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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

The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

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

Intelligent Investing Realist
The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Interest Lying Market Timing
It’s nonsensical to derive a price/earnings ratio by dividing the known current price by unknown future earnings.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Earning Investing Ratios
Thus the important and difficult part of sound investment, which hinges upon the investor’s own temperament and attitude, is not much affected by the passing years.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Affected Investment Passing Temperament Years
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
While enthusiasm may be necessary for great accomplishments elsewhere, on Wall Street it almost invariably leads to disaster
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Accomplishment Investing Wall
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
Before you place your financial future in the hands of an adviser, it’s imperative that you find someone who not only makes you comfortable but whose honesty is beyond reproach.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Hands Honesty Investing
Those with the enterprise lack the money and those with the money lack the enterprise to buy stocks when they are cheap.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Cheap Enterprise Enterprises Investing Stock
If General Motors is worth $60 a share to an investor it must be because the full common-stock ownership of this gigantic enterprise as a whole is worth 43 million (shares) times $60, or no less than $2,600 million.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Common Ownership Share
Whenever the investor sold out in an upswing as soon as the top level of the previous well-recognized bull market was reached, he had a chance in the next bear market to buy back at one third (or better) below his selling price.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Bulls Levels Next
Always buy your straw hats in the Winter
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Hat Investing Winter
By developing your discipline and courage, you can refuse to let other people’s mood swings govern your financial destiny. In the end, how your investments behave is much less important than how you behave.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

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

Intelligent Investing Opposites
By refusing to pay too much for an investment, you minimize the chances that your wealth will ever disappear or suddenly be destroyed.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Pay Too Much

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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