"Never let a crisis go to waste"
- John Brock CEO Coca Cola
"Just before a panic all is well-unusually more than well. Then the panic strikes, chaos ensues, and a dramatic status upheaval commences. People who were top of the financial order plummet to the bottom. People whose opinion was most valued are now ridiculed. Others who were on the sidelines race onto the field of play. The guy out in the wilderness who had been saying for the past four years that the good times were an illusion and a sham is wheeled in to take a bow and then hustled off stage, so that everyone else can regroup, and the whole process can start over again. And so it does but with enough of the details changed that up close the new madness looks entirely different from any madness that has every before happened. "
- Michael Lewis
"Just as outright euphoria is often a sign of a market top, fear is for sure a sign of a market bottom. Time and time again, in every market cycle I have witnessed, the extremes of emotion always appear, even among experienced investors. When the world wants to buy only treasury bills, you can almost close your eys and get long stocks."
- Michael Steinhardt
"When investors in general are too risk-tolerant, security prices can embody more risk than they do return. When investors are too risk-averse, prices can offer more return than risk."
- Howard Marks
"People are inclined to believe the very worst about anything and everything and are immune to contrary evidence just as if they'd been medically vaccinated against the force of fact"
- Chris Anderson - "Free"
"The most common cause of low prices is pessimism - sometimes pervasive, sometimes specific to a company or an industry. We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism, but because we like the prices it produces. It is optimism that is the enemy of the rational buyer."
- Warren Buffett
"One of the most important analytic tools when assessing an investment is an intellectually advantaged disparate view. This includes knowing more and perceiving the situation better than others do. It is also critical to have a keen understanding of what the market expectations for any investment truly are. Thus, the process by which a disparate perception, when correct, becomes consensus should lead to meaningful profit. Understanding market expectation is at least as important as, and often different from fundamental knowledge."
- Michael Steinhardt
"Seeds not planted or tended by choice tend to be weeds, so at least for me, it's very helpful to consciously and periodically choose which seeds I want to water, and to think through what I expect to happen from that watering. Investors can spend a lot of time and energy reacting to the latest bits of news and trying to predict the next surprise, rather than choosing a consistent set of daily actions that they can carry out as things develop, regardless of how they develop."
- John Hussman
"To my knowledge there are no good records that have been built by institutions run by committee. In almost all cases the great records are the product of individuals, perhaps working together, but always within a clearly defined framework. Their names are on the door and they are quite visible to the investing public. In reality outstanding records are made by dictators, hopefully benevolent, but nonetheless dictators."
- Peter Cundill
"Pessimism is a luxury that no one can afford"
- Golda Meir
"My best advice to individual investors can readily be summed up into two closely linked precepts. Be patient and don't be greedy."
- Peter Cundill
"More money is lost anticipating the changes in the overall stock market than any other way of investing."
- All Star fund manager - Peter Lynch
"The major ingredients needed in developing patience are time, effort, and most importantly, humility"
- Joseph Eliezer - Simply Spirit
"We like to put a lot of money in things we feel strongly about. And that gets back to diversification. We think diversification, as practiced generally, makes very little sense for anyone who knows what they're doing...If you know how to value businesses, it's crazy to own 50 stocks or 40 stocks or 30 stocks, probably - because there aren't that many wonderful businesses understandable to a single human being in all likelihood. To forego buying more of some super-wonderful business and instead put your money in #30 or #35 on your list of attractiveness just strikes...me as madness."
- Warren Buffett
"More people get killed reaching for yield than at the point of a gun"
- Wall Street Saying
"Be patient and persistent. Good things come in spurts - usually when least expected - and fidgety investors fare badly."
- Charles Ellis - Winning the Losers Game
"With each investment you make, you should have the courage and the conviction to place at least ten per cent of your net worth in that stock"
- Warren Buffett
