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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

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
Superfluous
Speculator
Ignorance
Bulls
Speculators
Loss
Typical
Handicap
Knowledge
Temporary
Handicaps
Often
Investing
Prosper
Experience
Profit
Roaring
Market
Bull
Clich
Ultimate

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Never mingle your speculative and investment operations in the same account nor in any part of your thinking.
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Buy when most people, including experts, are pessimistic, and sell when they are actively optimistic.
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If you are shopping for common stocks, choose them the way you would buy groceries, not the way you would buy perfume.
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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.
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Though business conditions may change, corporations and securities may change, and financial institutions and regulations may change, human nature remains the same. Thus the important and difficult part of sound investment, which hinges upon the investor's own temperament and attitude, is not much affected by the passing years.
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Always buy your straw hats in the Winter
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Cartels have spread and will spread as long as the world lacks an effective mechanism by which balanced expansion may be achieved without a resulting disruption of prices.
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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
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Every corporate security may be best viewed, in the first instance, as an ownership interest in, or a claim against, a specific business enterprise.
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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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Never buy a stock immediately after a substantial rise or sell one immediately after a substantial drop.
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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.
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The defensive (or passive) investor will place chief emphasis on the avoidance of serious mistakes or losses. His second aim will be freedom from effort, annoyance, and the need for making frequent decisions.
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Why should the cotton growers suffer if there is shortage of wheat?
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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 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 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.
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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.
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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.
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Unusually rapid growth cannot keep up forever when a company has already registered a brilliant expansion, its very increase in size makes a repetition of its achievement more difficult.
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