Stock Investing Quotes & Sayings

Keeping your ear to the ground in the Markets is a sound investment. — Amah Lambert

Before selling, try to re-evaluate the company again and see where the stock sells in realtion to its book value. — Walter Schloss

Buy into a company because you want to own it, not because you want the stock to go up. — Warren Buffett

If you roll dice, you know that the odds are one in six that the dice will come up on a particular side. So you can calculate the risk. But, in the stock market, such computations are bull - you don't even know how many sides the dice have! — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

When stock prices are rising, it's called "momentum investing"; when they are falling, it's called "panic". — Paul Krugman

You must value the business in order to value the stock. — Charlie Munger

If the stock goes down we want to buy more. — Walter Schloss

Still, I figure we shouldn't' discourage fans of actively managed funds. With all their buying and selling, active investors ensure the market is reasonably efficient. That makes it possible for the rest of us to do the sensible thing, which is to index. Want to join me in this parasitic behavior? To build a well-diversified portfolio, you might stash 70 percent of your stock portfolio into a Wilshire 5000-index fund and the remaining 30 percent in an international-index fund. — Paul Samuelson

All the math you need in the stock market you get in the fourth grade. — Peter Lynch

A hyperactive stock market is the pickpocket of enterprise. — Warren Buffett

Anything can happen in stock markets and you ought to conduct your affairs so that if the most extraordinary events happen, that you're still around to play the next day. — Warren Buffett

A great company is not a great investment if you pay too much for the stock. — Benjamin Graham

It is what people actually did in the stock market that counted - not what they said they were going to do. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

Remember that the stock market is manic-depressive. — Warren Buffett

It is crucial to have a strategy in place before problems hit, precisely because no one can accurately predict the future direction of the stock market or economy. Value investing, the strategy of buying stocks at an appreciable discount from the value of the underlying businesses, is one strategy that provides a road map to successfully navigate not only through good times but also through turmoil. — Seth Klarman

Normally I would not recommend a book that tells you how to make money in the stock market. Most of these books are aimed at gullible folk, and they usually make much more money for their authors than they do for the investing public. — Gavyn Davies

An index fund is a fund that simply invests in all of the stocks in a market. So, for example, an index fund might invest in every single stock or almost every single stock in the U.S. market, it might invest in every single stock abroad, or it might invest in all of the bonds that are out there. And you can make a perfectly fine investing portfolio that mixes equal parts of all three of those. — William J. Bernstein

There is a crucially important difference about playing the game of investing compared to virtually any other activity. Most of us have no chance of being as good as the average in any pursuit where others practice and hone skills for many, many hours. But we can be as good as the average investor in the stock market with no practice at all.
Jeremy Siegel, Professor of Finance, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and author of Stocks for the Long Run — Taylor Larimore

Many stock options in the corporate world have worked in exactly that fashion: they have gained in value simply because management retained earnings, not because it did well with the capital in its hands. — Warren Buffett

I think the very best attitude for anyone investing in the stock market is to make up his mind to lose money.
- The Duchess Gloriana XII — Leonard Wibberley

It's in the nature of stock markets to go way down from time to time. There's no system to avoid bad markets. You can't do it unless you try to time the market, which is a seriously dumb thing to do. Conservative investing with steady savings without expecting miracles is the way to go. — Charlie Munger

The most popular investing products are the worst ones for investors. — Robert Rolih

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

Speculative stock movements are carried too far in both directions, frequently in the general market and at all times in at least some of the individual issues. — Benjamin Graham

When you start to confuse Freddie Mac, Sallie Mae and Fannie Mae with members of your family, and you remember 2,000 stock symbols but forget the children's birthdays, there's a good chance you've become too wrapped up in your work. — Peter Lynch

The stock market resembles a huge laundry in which institutions take in large blocks of each others washing ... without rhyme or reason. — Benjamin Graham

The ideal form of common stock analysis leads to a valuation of the issue which can be compared with the current price to determine whether or not the security is an attractive purchase. — Benjamin Graham

