black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business do not translate into obvious profits for investors.

Benjamin Graham

Even the most conservative must realize that the recent transformation of surplus from an individual to a national disaster implies a scathing indictment of our capitalist system as it has now developed.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Conservative Realizing Transformation
The chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Investing Loss Quality
Thus the important and difficult part of sound investment, which hinges upon the investor’s own temperament and attitude, is not much affected by the passing years.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Affected Investment Passing Temperament Years
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
No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the “margin of safety” – never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be – can you minimize your odds of error.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Errors Odds Safety
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
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
To establish the right price for a stock, the market must have adequate information, but it by no means follows that is the market has this information it will thereupon establish the right price.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Adequate Information Mean
Calculate a stock’s price/earnings ratio yourself, using Graham’s formula of current price divided by average earnings over the past three years.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Average Current Past Price Years
The story of Joseph in Egypt and of the seven fat and the seven lean years has passed into the homely wisdom of the ages; but our economic thinking seems to have lost contact with so simple and basic approach to prudent management of a nations welfare.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Egypt Seems Seven Simple Thinking Year
Experience teaches that the time to buy stocks is when their price is unduly depressed by temporary adversity. In other words, they should be bought on a bargain basis or not at all.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Adversity Should Teach
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
… the loss of public confidence in the financial community growing out of its own conduct in recent years. I insist that more damage has been done to stock values and to the future of equities from inside Wall Street than from outside Wall Street.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Loss Wall Years
The stock market resembles a huge laundry in which institutions take in large blocks of each others washing … without rhyme or reason.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Block Investing Laundry
To enjoy a reasonable chance for continued better than average results, the investor must follow policies which are (1) inherently sound and promising, and (2) not popular on Wall Street.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Average Sound Wall
The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.
BENJAMIN GRAHAM

Interest Lying Market Timing

Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business do not translate into obvious profits for investors.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business do not translate into obvious profits for investors.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Benjamin Graham Quotes