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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

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Benjamin Graham
Age: 82 †
Born: 1894
Born: May 8
Died: 1976
Died: September 21
Economist
Financier
Investor
University Teacher
Writer
London
England
Expensive
Realist
Unjustified
Sells
Pessimist
Optimists
Market
Pessimism
Unsustainable
Intelligent
Optimist
Pendulums
Forever
Swings
Pendulum
Makes
Cheap
Buys
Investors
Investor
Optimism
Stocks
Pessimists

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It is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forecasts.
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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.
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It is no difficult trick to bring a great deal of energy, study, and native ability into Wall Street and to end up with losses instead of profits. These virtues, if channeled in the wrong directions, become indistinguishable from handicaps.
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We define a bargain issue as one which, on the basis of facts established by analysis, appears to be worth considerably more that it is selling for.
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Successful investing professionals are disciplined and consistent and they think a great deal about what they do and how they do it.
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The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
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Abnormally good or abnormally bad conditions do not last forever.
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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.
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The chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions.
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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.
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The essence of investment management is the management of risks, not the management of returns.
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The best values today are often found in the stocks that were once hot and have since gone cold.
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The purchase of a bargain issue presupposes that the market's current appraisal is wrong, or at least that the buyer's idea of value is more likely to be right than the market's. In this process the investor sets his judgement against that of the market. To some this may seem arrogant or foolhardy.
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In the world of securities, courage becomes the supreme virtue after adequate knowledge and a tested judgment are at hand.
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The sillier the market's behavior, the greater the opportunity for the business like investor.
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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.
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Buy when most people, including experts, are pessimistic, and sell when they are actively optimistic.
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There is no reason to feel any shame in hiring someone to pick stocks or mutual funds for you. But there's one responsibility that you must never delegate. You, and no one but you, must investigate whether an adviser is trustworthy and charges reasonable fees.
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