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Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble… to give way to hope, fear and greed.

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
We urge the beginner in security buying not to waste his efforts and his money in trying to beat the market. Let him study security values and initially test out his judgment on price versus value with the smallest possible sums.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Beginner Effort Trying
Never buy a stock because it has gone up or sell one because it has gone down.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Gone Investing Sell
Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble… to give way to hope, fear and greed.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Hope Money Time
In an ideal world, the intelligent investor would hold stocks only when they are cheap and sell them when they become overpriced, then duck into the bunker of bonds and cash until stocks again become cheap enough to buy.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Ducks Intelligent Investing
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
At heart, “uncertainty” and “investing” are synonyms.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Heart Investing Synonym
It’s nonsensical to derive a price/earnings ratio by dividing the known current price by unknown future earnings.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Earning Investing Ratios
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
I am no longer an advocate of elaborate techniques of security analysis in order to find superior value opportunities.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Opportunity Order Technique
The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Change Intelligent Significant Sound
Every corporate security may be best viewed, in the first instance, as an ownership interest in, or a claim against, a specific business enterprise.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Firsts May Ownership
The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Realist
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
Buy not on optimism, but on arithmetic.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Optimism

Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble… to give way to hope, fear and greed.

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Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble… to give way to hope, fear and greed.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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