My ethical values prevent me from investing in the stock market. — Steven Magee

Be aware of the level of the stock market. Are yields low and PE ratios high? — Walter Schloss

When Berkshire buys common stock, we approach the transaction as if we were buying into a private business. — Warren Buffett

The good news is, the stock market is closed and it can't hurt us again until tomorrow. — Jay Leno

In the words of Richard Driehaus, "The stock market is like a woman. You observe her. You respond to her. And you respect her." That is not as easy as it sounds. Just ask my ex-wife. — Gary Antonacci

He will risk half his fortune in the stock market with less reflection that he devotes to the selection of a medium-priced automobile. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

More money is lost anticipating the changes in the overall stock market than any other way of investing. — Peter Lynch

Outright speculation is neither illegal, immoral, nor (for most people) fattening to the pocketbook. More than that, some speculation is necessary and unavoidable, for in many common-stock situations there are substantial possibilities of both profit and loss, and the risks therein must be assumed by someone.* There is intelligent speculation as there is intelligent investing. But there are many ways in which speculation may be unintelligent. Of these the foremost are: (1) speculating when you think you are investing; (2) speculating seriously instead of as a pastime, when you lack proper knowledge and skill for it; and (3) risking more money in speculation than you can afford to lose. — Benjamin Graham

Genius is a rising stock market. — John Kenneth Galbraith

An investor calculates what a stock is worth, based on the value of its businesses. — Benjamin Graham

Be a Flea, not a Bull or a Bear. Don't delay, retire anyway. Trading is NOT a four letter word. Buy carefully, sell aggressively. Don't mark duds while drinking. When your plan fails, change it. Don't be slow, don't be greedy. Don't be obtuse with a machine gun pointed at you. There's still time to build wealth and retire well.

The Stock Market Flea: Lessons from the Front — James J. Houts

The growth stock theory of investing requires patience, but is less stressful than trading, generally has less risk, and reduces brokerage commissions and income taxes. — Thomas Rowe Price Jr.

Mutual funds give people the sense that they're investing with the big boys and that they're really not at a disadvantage entering the stock market. — Ron Chernow

Will customers keep supporting the enormous overhead required to sustain ineffectual, unproductive stock picking across an array of thousands of individual funds devoted to every investing 'style' and economic sector or regional subgroup that some marketing idiot can dream up? Not likely. A brutal shakeout is coming and one of its revelations will be that stock picking is a grossly overrated piece of the puzzle, that cost control is what distinguishes a competitive firm from an uncompetitive one. — Holman W. Jenkins Jr.

Our standard prescription for the know-nothing investor with a long-term time horizon is a no-load index fund. I think that works better than relying on your stock broker. The people who are telling you to do something else are all being paid by commissions or fees. The result is that while index fund investing is becoming more and more popular, by and large it's not the individual investors that are doing it. It's the institutions. — Charlie Munger

When we took Netscape public, if people wanted to invest in the web, that was the only stock that they could do it by investing in. So Netscape's market value was higher than it probably otherwise would have been if there were lots of other ways to play that theme. — Frank Quattrone

I always say that in investing you want to buy stock in a company that has a business that's so good that an idiot can run it, because sooner or later one will. We have a country like that. — Warren Buffett

[W]e think the very term 'value investing' is redundant. What is 'investing' if it is not the act of seeking value at least sufficient to justify the amount paid? Consciously paying more for a stock than its calculated value
in the hope that it can soon be sold for a still-higher price
should be labeled speculation (which is neither illegal, immoral nor
in our view
financially fattening). — Warren Buffett

The stock market is a giant distraction to the business of investing. — John C. Bogle

I don't know whether I make myself plain, but I never lose my temper over the stock market. I never argue with the tape. Getting sore at the market doesn't get you anywhere. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

As far as you are concerned, the stock market does not exist. Ignore it. — Warren Buffett

As in roulette, same is true of the stock trader, who will find that the expense of trading weights the dice heavily against him. — Benjamin Graham

Remember that a share of stock represents a part of a business and is not just a piece of paper. — Walter Schloss

