Quote

It requires strength of character in order to think and to act in opposite fashion from the crowd and also patience to wait for opportunities that may be spaced years apart.

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
Years
Strength
Crowds
Think
Fashion
Opposite
Thinking
Waiting
Opportunities
Opportunity
Patience
Order
Apart
Also
Opposites
Character
Requires
Spaced
May
Wait
Crowd

More quotes by Benjamin Graham

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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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Observation over many years has taught us that the chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of good business conditions. The purchasers view the good current earnings as equivalent to 'earning power' and assume that prosperity is equivalent to safety.
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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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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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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.
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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.
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Before you invest, you must ensure that you have realistically assessed your probability of being right and how you will react to the consequences of being wrong.
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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.
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Speculators often prosper through ignorance it is a cliché that in a roaring bull market knowledge is superfluous and experience is a handicap. But the typical experience of the speculator is one of temporary profit and ultimate loss
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Mr. Market's job is to provide you with prices your job is to decide whether it is to your advantage to act on them. You no not have to trade with hime just because he constantly begs you to.
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It is a fact worth pondering that four centuries ago the evil of an abundance or surplus arose from its being kept off the market, while today the evil of surplus lies in its being thrown upon the market.
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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The correct attitude of the security analyst toward the stock market might well be that of a man toward his wife. He shouldn't pay too much attention to what the lady says, but he can't afford to ignore it entirely. That is pretty much the position that most of us find ourselves vis-à-vis the stock market.
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The investor's chief problem - and even his worst enemy - is likely to be himself.
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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The investor has a right to expect good results to flow from a consistent and courageous application of the principle of buying after the market has declined substantially and selling after it has had a spectacular rise. But he cannot expect to reduce this principle to a simple and foolproof formula, with profits guaranteed and no anxious periods.
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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.
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Successful investment may become substantially a matter of techniques and criteria that are learnable, rather than the product of unique and incommunicable mental powers.
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To see how much a company is truly earning on the capital it deploys in its businesses, look beyond EPS to Return on Invested Capital (ROIC).
Benjamin Graham
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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