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The best way to measure your investing success is not by whether you’re beating the market but by whether you’ve put in place a financial plan and a behavioral discipline that are likely to get you where you want to go.

Benjamin Graham

An intelligent investor gets satisfaction from the thought that his operations are exactly opposite to those of the crowd.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Opposites
The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Realist
Stocks can be dynamite.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Dynamite Progressive Stock
Before you invest, you must ensure that you have realistically assessed your probability of being right and how you will react to the consequences of being wrong.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Being Investing Probability Wrong
Real investment risk is measured not by the percent that a stock may decline in price in relation to the general market in a given period, but by the danger of a loss of quality and earnings power through economic changes or deterioration in management.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Earning Loss Real Risk
There is something paradoxical in the fact that by establishing an export market we subject our entire domestic production to the vagaries of that market.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Facts Paradoxical Subjects
The investor should be aware that even though safety of its principal and interest may be unquestioned, a long term bond could vary widely in market price in response to changes in interest rates.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Long Safety
The intelligent investor should recognize that market panics can create great prices for good companies and good prices for great companies.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Panic
The defensive (or passive) investor will place chief emphasis on the avoidance of serious mistakes or losses. His second aim will be freedom from effort, annoyance, and the need for making frequent decisions.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Effort Loss Mistakes
Diversification is an established tenet of conservative investment.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Conservative Investing Investment
The investor’s chief problem – and even his worst enemy – is likely to be himself.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Enemy Greed Money Worst
Never buy a stock because it has gone up or sell one because it has gone down.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Gone Investing Sell
In other words, the market is not a weighing machine, on which the value of each issue is recorded by an exact and impersonal mechanism, in accordance with its specific qualities.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Choices Impersonal Issues Voting
Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business do not translate into obvious profits for investors.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Growth Investing Profit
It is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forecasts.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Making Money Thinking
Buy when most people, including experts, are pessimistic, and sell when they are actively optimistic.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Experts Optimistic People
Do not let anyone else run your business
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Anyone Buisness Else Running
THERE is widespread agreement among economists that abuse of credit constitutes one of the chief unwholesome elements in business booms and is mainly responsible for the ensuing crash and depression.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Abuse Agreement Credit
The beauty of periodic rebalancing is that it forces you to base your investing decisions on a simple, objective standard.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Decision Investing Simple
Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Art Important Skills
The intelligent investor shouldn’t ignore Mr. Market entirely. Instead, you should do business with him- but only to the extent that it serves your interests.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Should
It is a fact worth pondering that four centuries ago the evil of “an abundance or surplus” arose from its being kept off the market, while today the evil of surplus lies in its being thrown upon the market.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Evil Four Lying
Losing some money is an inevitable part of investing, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. But to be an intelligent investor, you must take responsibility for ensuring that you never lose most or all of your money.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Responsibility
No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the “margin of safety” – never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be – can you minimize your odds of error.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Errors Odds Safety
Always buy your straw hats in the Winter
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Hat Investing Winter
The chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Loss Quality
The money cost of the reservoir plan literally fades into insignificance when it is compared with the financial burden which the great depression imposed on the nation.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Cost Depression Financial Great

The best way to measure your investing success is not by whether you’re beating the market but by whether you’ve put in place a financial plan and a behavioral discipline that are likely to get you where you want to go.

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The best way to measure your investing success is not by whether you’re beating the market but by whether you’ve put in place a financial plan and a behavioral discipline that are likely to get you where you want to go.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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