As soon as you think you've got the key to the stock market, they change the lock. — Joseph Granville

Nobody wants to be passive; indexing is not passive - much more goes into indexing than watching a stock become the next buggy whip. — Charles R. Schwab

There's no shame in losing money on a stock. Everybody does it. What is shameful is to hold on to a stock, or worse, to buy more of it when the fundamentals are deteriorating. — Peter Lynch

In almost every walk of life, people buy more at lower prices; in the stock market they seem to buy more at higher prices. — James Grant

There is general agreement among researchers that nearly all stock pickers, whether they know it or not-and few of them do-are playing a game of chance. — Daniel Kahneman

Making money from enforcing patents is no more wrong than investing in preferred stock. — Nathan Myhrvold

Quinn's First Law of Investing is never to buy anything whose price you can't follow in the newspapers. An investment without a public marketplace attracts the fabulists the way picnics attract ants. Stock brokers and financial planners can tell you anything they want, because no one really knows what's true. The First Corollary to Quinn's First Law states that, even when the price is in the newspapers, you shouldn't buy anything too complex to explain to the average 12-year-old. — Jane Bryant Quinn

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

In order to win as a contrarian, you need perfect timing and the perfect size. — Henrique M. Simoes

A speculator gambles that a stock will go up in price because somebody else will pay even more for it. — Benjamin Graham

Speculators are obsessed with predicting: guessing the direction of stock prices. Every morning on cable television, every afternoon on the stock market report, every weekend in Barron's, every week in dozens of market newsletters, and whenever business people get together. In reality, no one knows what the market will do; trying to predict it is a waste of time, and investing based upon that prediction is a purely speculative undertaking. — Seth Klarman

Stock prices are likely to be among the prices that are relatively vulnerable to purely social movements because there is no accepted theory by which to understand the worth of stocks ... investors have no model or at best a very incomplete model of behavior of prices, dividend, or earnings, of speculative assets. — Robert J. Shiller

Utilities used deregulation to effect a series of mergers limiting competition. In order to accelerate profits, cost cutting ensued, involving the layoff of thousands of utility company employees, including some who were responsible for maintenance of generation, transmission, and distribution systems. A number of investor-owned utilities stopped investing in the maintenance and repair of their own equipment, and, instead, cut costs to enhance the value of their stock rather than spending money to enhance the value of their service. — Dennis Kucinich

You never really know a stock until you own it. — Walter Schloss

The difference between the price we pay for a stock and its liquidation value gives us a margin of safety. This kind of investing is one of the most effective ways of achieving good long term results. — Peter Cundill

Index funds eliminate the risks of individual stocks, market sectors, and manager selection. Only stock market risk remains. — John C. Bogle

Take Charge Of Your Financial Future. I believe investing small amounts each month in the stock market will give you financial freedom in the later years of your life. — Bo Sanchez

Never buy a stock because it has gone up or sell one because it has gone down. — Benjamin Graham

I've been investing in the stock market for 27 years and, within that time, have helped investors beat the market nearly four to one. — Louis Navellier

You should expect little or nothing from Wall Street stock pickers who hope to be more accurate than the market in predicting the future of prices. And you should not expect much from pundits making long-term forecasts. — Daniel Kahneman

Mutual fund manager performance does not persist and the return of stock picking is zero. — William J. Bernstein

You will never be a greater risk-taker in the markets if you approach life with a completely different attitude. — Henrique M. Simoes

I don't subscribe much to any of these fancy investing theories, and most people seem surprised to learn that I've never done much investing in anything except Wal-Mart. I believe the folks who've done the best with Wal-Mart stock are those who have studied the company, who have understood our strengths and our management approach, and who, like me, have just decided to invest with us for the long run. We — Sam Walton

Although there are good and bad companies, there is no such thing as a good stock; there are only good stock prices, which come and go. — Benjamin Graham

Even people who feel perfectly comfortable investing in the stock market and owning their own homes often have qualms about individual medical accounts or Social Security private accounts. — Jacob Hacker

