from the income on capital in calculating the average rate of return (as presented here). But this is not the case with "informal" financial intermediation: every investor spends time - in some cases a lot of time - managing his own portfolio and affairs and determining which investments are likely to be the most profitable. This effort can in certain cases be compared to genuine entrepreneurial labor or to a form of business activity. — Thomas Piketty

Investment in the eradication of hunger today is a good business decision. If we fail to make this investment, it is doubtful that we can sustain healthy economic growth. Without this investment, our nation may disintegrate into a country sharply divided between those who have enough to eat and those who do not. — Alan Hassenfeld

A great business investment, religion. I'll take it over government bonds anytime. — Ron Rash

I believe this Emperador Distillers investment in Whyte & Mackay is good for the Philippines as a whole, not only beneficial to our business. — Andrew Tan

An outstanding addition to the volumes written on value investing. Not only do the authors offer their own valuable insights but they have provided in one publication invaluable insights from some of the most accomplished professionals in the investment business. I would call this publication a must-read for any serious investor. — Leon G. Cooperman

The establishment can't admit [that] it is human rights violations that make ... countries attractive to business - so history has to be fudged, including denial of our support of regimes of terror and the practices that provide favorable climates of investment, and our destabilization of democracies that [don't] meet [the] standard of service to the transnational corporation ... — Edward S. Herman

Always start at the end before you begin. Professional investors always have an exit strategy before they invest. Knowing your exit strategy is an important investment fundamental. — Robert Kiyosaki

The attitude of the business community towards investment in Austria and Germany has always been positive, as both the countries have earned their reputation as countries with a consistent economic environment. — Yelena Baturina

Your money habits and investment strategy is not all about what you do, but much about who you are. Become the person it takes to do, succeed, and innovate. — Amah Lambert

Networking is an investment in your business. It takes time and when done correctly can yield great results for years to come. — Diane Helbig

We can't all be bakers or chefs. Many of us have modest ambitions. But we can all buy a piece of the pie. — Amah Lambert

Metal business cards are a good investment. Especially if you were to meet Magneto. He would have no other choice but to be attracted to you. — Ryan Lilly

Often we feel that love results from others caring or providing for us, but our deepest emotional ties usually result from our investment in others. When someone says they've quit loving another, I often sense that the lack of love results from failing to invest in the life of that individual. When we invest patience and kindness and dispel our anger and judgments in relationships, we then find an emotional bond springs forth. Like most business transactions, love has to be invested in before we will discover a payoff.
Steven Thompson — Gary Chapman

There are no bad business and investment opportunities, but there are bad entrepreneurs and investors. — Robert Kiyosaki

So Merrill Lynch has launched its first campaign in years to advertise the accomplishments of its investment banking business. The ads feature things like Merrill's recapitalization of Sierra Pacific. I guess including "helping Enron achieve its earnings goals in 1999" might be a little awkward given that Merrill Lynch bankers are currently on trial in Houston for that "accomplishment." — Bethany McLean

And within two weeks, Peter Foo was already proven right. Business for the firm expanded in leaps & bounds as both old & new clients wanted to meet the lovely slave girl that he kept naked in his penthouse & to partake of the ambrosial Nectar that she served. So much so that the three million dollars that he had paid for her was fully recovered out of profits. And new orders that flooded the firm showed that his initial investment on the girl would increase in value tenfold within a year.
He had therefore acquired the lovely slave girl, Briseis,for free. And that was why Peter Foo was likened by the Directors to Zeus/Jupiter, the King of the Gods.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

Any time an investment company has to spend heavily on advertising, it's probably a bad business in which to invest. — Robert Kiyosaki

Shares are not mere pieces of paper. They represent part ownership of a business. So, when contemplating an investment, think like a prospective owner. — Warren Buffett

The investment of money is a banker's business. — George Garr Henry

As America's head coach, President Obama needs to make some big and smart adjustments to jump-start economic growth and business investment, stimulate job creation, and get wages up for ordinary Americans. — Harold Ford Jr.

