black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

In the financial markets, hindsight is forever 20/20, but foresight is legally blind. And thus, for most investors, market timing is a practical and emotional impossibility.

Benjamin Graham

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
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
The memory of the financial community is proverbially and distressingly short.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Community Investing Memories
Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Art Important Skills
It is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forecasts.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Making Money Thinking
The thing that I have been emphasizing in my own work for the last few years has been the group approach. To try to buy groups of stocks that meet some simple criterion for being undervalued-regardless of the industry and with very little attention to the individual company.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Simple Trying Years
Investing is most intelligent when it is most businesslike.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

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

Intelligent Investing Optimism
Instead of passing blithely over into that Promised Land, flowing almost literally with milk and honey, it may be our destiny to wander a full 40 years or more in the wilderness of doubt and divided sentiments.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Destiny Honey Milk Years
The sillier the market’s behavior, the greater the opportunity for the business like investor.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Behavior Investing Opportunity
A defensive investor can always prosper by looking patiently and calmly through the wreckage of a bear market.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Bears Investing Wreckage
Have the courage of your knowledge and experience. If you have formed a conclusion from the facts and if you know your judgment is sound, act on it – even though others may hesitate or differ.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Conclusion Facts Judgment May Sound
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
To see how much a company is truly earning on the capital it deploys in its businesses, look beyond EPS to Return on Invested Capital (ROIC).
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Looks Return
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
It should be remembered that a decline of 50% fully offsets a preceding advance of 100%.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Decline Investing Should

In the financial markets, hindsight is forever 20/20, but foresight is legally blind. And thus, for most investors, market timing is a practical and emotional impossibility.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

In the financial markets, hindsight is forever 20/20, but foresight is legally blind. And thus, for most investors, market timing is a practical and emotional impossibility.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Benjamin Graham Quotes