Insights From The Most Successful Investors In History

“If investing is entertaining, if you’re having fun, you’re probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.”
-George Soros
Source: Winning Investment Habits Of Warren Buffet And George Soros

“Smart investing doesn’t consist of buying good assets, but of buying assets well. This is a very, very important distinction that very, very few people understand. ”
– Howard Marks
Source: Advisor Perspectives

“If you have trouble imaging a 20% loss in the stock market, you shouldn’t be in stocks.”
Jack Bogle
Source: ritholtz.com

“The public buys the most at the top and the least at the bottom.” And, “When all the experts and forecasts agree – something else is going to happen.”
– Bob Farrell
Source: Marketwatch

“By far the biggest problem for professionals in investing is dealing with career and business risk: protecting your own job as an agent. The second curse of professional investing is over-management caused by the need to be seen to be busy, to be earning your keep. The individual is far better-positioned to wait patiently for the right pitch while paying no regard to what others are doing, which is almost impossible for professionals.”
– Jeremy Grantham
Source: GMO

“For all long-term investors, there is only one objective – maximum total real return after taxes.”
– John Templeton
Source: Advisor Perspectives

“Quantitatively based solutions and asset allocation equations invariably fail as they are designed to capture what would have worked in the previous cycle whereas the next one remains a riddle wrapped in an enigma.”
– Barton Biggs
Source: Barton Biggs via The Gartman Letter

“It is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forecasts.”
– Benjamin Graham
Source: The Intelligent Investor

“The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.”
– Philip Fisher
Source: Investopedia

“Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.”
– Warren Buffett
Source: 2004 shareholder letter

“You can’t develop a portfolio strategy around endless possibilities. You wouldn’t even get out of bed if you considered everything that could possibly happen….. you can use history as one tool for shaping reasonable probabilities. Then, you look at the world of economic, sentiment and political drivers to determine what’s most likely to happen—while always knowing you can be and will be wrong a lot.”
– Ken Fisher
Source: Markets Never Forget (But People Do)

“The average long-term experience in investing is never surprising, but the short term experience is always surprising. We now know to focus not on rate of return, but on the informed management of risk”
– Charles Ellis
Source: Winning The Loser’s Game

“The market does reflect the available information, as the professors tell us. But just as the funhouse mirrors don’t always accurately reflect your weight, the markets don’t always accurately reflect that information. Usually they are too pessimistic when it’s bad, and too optimistic when it’s good.”
– Bill Miller
Source: 2006 Letter to Shareholders

“Every business is manmade. It is a result of individuals. It reflects the personalities and the business philosophy of the founders and those who have directed its affairs throughout its existence. If you want to have an understanding of any business, it is important to know the background of the people who started it and directed its past and the hopes and ambitions of those who are planning its future.”
– Thomas Rowe Price Jr
Source: Valuewalk

“We have bloated bureaucracies in Corporate America. The root of the problem is the absence of real corporate democracy.”
– Carl Icahn
Source: The Icahn Report

“Investing without research is like playing stud poker and never looking at the cards.”
– Peter Lynch
Source: One Up On Wall Street

“It’s not always easy to do what’s not popular, but that’s where you make your money. Buy stocks that look bad to less careful investors and hang on until their real value is recognized.”
– John Neff

“If you don’t have integrity, you have nothing. You can’t buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing.”
– Henry Kravis
Source: Academy of Achievement

“An economy is simply the sum of the transactions that make it up. A transaction is a simple thing. Because there are a lot of them, the economy looks more complex than it really is. If instead of looking at it from the top down, we look at it from the transaction up, it is much easier to understand.”
– Ray Dalio
Source: How The Economic Machine Works

“I can calculate the movement of stars, but not the madness of men.”
– Isaac Newton