Individual and institutional investors alike frequently demonstrate an inability to make long-term investment decisions based on business fundamentals. — Seth Klarman

The great personal fortunes in the country weren't built on a portfolio of fifty companies. They were built by someone who identified one wonderful business. With each investment you make, you should have the courage and the conviction to place at least 10% of your net worth in that stock. — Warren Buffett

Intuition is a combination of insight and imagination that was once attributed to spiritual communication. Mathematicians call it 'fuzzy logic,' drawing conclusions from vague or subjective input. The mind becomes aware without the direct intervention of reasoning. Once you can imagine something you can begin the process of creating it. Executives use intuition to make many product, investment, and hiring decisions, even if they deny it. Success in business may depend on an accurate gut. — Jennifer James

To be successful, any business requires a concentrated investment of time and energy; wherein each stage of the development has its tactics and priorities, in regards to which activities and when it makes sense to invest the efforts in. — Sahara Sanders

Throughout the history of the Internet, most of the innovation has come as a by-product of efforts to facilitate communication within social groups of various kinds (academics, bloggers, peer-to-peer file sharing), rather than as the result of profit-oriented investment. Rather than taking the lead, the business and government sectors have adopted innovations developed in Internet communities, and realised significant productivity gains as a result. — John Quiggin

We've always been modestly leveraged, and we've never believed in a great deal of leverage on either our private equity business or on our investment banking business. And I think it really goes back to my uncle and dad growing up in the Depression and just seeing what happened to people who were overly levered. — Warren Stephens

Most business schools are geared toward churning out investment bankers and management consultants. — Vivek Wadhwa

Gold is a commodity; over the long run, as we look back, it has not been a good investment. You can't look at the intrinsic value of gold as you can a business. Gold doesn't give you cash flow, and, at the end of the day, cash flow is what is important. Gold doesn't give you dividends. — Michael Lee-Chin

Common sense is the heart of investing and business management. — Lawrence A. Cunningham

Great investors need to have the right combination of intuition, business sense and investment talent. — Andrew Lo

If cuts have to be made, the question then becomes which expenditure adds the least value? This is possibly what drives companies to reduce their advertising expenditure - simply because they do not understand its full value and especially as it is usually the single biggest investment on the balance sheet. — Paul Dyson

In principle, there are only three main components of spending that much matter to monetary policy: consumer spending, business investment and exports and trade. — Evan Davis

There's no better investment than your cleavage." Charlotte smirked. "I believe they teach that in business school. — Curtis Sittenfeld

Billy not only had a distinguished career in the Legislature, but he also has great business instincts and has done exceedingly well making investment decisions in both stocks and private ventures such as real estate. — Christie Hefner

Things that need to be dealt with right away. This might include correspondence from his office or business associates, bills, legal documents, and the like. He subsequently performed a fine sort of things to be dealt with today versus in the next few days. Things that are important but can wait. We called this the abeyance pile. This might include investment reports that needed to be reviewed, articles he might want to read, reminders for periodic service on an automobile, invitations to parties or functions that were some time off in the future, and so on. Things that are not important and can wait, but should still be kept. This was mostly product catalogues, holiday cards, and magazines. Things to be thrown out. — Daniel J. Levitin

Investment banking has, in recent years, resembled a casino, and the massive scale of gambling losses has dragged down traditional business and retail lending activities as banks try to rebuild their balance sheets. This was one aspect of modern financial liberalisation that had dire consequences. — Vince Cable

The evidence is inarguable that Australia is becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export-oriented business. Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country's future. We are becoming a high-cost and high-risk nation for investment. — Gina Rinehart

In the investment business, you must expect to be wrong. — Barry Ritholtz

The first law of the market is to make the largest possible profit from other people's labor or go out of business. Profitability rather than human need is the determining condition of private investment. — Michael Parenti

A rise in the level of saving can reduce aggregate activity temporarily but only a sustained high level of saving makes it possible to have the sustained high level of business investment that contributes to the long-run growth of output. — Martin Feldstein

Nobody was ever hiring me just because I knew how to write code, they're hiring us to solve a problem that exists in their business. The coding was the medium to get to that goal, when I focused on the goal rather than the skill it made it easier to justify my services as an investment. — Liam Veitch

There are many who subscribe to the convention that service is a business cost, but our data demonstrates that superior service is an investment that can help drive business growth. Investing in quality talent, and ensuring they have the skills, training and tools that enable them to empathize and actively listen to customers are central to providing consistently excellent service experiences. — Jim Bush

