Peter Lynch Best Quotes & Sayings

I've always been a great lover of baseball. — Peter Lynch

When you sell in desperation, you always sell cheap. — Peter Lynch

Investing is fun and exciting, but dangerous if you don't do any work. — Peter Lynch

First, you find the "market capitalization" ("market cap" for short) by multiplying the number of shares outstanding (let's say 100 million) by the current stock price (let's say $100 a share). One hundred million times $100 equals $10 billion. — Peter Lynch

The most important organ in the body as far as the stock market is concerned is the guts, not the head. Anyone can acquire the know-how for analyzing stocks. — Peter Lynch

I like to buy a company any fool can manage because eventually one will. — Peter Lynch

The biggest winners are surprises to me, and takeovers are even more surprising. It takes years, not months, to produce big results. — Peter Lynch

It's human nature to keep doing something as long as it's pleasurable and you can succeed at it - which is why the world population continues to double every 40 years. — Peter Lynch

People who want to know how stocks fared on any given day ask, "Where did the Dow close?" I'm more interested in how many stocks went up versus how many went down. These so-called advance/decline numbers paint a more realistic picture. — Peter Lynch

In the long run, a portfolio of well chosen stocks and/or equity mutual funds will always outperform a portfolio of bonds or a money-market account. In the long run, a portfolio of poorly chosen stocks won't outperform the money left under the mattress. — Peter Lynch

You can't see the future through a rearview mirror — Peter Lynch

I've always said, the key organ here isn't the brain, it's the stomach. When things start to decline - there are bad headlines in the papers and on television - will you have the stomach for the market volatility and the broad-based pessimism that tends to come with it? — Peter Lynch

Your investor's edge is not something you get from Wall Street experts. It's something you already have. You can outperform the experts if you use your edge by investing in companies or industries you already understand. — Peter Lynch

Often, there is no correlation between the success of a company's operations and the success of its stock over a few months or even a few years. In the long term, there is a 100 percent correlation between the success of the company and the success of its stock. This disparity is the key to making money; it pays to be patient, and to own successful companies. — Peter Lynch

If you go to Minnesota in January, you should know that it's gonna be cold. You don't panic when the thermometer falls below zero. — Peter Lynch

Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it's doing. — Peter Lynch

The best stock to buy is the one you already own. — Peter Lynch

There's no use diversifying into unknown companies just for the sake of diversity. A foolish diversity is the hobgoblin of small investors. That said, it isn't safe to own just one stock, because in spite of your best efforts, the one you choose might be the victim of unforeseen circumstances. In small portfolios, I'd be comfortable owning between three and ten stocks. — Peter Lynch

If you're lucky enough to have been rewarded in life to the degree that I have, there comes a point at which you have to decide whether to become a slave to your net worth by devoting the rest of your life to increasing it or to let what you've accumulated begin to serve you. — Peter Lynch

You get recessions, you have stock market declines. If you don't understand that's going to happen, then you're not ready, you won't do well in the markets. — Peter Lynch

In our society, it's been the men who've handled most of the finances, and the women who've stood by and watched men botch things up. — Peter Lynch

What makes stocks valuable in the long run isn't the market. It's the profitability of the shares in the companies you own. As corporate profits increase, corporations become more valuable and sooner or later, their shares will sell for a higher price. — Peter Lynch

Well, I think the secret is if you have a lot of stocks, some will do mediocre, some will do okay, and if one of two of 'em go up big time, you produce a fabulous result. And I think that's the promise to some people. — Peter Lynch

The simpler it is, the better I like it. — Peter Lynch

Logic is the subject that has helped me most in picking stocks, if only because it taught me to identify the peculiar illogic of Wall Street. Actually Wall Street thinks just as the Greeks did. The early Greeks used to sit around for days and debate how many teeth a horse has. They thought they could figure it out just by sitting there, instead of checking the horse. A lot of investors sit around and debate whether a stock is going up, as if the financial muse will give them the answer, instead of checking the company. — Peter Lynch

Charts are great for predicting the past. — Peter Lynch

That's not to say there's no such thing as an overvalued market, but there's no point worrying about it. — Peter Lynch

I deal in facts, not forecasting the future. That's crystal ball stuff. That doesn't work. — Peter Lynch

It would be wonderful if we could avoid the setbacks with timely exits, but nobody has figured out how to predict them. — Peter Lynch

You have to keep your priorities straight if you plan to do well in stocks. — Peter Lynch

Investing in stocks is an art, not a science, and people who've been trained to rigidly quantify everything have a big disadvantage. — Peter Lynch

The S&P is up 343.8 percent for 10 years. That is a four-bagger. The general equity funds are up 283 percent. So it's getting worse, the deterioration by professionals is getting worse. The public would be better off in an index fund. — Peter Lynch

My high-tech aversion caused me to make fun of the typical biotech enterprise: $100 million in cash from selling shares, one hundred Ph.D.'s, 99 microscopes, and zero revenues. — Peter Lynch

Hold no more stocks than you can remain informed on. — Peter Lynch