Unfortunately, for far too many, focused learning ends at college graduation. They read about stocks and bonds instead of reading books that improve their mind. They compare their cash salary to their peers' instead of comparing lessons learned. They invest in the stock market and neglect investing in themselves. They focus, in short, on hard assets instead of soft assets. This is a mistake. — Reid Hoffman

The idea that a bell rings to signal when investors should get into or out of the stock market is simply not credible. After nearly fifty years in this business, I do not know of anybody who has done it successfully and consistently. I don't even know anybody who knows anybody who has done it successfully and consistently. Yet market timing appears to be increasingly embraced by mutual fund investors and the professional managers of fund portfolios alike. — John C. Bogle

If the growth rate is so good that in another ten years the company might well have quadrupled, is it really of such great concern whether at the moment the stock might or might not be 35% overpriced? — Philip Arthur Fisher

In 2008, when almost every other investor got crushed, and even the Wall Street "experts" were down by almost half, I was up 17 percent - beating the S&P Average by over 50 percent.

Reminiscences of a Stock Market Flea — James J. Houts

One, which I mention several times elsewhere, is the need for patience if big profits are to be made from investment. Put another way, it is often easier to tell what will happen to the price of a stock than how much time will elapse before it happens. The other is the inherently deceptive nature of the stock market. Doing what everybody else is doing at the moment, and therefore what you have an almost irresistible urge to do, is often the wrong thing to do at all. — Philip Arthur Fisher

If you aren't thinking about owning a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes. — Warren Buffett

But whatever the consensus on the EMH, I know of no serious academic, professional money manager, trained security analyst, or intelligent individual investor who would disagree with the thrust of EMH: The stock market itself is a demanding taskmaster. It sets a high hurdle that few investors can leap. — John C. Bogle

The broker said the stock was "poised to move." Silly me, I thought he meant up. — Randy Thurman

Whenever you hear a discussion about the short-term swings in any given stock's price, your immediate thought should be whether it matters to why you are investing. — Barry Ritholtz

If you have trouble imagining a 20% loss in the stock market, you shouldn't be in stocks. — John C. Bogle

The term bellwether refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) leading his flock of sheep. While out of sight, the sound of the bell is a directive on the whereabouts of the flock. When earning season begins, the bellwether stock is that of the largest (typically industrial) companies who report their earnings. Analysts look to these reports as an indication of how subsequent reports will come in under or over expectations. — Coreen T. Sol

The stock market is the story of cycles and of the human behavior that is responsible for overreactions in both directions. — Seth Klarman

We have long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good. — Warren Buffett

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

We need a moderately-priced stock market ... The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But, unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do. For the investor, a too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favorable business developments. — Warren Buffett

One of the very nice things about investing in the stock market is that you learn about all different aspects of the economy. It's your window into a very large world. — Ron Chernow

Reliability investing requires finding companies trading below their inherent worth
stocks with strong fundamentals including earnings, dividends, book value, and cash flow selling at bargain prices give their quality. — Amah Lambert

Of course. I favor passive investing for most investors, because markets are amazingly successful devices for incorporating information into stock prices. — Merton Miller

Professional investment may be likened to those newspaper competitions in which the competitors have to pick out the six prettiest faces from a hundred photographs, the prize being awarded to the competitor whose choice most nearly corresponds to the average preferences of the competitors as a whole; so that teach competitor has to pick not those faces which he himself finds prettiest, but those which he thinks likeliest to catch the fancy of the other competitors, all of whom are looking at the problem from the same point of view. It is not a case of choosing those which, to the best of one's judgement are really the prettiest, nor even those which average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And there are some, I believe, who practice the fourth, fifth and higher degrees. — John Maynard Keynes

Experience has proved to me that real money made in speculating has been in commitments in a stock or commodity showing a profit right from the start. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

I am not criticizing investing in the stock market; I am an investor. — Grace Napolitano

I never hesitate to tell a man that I am bullish or bearish. But I do not tell people to buy or sell any particular stock. In a bear market all stocks go down and in a bull market they go up. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore