Markowitz Quotes & Sayings

Perhaps the most important job of a financial advisor is to get their clients in the right place on the efficient frontier in their portfolios. But their No. 2 job, a very close second, is to create portfolios that their clients are comfortable with. Advisors can create the best portfolios in the world, but they won't really matter if the clients don't stay in them. — Harry Markowitz

Diversifying sufficiently among uncorrelated risks can reduce portfolio risk toward zero. But financial engineers should know that's not true of a portfolio of correlated risks. — Harry Markowitz

In choosing a portfolio, investors should seek broad diversification, Further, they should understand that equities
and corporate bonds also
involve risk; that markets inevitably fluctuate; and their portfolio should be such that they are willing to ride out the bad as well as the good times. — Harry Markowitz

In 1989, I was awarded the Von Neumann Prize in Operations Research Theory by the Operations Research Society of America and The Institute of Management Sciences. They cited my works in the areas of portfolio theory, sparse matrix techniques and the SIMSCRIPT programming language. — Harry Markowitz

To reduce risk it is necessary to avoid a portfolio whose securities are all highly correlated with each other. One hundred securities whose returns rise and fall in near unison afford little protection than the uncertain return of a single security. — Harry Markowitz

Getting the most out of life is giving life your most. — Janice Markowitz

We next consider the rule that the investor does or should consider expected return a desirable thing and variance of return an undesirable thing. — Harry Markowitz

It seemed that for every evil they defeated, worse took its place, but Vaughn banished the thought that this all might be a cruel game, a hoax played on the ... 'No! I know what true Goodness, true Life, true Love is. Besides, this is too miserable to be a game ... unless demons ... NO! Besides, even if I was some kind of pawn, well, then this game piece would rebel! — Darryl Steven Markowitz

If you have to think about whether you love someone or not then the answer is no. When you love someone you just know. — Janice Markowitz

Portfolio theory, as used by most financial planners, recommends that you diversify with a balance of stocks and bonds and cash that's suitable to your risk tolerance. — Harry Markowitz

If the investor doesn't have enough time and skill to investigate individual stocks or enough money to diversify a portfolio, the right thing to do is to invest in exchange-traded funds that give you exposure to asset classes. It does make sense for the individual investor to think in terms of holding individual asset classes. — Harry Markowitz

The problem is, we have too many cowardly, spineless, selfish people that would sacrifice their children's future just to avoid the sacrifice love requires of them in the present. And they expect their children to respect them for that? Do they think we're idiots just because we're young? — Darryl Steven Markowitz

I was born in Chicago in 1927, the only child of Morris and Mildred Markowitz, who owned a small grocery store. We lived in a nice apartment, always had enough to eat, and I had my own room. I never was aware of the Great Depression. — Harry Markowitz

Becoming an economist was not a childhood dream of mine. — Harry Markowitz

My daughter, people are only used to seeing the glorified in a story, because a story is only a tiny, tiny piece of a person's life. Legends, sacred writings, they're all like that. But I assure you, dear child, every one of those people up there on that wall felt like, thought like, and suffered like you! — Darryl Steven Markowitz

I would never be 100 percent in stocks or 100 percent in bonds or cash. — Harry Markowitz

Where do thoughts come from, Father?"
King Mafferan looked deeply into his twelve-year-old eyes. "While I may not be sure all thoughts are my own, I am sure when I own them. — Darryl Steven Markowitz

My next important discovery: Children of Hermes cannot rap. At all.
Bless his conniving little heart, Cecil Markowitz tried his best, but he kept throwing off my rhythm with his spastic clapping and terrible air mic noises. After a few trial runs, I demoted him to dancer. His job would be to shimmy back and forth and wave his hands, which he did with the enthusiasm of a tent-revival preacher.
The others managed to keep up. They still looked like half-plucked, highly combustible chickens, but they bopped with the proper amount of soul. — Rick Riordan

If you fall then that's not all ... if you wish to be down then stay down ... if you wish to be up then get up. — Janice Markowitz

A good portfolio is more than a long list of good stocks and bonds. It is a balanced whole, providing the investor with protections and opportunities with respect to a wide range of contingencies. — Harry Markowitz

If I had it all to do over again, I would do most all things differently. However, how would I know that if, I had not had the opportunity to do them the first time. — Janice Markowitz

Mom, Dad, I'm fourteen, I see what the world is like. And, no, I did not get this from the psychologist ... I came to this understanding on my own, from what I really see in myself and about life. — Darryl Steven Markowitz

The nature of risk may be the single most important argument for the use of quantitative analysis in investment management. Neither Investors nor Analysts can be blamed for this fact. Nor can Harry Markowitz. Nature made risk a quadratic function. Markowitz only discovered it. — William Sharpe

The chief problem with the individual investor: He or she typically buys when the market is high and thinks it's going to go up, and sells when the market is low and thinks it's going to go down. — Harry Markowitz

She scolded him with fire in her eyes, feeling where he was going, feeling as if she was stabbed in the heart. I wasn't saying it was bad. Different doesn't mean bad. In fact, I think you are so ... beautiful! What you say ... it makes sense to me in ways I can't even understand. — Darryl Steven Markowitz

It's like a crapshoot in Las Vegas, except in Las Vegas the odds are with the house. As for the market, the odds are with you, because on average over the long run, the market has paid off. — Harry Markowitz

I am not responsible for the soul path of another person. — Dave Markowitz

During the 1950s, I decided, as did many others, that many practical problems were beyond analytic solution and that simulation techniques were required. At RAND, I participated in the building of large logistics simulation models; at General Electric, I helped build models of manufacturing plants. — Harry Markowitz