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Both individual skill (art) and chance are important factors in determining success or failure.

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
Success
Individual
Art
Determining
Important
Skill
Factors
Skills
Failure
Chance

More quotes by Benjamin Graham

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The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
Benjamin Graham
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The market is always making mountains out of molehills and exaggerating ordinary vicissitudes into major setbacks.
Benjamin Graham
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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
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Always remember that market quotations are there for convenience, either to be taken advantage of or to be ignored.
Benjamin Graham
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The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.
Benjamin Graham
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Many progressive economists insist that gold is now in essentially the same position as silver and that the arguments the simon-pure gold advocates use against the white metal can be directed with equal effect against their own fetish.
Benjamin Graham
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It is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forecasts.
Benjamin Graham
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Always buy your straw hats in the Winter
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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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
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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
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The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.
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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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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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
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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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Good managements produce a good average market price, and bad managements produce bad market prices.
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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The investor's chief problem - and even his worst enemy - is likely to be himself.
Benjamin Graham
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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