Quotes

It's not earnings changes that cause stock price changes, but earnings changes that come as a surprise.

One of my life principles is that the only way you can live life is by dealing with what is, and not with what might have been. So that's the way I've tried to deal with setbacks.

If it's a choice between investing in a good company in a great industry, or a great company in a lousy industry, I'll take the great company in the lousy industry any day. Good management, a strong balance sheet, and a sensible plan of action will overcome many obstacles, but when you've got weak management, a weak balance sheet, and a misguided plan of action, the greatest industry in the world won't bail you out.

Buy only what you understand, believe in, and intend to stick with -- even when others are chasing the next miracle.

Most people who have been really successful in the securities markets say the same thing -- that they're not smart enough to get into the market and out of it. So they tend to remain more or less in the market at all times.

I don't want to spend my time trying to earn a lot of little profits. I want very, very big profits that I'm ready to wait for.

It is just appalling the nerve strain people put themselves under trying to buy something today and sell it tomorrow. It's a small-win proposition. If you are a truly long-range investor, of which I am practically a vanishing breed, the profits are so tremendously greater.

It is true that you don't go broke taking a profit, but that assumes you will make a profit on everything you do. It doesn't allow for the mistakes you're bound to make in the investment business.

I know plenty of guys who consider themselves to be long-term investors but who are still perfectly happy to trade in and out and back into their favorite stocks.

You want to design a portfolio that will make the members of a household as happy as possible, but the problem is that people aren't very good at anticipating how they're going to react to various market outcomes.

Investors need to pick their poison: Either make more money when times are good and have a really ugly year every so often, or protect on the downside and don’t be at the party so long when things are good.

If you think of the stock market as a cauldron of minestrone soup that occasionally somebody sticks a ladle in and stirs up, it takes a while before all the vegetables float back to the level that they were at before.