Quote

When somebody asserts that a stock has an earning power of so much, I am sure that the person who hears him doesn't know what he means, and there is a good chance that the man who uses it doesn't know what it means.

Benjamin Graham

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Benjamin Graham
Age: 82 †
Born: 1894
Born: May 8
Died: 1976
Died: September 21
Economist
Financier
Investor
University Teacher
Writer
London
England
Persons
Stock
Person
Somebody
Mean
Sure
Much
Chance
Good
Use
Asserts
Men
Means
Hears
Doesn
Earning
Power
Uses

More quotes by Benjamin Graham

Image
In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.
Benjamin Graham
Image
The value of the security analyst to the investor depends largely on the investor's own attitude. If the investor asks the analyst the right questions, he is likely to get the right or at least valuable answers.
Benjamin Graham
Image
People who invest make money for themselves people who speculate make money for their brokers. And that, in turn, is why Wall Street perennially downplays the durable virtues of investing and hypes the gaudy appeal of speculation.
Benjamin Graham
Image
It always seemed, and still seems, ridiculously simple to say that if one can acquire a diversified group of common stocks at a price less than the applicable net current assets alone - after deducting all prior claims, and counting as zero the fixed and other assets - the results should be quite satisfactory.
Benjamin Graham
Image
It is worth pointing out that assuredly not more than one person out of a hundred who stayed in the market after after 1925 emerged from it with a net profit and that the speculative losses taken were appalling.
Benjamin Graham
Image
If we assume that there are normal or standard income results to be obtained from investing money in securities, then the role of the adviser can be more readily established. He will use his superior training and experience to protect his clients against mistakes and to make sure that they obtain the results to which their money is entitled.
Benjamin Graham
Image
The money cost of the reservoir plan literally fades into insignificance when it is compared with the financial burden which the great depression imposed on the nation.
Benjamin Graham
Image
Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.
Benjamin Graham
Image
Good managements produce a good average market price, and bad managements produce bad market prices.
Benjamin Graham
Image
Stocks can be dynamite.
Benjamin Graham
Image
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
Image
The best way to measure your investing success is not by whether you're beating the market but by whether you've put in place a financial plan and a behavioral discipline that are likely to get you where you want to go.
Benjamin Graham
Image
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
Image
I am more and more impressed with the possibilities of history's repeating itself on many different counts. You don't get very far in Wall Street with the simple, convenient conclusion that a given level of prices is not too high.
Benjamin Graham
Image
It is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forecasts.
Benjamin Graham
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Stock speculation is largely a matter of A trying to decide what B, C and D are likely to think-with B, C and D trying to do the same.
Benjamin Graham
Image
The investor should be aware that even though safety of its principal and interest may be unquestioned, a long term bond could vary widely in market price in response to changes in interest rates.
Benjamin Graham
Image
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