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you may take it as an axiom that you cannot profit in Wall Street by continuously doing the obvious or the popular thing

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
Streets
Wall
Axiom
Cannot
Axioms
May
Continuously
Take
Popular
Thing
Profit
Obvious
Street

More quotes by Benjamin Graham

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The chief obstacle to success lies in the stubborn fact that if the favorable prospects of a concern are clearly apparent they are almost always reflected already in the current price of the stock. Buying such an issue is like betting on a topheavy favorite in a horse race. The chances may be on your side, but the real odds are against you.
Benjamin Graham
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Diversification is an established tenet of conservative investment.
Benjamin Graham
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The best values today are often found in the stocks that were once hot and have since gone cold.
Benjamin Graham
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An investor calculates what a stock is worth, based on the value of its businesses.
Benjamin Graham
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Most of the time common stocks are subject to irrational and excessive price fluctuations in both directions as the consequence of the ingrained tendency of most people to speculate or gamble... to give way to hope, fear and greed.
Benjamin Graham
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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
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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
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The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator. This means ... that he should be able to justify every purchase he makes and each price he pays by impersonal, objective reasoning that satisfies him that he is getting more than his money's worth for his purchase.
Benjamin Graham
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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
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Only in the exceptional case, where the integrity and competence of the advisers have been thoroughly demonstrated, should the investor act upon the advice of others without understanding and approving the decision made.
Benjamin Graham
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The stock market resembles a huge laundry in which institutions take in large blocks of each others washing ... without rhyme or reason.
Benjamin Graham
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The investor with a portfolio of sound stocks should expect their prices to fluctuate and should neither be concerned by sizable declines nor become excited by sizable advances. He should always remember that market quotations are there for his convenience, either to be taken advantage of or to be ignored.
Benjamin Graham
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In other words, the market is not a weighing machine, on which the value of each issue is recorded by an exact and impersonal mechanism, in accordance with its specific qualities. Rather should we say that the market is a voting machine, whereon countless individuals register choices which are the product partly of reason and partly of emotion.
Benjamin Graham
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The beauty of periodic rebalancing is that it forces you to base your investing decisions on a simple, objective standard.
Benjamin Graham
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Thousands of people have tried, and the evidence is clear: The more you trade, the less you keep.
Benjamin Graham
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The distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern.
Benjamin Graham
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The ideal form of common stock analysis leads to a valuation of the issue which can be compared with the current price to determine whether or not the security is an attractive purchase.
Benjamin Graham
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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
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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
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High valuations entail high risks.
Benjamin Graham