black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.

Benjamin Graham

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
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
Price fluctuations have only one significant meaning for the true investor. They provide him with an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Fall Investing Opportunity
Investing is most intelligent when it is most businesslike.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing
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
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
To have a true investment, there must be a true margin of safety. And a true margin of safety is one that can be demonstrated by figures, by persuasive reasoning, and by reference to a body of actual experience.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Body Investment Safety
The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Realist
The existence of such a war chest might go far to strengthen our prestige and frighten off any would be assailant.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Assailant Chest Prestige Strengthen War
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
Buy not on optimism, but on arithmetic.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Intelligent Investing Optimism
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
Real investment risk is measured not by the percent that a stock may decline in price in relation to the general market in a given period, but by the danger of a loss of quality and earnings power through economic changes or deterioration in management.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Earning Loss Real Risk
In security analysis the prime stress is laid upon protection against untoward events. We obtain this protection by insisting upon margins of safety, or values well in excess of the price paid.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Events Safety Stress
I am no longer an advocate of elaborate techniques of security analysis in order to find superior value opportunities.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Opportunity Order Technique
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

In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Benjamin Graham Quotes