Quote

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.

Benjamin Graham

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Benjamin Graham
Age: 82 †
Born: 1894
Born: May 8
Died: 1976
Died: September 21
Economist
Financier
Investor
University Teacher
Writer
London
England
Must
Ensure
React
Invest
Consequences
Investing
Consequence
Assessed
Wrong
Realistically
Right
Probability

More quotes by Benjamin Graham

Image
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.
Benjamin Graham
Image
The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.
Benjamin Graham
Image
A stock is not just a ticker symbol or an electronic blip it is an ownership interest in an actual business, with an underlying value that does not depend on its share price.
Benjamin Graham
Image
Nothing important on Wall Street can be counted on to occur exactly in the same way as it happened before.
Benjamin Graham
Image
It always seemed, and still seems, ridiculously simple to say that if one can acquire a diversified group of common stocks at a price less than the applicable net current assets alone - after deducting all prior claims, and counting as zero the fixed and other assets - the results should be quite satisfactory.
Benjamin Graham
Image
Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.
Benjamin Graham
Image
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.
Benjamin Graham
Image
The qualitative factors upon which most stress is laid are the nature of the business and the character of the management. These elements are exceedingly important, but they are also exceedingly difficult to deal with intelligently.
Benjamin Graham
Image
Mr. Market does not always price stocks the way an appraiser or a private buyer would value a business. Instead, when stocks are going up, he happily pays more than their objective value and, when they are going down, he is desperate to dump them for less than their true worth.
Benjamin Graham
Image
There is a close logical connection between the concept of a safety margin and the principle of diversification.
Benjamin Graham
Image
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.
Benjamin Graham
Image
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.
Benjamin Graham
Image
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.
Benjamin Graham
Image
It is worth pointing out that assuredly not more than one person out of a hundred who stayed in the market after after 1925 emerged from it with a net profit and that the speculative losses taken were appalling.
Benjamin Graham
Image
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.
Benjamin Graham
Image
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
Image
The chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions.
Benjamin Graham
Image
Successful investing professionals are disciplined and consistent and they think a great deal about what they do and how they do it.
Benjamin Graham
Image
Good managements produce a good average market price, and bad managements produce bad market prices.
Benjamin Graham
Image
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