black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Good managements produce a good average market price, and bad managements produce bad market prices.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Average Good Man Management
The market is always making mountains out of molehills and exaggerating ordinary vicissitudes into major setbacks.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

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

Intelligent Investing Opposites
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
To establish the right price for a stock, the market must have adequate information, but it by no means follows that is the market has this information it will thereupon establish the right price.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Adequate Information Mean
Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Art Important Skills
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

Bad Company Good Investing Price Stock
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
I am more and more impressed with the possibilities of history’s repeating itself on many different counts. You don’t get very far in Wall Street with the simple, convenient conclusion that a given level of prices is not too high.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Different Simple Wall
There is no reason to feel any shame in hiring someone to pick stocks or mutual funds for you. But there’s one responsibility that you must never delegate. You, and no one but you, must investigate whether an adviser is trustworthy and charges reasonable fees.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Responsibility Shame
Never buy a stock immediately after a substantial rise or sell one immediately after a substantial drop.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Drop Sells Stock Substantial
Traditionally the investor has been the man with patience and the courage of his convictions who would buy when the harried or disheartened speculator was selling.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Men Selling
The most striking thing about Graham’s discussion of how to allocate your assets between stocks and bonds is that he never mentions the word “age”.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Age Assets Investing
Successful investment may become substantially a matter of techniques and criteria that are learnable, rather than the product of unique and incommunicable mental powers.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Successful Technique Unique
The volume of credit depends upon three factors: the desire to borrow, the ability to lend and the desire to lend.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Credit Desire Three
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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Benjamin Graham Quotes