Benjamin Graham Quotes

151 Sourced Quotes

It's nonsensical to derive a price/earnings ratio by dividing the known current price by unknown future earnings.

Benjamin Graham
Although there are good and bad companies, there is no such thing as a good stock; there are only good stock prices, which come and go.

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

Benjamin Graham
The memory of the financial community is proverbially and distressingly short.

Benjamin Graham
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
Investing isn't about beating others at their game. It's about controlling yourself at your own game.

Benjamin Graham
Thousands of people have tried, and the evidence is clear: The more you trade, the less you keep.

Benjamin Graham
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
No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the "margin of safety" - never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be - can you minimize your odds of error.

Benjamin Graham
We define a bargain issue as one which, on the basis of facts established by analysis, appears to be worth considerably more that it is selling for.

Benjamin Graham
The distinction between investment and speculation in common stocks has always been a useful one and its disappearance is cause for concern.

Benjamin Graham
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).

Benjamin Graham
A defensive investor can always prosper by looking patiently and calmly through the wreckage of a bear market.

Benjamin Graham
By refusing to pay too much for an investment, you minimize the chances that your wealth will ever disappear or suddenly be destroyed.

Benjamin Graham
It should be remembered that a decline of 50% fully offsets a preceding advance of 100%.

Benjamin Graham
Never mingle your speculative and investment operations in the same account nor in any part of your thinking.

Benjamin Graham
We urge the beginner in security buying not to waste his efforts and his money in trying to beat the market. Let him study security values and initially test out his judgment on price versus value with the smallest possible sums.

Benjamin Graham
It requires strength of character in order to think and to act in opposite fashion from the crowd and also patience to wait for opportunities that may be spaced years apart.

Benjamin Graham
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
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
An investor calculates what a stock is worth, based on the value of its businesses.

Benjamin Graham
The determining trait of the enterprising (or active, or aggressive) investor is his willingness to devote time and care to the selection of securities that are both sound and more attractive than the average.

Benjamin Graham
Successful investing is about managing risk, not avoiding it.

Benjamin Graham
In the old legend the wise men finally boiled down the history of mortal affairs into a single phrase: 'This too will pass.'

Benjamin Graham
A speculator gambles that a stock will go up in price because somebody else will pay even more for it.

Benjamin Graham
To enjoy a reasonable chance for continued better than average results, the investor must follow policies which are (1) inherently sound and promising, and (2) not popular on Wall Street.

Benjamin Graham
People who invest make money for themselves; people who speculate make money for their brokers. And that, in turn, is why Wall Street perennially downplays the durable virtues of investing and hypes the gaudy appeal of speculation.

Benjamin Graham
Mr. Market's job is to provide you with prices; your job is to decide whether it is to your advantage to act on them. You no not have to trade with hime just because he constantly begs you to.

Benjamin Graham
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
It is our argument that a sufficiently low price can turn a security of mediocre quality into a sound investment opportunity - provided that the buyer is informed and experienced and he practices adequate diversification. For, if the price is low enough to create a substantial margin of safety, the security thereby meets our criterion of investment.

Benjamin Graham