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The distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern.

Benjamin Graham

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

Experts Optimistic People
Most businesses change in character and quality over the years, sometimes for the better, perhaps more often for the worse. The investor need not watch his companies’ performance like a hawk; but he should give it a good, hard look from time to time.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Character Giving Years
Never buy a stock because it has gone up or sell one because it has gone down.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Gone Investing Sell
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
Never mingle your speculative and investment operations in the same account nor in any part of your thinking.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Investment Thinking
The people of the United States will not tolerate another deep depression that arises not from any lack of natural resources, productive capacity or man and brain power, but solely from imperfections in the functioning of the system of finance capitalism.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Imperfection Men People
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
It requires strength of character in order to think and to act in opposite fashion from the crowd and also patience to wait for opportunities that may be spaced years apart.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Character Fashion Thinking
The qualitative factors upon which most stress is laid are the nature of the business and the character of the management. These elements are exceedingly important, but they are also exceedingly difficult to deal with intelligently.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Character Important Stress
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

Intelligent Investing Weight
The distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Causes Common Investing
Even the most conservative must realize that the recent transformation of surplus from an individual to a national disaster implies a scathing indictment of our capitalist system as it has now developed.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Conservative Realizing Transformation
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
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
Always buy your straw hats in the Winter
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Hat Investing Winter
Stock speculation is largely a matter of A trying to decide what B, C and D are likely to think-with B, C and D trying to do the same.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Matter Thinking Trying

The distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern.

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The distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern.

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Popular Authors

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