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

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.
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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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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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Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of Safety.
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In nine companies out of ten the factor of fluctuation has been a more dominant and important consideration in the matter of investment than has the factor of long-term growth or decline
Benjamin Graham
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Do not let anyone else run your business
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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 distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern.
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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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There is a close logical connection between the concept of a safety margin and the principle of diversification.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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 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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The only thing you should do with pro forma earnings is ignore them.
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Diversification is an established tenet of conservative investment.
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.
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Why should the cotton growers suffer if there is shortage of wheat?
Benjamin Graham