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Investing is not nearly as difficult as it looks. Successful investing involves doing a few things right and avoiding serious mistakes.

John C. Bogle

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John C. Bogle
Age: 89 †
Born: 1929
Born: May 8
Died: 2019
Died: January 16
Economist
Financier
Investor
Montclair Township
John Clifton Jack Bogle
Jack Bogle
Right
Nearly
Things
Investing
Mistakes
Serious
Mistake
Successful
Difficult
Avoiding
Looks
Involves

More quotes by John C. Bogle

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The miracle of compounding returns has been overwhelmed by the tyranny of compounding costs.
John C. Bogle
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I believe that the behavior of too many of our corporations investment bankers and fund managers has jeopardized some of the trust that investors have had. It's not the economic engine that we need to focus on, but the need to make sure that our investors receive their fair share of the returns that that great economic system produces.
John C. Bogle
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I think we all ought to be careful about too much generalization on this issue, even as I confess to painting with a pretty broad brush myself!
John C. Bogle
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Your success in investing will depend in part on your character and guts, and in part on your ability to realize at the height of ebullience and the depth of despair alike that this too shall pass.
John C. Bogle
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If you have trouble imagining a 20% loss in the stock market, you shouldn't be in stocks.
John C. Bogle
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The transfer of Wall Street from private ownership to public ownership has been a big step backward.
John C. Bogle
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It's amazing how difficult it is for a man to understand something if he's paid a small fortune not to understand it.
John C. Bogle
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Sure there are some companies at the margins of our society that probably do that and I think we all have the responsibility as consumers and as investors to avoid them like the plague. If we do, they won't last very long. Doing what's right is the only possible formula for long-term - I emphasize long term - business success.
John C. Bogle
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I think it's gone much too far. Most of them are not worth the powder to blow them to hell.
John C. Bogle
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Index funds eliminate the risks of individual stocks, market sectors, and manager selection. Only stock market risk remains.
John C. Bogle
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If you're very talented and keep winning, you'll do just fine. It may take a while. But the talent is hard to identify and talent is hard to tell from luck. There's an awful lot of luck in this business. Past performance is not helpful in judging future performance.
John C. Bogle
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If your fund doesn't last for the long term, how can you invest for the long term?
John C. Bogle
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On balance, the financial system subracts value from society
John C. Bogle
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Rely on the ordinary virtues that intelligent, balanced human beings have relied on for centuries: common sense, thrift, realistic expectations, patience, and perseverance.
John C. Bogle
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If it is hard to imagine that 20% of losses on the stock market, you should never participate
John C. Bogle
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In Las Vegas we all know that it's the croupiers who win. At the race track, it's those who control the handle who win. State lotteries, does anybody think the participants in the lottery win? No. The state wins.
John C. Bogle
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The mutual fund industry has been built, in a sense, on witchcraft.
John C. Bogle
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Don't look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!
John C. Bogle
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Yes, the investor is often his own worst enemy. Yes, the marketing colossus known as the mutual fund industry provides the weaponry which enables investors to indulge their suicidal instincts. No, the fund industry was hardly an innocent bystander in the market boom and the subsequent carnage. We have met the enemy and he is us... all of us.
John C. Bogle
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The mistakes we make as investors is when the market's going up, we think it's going to go up forever. When the market goes down, we think it's going to go down forever. Neither of those things actually happen. Doesn't do anything forever. It's by the moment.
John C. Bogle