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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

The intelligent investor is likely to need considerable will power to keep from following the crowd.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Crowd Following Intelligent Needs
No statement is more true and better applicable to Wall Street than the famous warning of Santayana: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Past Wall
People who invest make money for themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers. And that, in turn, is why Wall Street perennially downplays the durable virtues of investing and hypes the gaudy appeal of speculation.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Hype People Wall
A stock is not just a ticker symbol or an electronic blip; it is an ownership interest in an actual business, with an underlying value that does not depend on its share price.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Ownership Share Trouble Value
Intelligent investment is more a matter of mental approach than it is of technique. A sound mental approach toward stock fluctuations is the touchstone of all successful investment under present-day conditions.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Successful Technique
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
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 function of the margin of safety is, in essence, that of rendering unnecessary an accurate estimate of the future.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Essence Safety Unnecessary
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
The only thing you should do with pro forma earnings is ignore them.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Earning Investing Should
It must be fundamentally wrong to reduce production of food and fiber while one-third of our population is still ill fed and ill clothed.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Clothed Feds Fiber Population
The investor’s chief problem – and even his worst enemy – is likely to be himself.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Enemy Greed Money Worst
The utility, or intrinsic value of gold as a commodity is now considerably less than in the past; its monetary status has become extraordinarily ambiguous; and its future is highly uncertain.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Commodity Gold Past
Speculators often prosper through ignorance; it is a cliché that in a roaring bull market knowledge is superfluous and experience is a handicap. But the typical experience of the speculator is one of temporary profit and ultimate loss
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

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

Average Good Man Management

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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