For a long time, the film business was a single-digit business on investment return. Now, because of home video, it's a low double-digit business, and the studios want to make sure it doesn't go back into the single-digit business. — Charles Roven

It's when you take that first step opening a business or making an investment that it becomes real. — Robert Kiyosaki

To me it's incontrovertible that investment in people, investment in business, creates jobs; they don't destroy jobs. — Stephen Pagliuca

I'd always had a childhood ambition to go into the investment capital business, and spent twenty-odd years in it. But the thought of spending the second half of my career in the same business was boring, so I looked around for other opportunities . — Chris Corrigan

I'm a firm believer that to really understand a business takes years, not months. As an investment analyst you think you understand a business from the outside, but the reality is that, once you are inside, you can go on learning for five or ten years. — Chris Corrigan

Something out of the ordinary course of business is taking place that creates an investment opportunity. The list of corporate events that can result in big profits for you runs the gamut - spinoffs, mergers, restructurings, rights offerings, bankruptcies, liquidations, asset sales, distributions. — Joel Greenblatt

If you want to attract more investment, foreign investment, more talent, more business, I think having some level of certainty that the business environment respects, those who have been your partners for a long time, is important. — Louis R. Chenevert

The idea that you try to time purchases based on what you think business is going to do in the next year or two, I think that's the greatest mistake investors make because it's always uncertain. People say it's a time of uncertainty. It was uncertain on September 10th, 2001, people just didn't know it. It's uncertain every single day. So take uncertainty as part of being involved in investment at all. But uncertainty can be your friend. I mean, when people are scared they pay less for things. We try to price. We don't try to time at all. — Warren Buffett

The number of managers with great track records in a given market depends far more on the number of people who started in the investment business (in place of going to dental school), rather than on their ability to produce profits. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Eliminating the Death Tax will continue to restore consumer confidence, spur capital investment, and create new jobs which are critical components of economic growth, particularly within the small business community. — Howard Coble

When I went into the business, I sat down and figured that I was indeed one of fortune's children. Just think. There were 20 million buffalo, each worth at least $3
$60 million. At the very outside, cartridges cost 25 cents each, so every time I fired one I got my investment back twelve times over. I could kill a hundred a day ... That would be $6,000 a month
or three times what was paid, it seems to me, the President of the United States. Was I not lucky that I discovered this quick and easy way to fortune? I thought I was. — Frank Mayer

Investment students need only two well-taught courses - How to Value a Business and How to Think About Market Prices — Warren Buffett

That's why it is so dangerous to use infatuation as a sign to pursue a relationship. If you and I don't know the difference between infatuation and love, we are destined to make some of the dumbest and most regrettable decisions we'll ever make. These bad decisions come with heavy and painful price tags. So you see, it's imperative in this tricky business of "falling in love" that we take the time to clearly define what we mean by the word "love." The investment will pay off handsomely. We can actually learn how to avoid future relational baggage and how to recognize authentic love relationships when we clarify two crucial issues: (1) what love is, and (2) what the difference is between love and infatuation. — Chip Ingram

We're all Running People, as the Tarahumara have always known. But the American approach
ugh. Rotten at its core. It was too artificial and grabby, Vigil believed, too much about getting stuff and getting it now: medals, Nike deals, a cute butt. It wasn't art; it was business, a hard-nosed quid pro quo. No wonder so many people hated running; if you thought it was only a means to an end
an investment in becoming faster, skinnier, richer
then why stick with it if you weren't getting enough quo for your quid? — Christopher McDougall

ran - at separate times - a boutique investment banking firm and a small mortgage company. He served as the Treasurer for the multinational vitamin manufacturer USANA Health Sciences years before becoming CFO for MonaVie. Devin squeezed in two brief stints in government, including two years working for Jake Garn on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee Staff and another year working for an independent state agency called USTAR, where he helped foster technology entrepreneurship during Governor Jon Huntsman's administration. Devin is proud to be a Ute, having graduated from the University of Utah David Eccles School of Business, which recognized him as a Distinguished Alum in 2006. He also earned an MBA at Cornell University where he ran the student newspaper, Cornell Business. — Devin D. Thorpe

