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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

Wall Street people learn nothing and forget everything.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Forget Everything People Wall
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
Never buy a stock because it has gone up or sell one because it has gone down.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Gone Investing Sell
In the old legend the wise men finally boiled down the history of mortal affairs into a single phrase: ‘This too will pass.’
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Men Phrases Wise
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
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
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 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
Confusing speculation with investment is always a mistake.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Confusing Investing Mistakes
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
The modern world is not geared properly to the storage of goods.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Goods Modern World
Investing isn’t about beating others at their game. It’s about controlling yourself at your own game.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Controlling Games Investing
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
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
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
An investor calculates what a stock is worth, based on the value of its businesses.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Business Investing Investors Values

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.

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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

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