Time Progression: Wasting >>Spending >> Managing >> Investing — Elizabeth Grace Saunders

I'd say that Berkshire Hathaway's system is adapting to the nature of the investment problem as it really is. We've really made the money out of high quality businesses. In some cases, we bought the whole business. And in some cases, we just bought a big block of stock. But when you analyze what happened, the big money's been made in the high quality businesses. And most of the other people who've made a lot of money have done so in high quality businesses. — Charlie Munger

In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses-How to Value a Business, and How to Think about Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business who's earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now. — Warren Buffett

In order to access private capital, you have to provide competitive return on investment. In order to give competitive returns to investors, you've got to operate on a profitable basis and be thinking of yourself as a business. — Pierre Omidyar

A National Government cannot create good times. It cannot make the rain to fall, the sun to shine, or the crops to grow, but it can, by pursuing a meddlesome policy, attempting to change economic conditions, and frightening the investment of capital, prevent a prosperity and a revival of business which might otherwise have taken place. — William Howard Taft

While I accept that large investment rounds will always garner headlines, it's almost as if the magic number of how much cash you've managed to raise has become both a stamp of approval and the main metric for gauging a business's true worth. — Maelle Gavet

Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business — Steve Forbes

Before I started Code for America, I spent my career around startups. First it was game developers, small teams trying to make hits in a tough business. Then, when I started working on the Web 2.0 events, it was web startups during times of enormous opportunity and investment. — Jennifer Pahlka

I believe the returns on investment in the poor are just as exciting as successes achieved in the business arena, and they are even more meaningful! — Bill Gates

The general systems of money management today require people to pretend to do something they can't do and like something they don't. It's a funny business because on a net basis, the whole investment management business together gives no value added to all buyers combined. That's the way it has to work. Mutual funds charge two percent per year and then brokers switch people between funds, costing another three to four percentage points. The poor guy in the general public is getting a terrible product from the professionals. — John C. Bogle

I am not in the business of predicting general stock market of business fluctuations. If you think I can do this, or think it is essential to an investment program, you should not be in the partnership. — Warren Buffett

No matter what business you are in, and no matter how small or mundane, the activities, there must be continuous investment in it. — Strive Masiyiwa

I think of my business and investments as extension of my family. — Barbara Corcoran

You know, in a business, you have to operate on the basis of voluntary investment by individuals in a cause. With government, there is no voluntary effort to invest capital. It's just taken and invested. And the same accountability is not at play. The same natural forces in the economy are not at play. — Mike Lee

The business world traditionally rewards people for being closer to the top (case in point: outrageous CEO salaries) or for being closer to the transactions (investment bankers, salespeople). — Eric Schmidt

When the corporation's investment capital becomes impatient for growth, good money becomes bad money because it triggers a subsequent cascade of inevitable incorrect decisions. Innovators who seek funding for the disruptive innovations that could ultimately fuel the company's growth with a high probability of success now find that their trial balloons get shot down because they can't get big enough fast enough. Managers of most disruptive businesses can't credibly project that the business will become very big very fast, because new-market disruptions need to compete against nonconsumption and must follow an emergent strategy process. Compelling them to project big numbers forces them to declare a strategy that confidently crams the innovation into a large, existing, and obvious market whose size can be statistically substantiated. This means competing against consumption. — Clayton M Christensen

Do not lie to yourself: not every penny you invest in marketing and promotion is an actual investment. What's the difference? It is easy - if you spend your precious money in a marketing campaign and this provokes increased profit, then that is well invested money. — F. Marco-Serrano

Any prudent business looks at the reality and how to maximize our investment. — John Elkington

Investors should pay attention not only to whether but also to why current holdings are undervalued. It is critical to know why you have made an investment and to sell when the reason for owning it no longer applies. Look for investments with catalysts that may assist directly in the realization of underlying value. Give reference to companies having good managements with a personal financial stake in the business. Finally, diversify your holdings and hedge when it is financially attractive to do so. — Seth Klarman

The UK is the number one destination in European Union for inward investment, the World Bank has ranked the UK as the sixth easiest place in he world to do business, so any organisation that makes promises about investment in the UK should live up to those promises. — James Brokenshire