Peter Lynch Quotes

65 Sourced Quotes

As I look back on it now, it's obvious that studying history and philosophy was much better preparation for the stock market than, say, studying statistics.

Peter Lynch
In business, competition is never as healthy as total domination.

Peter Lynch
Nobody can predict interest rates, the future direction of the economy or the stock market. Dismiss all such forecasts and concentrate on what's actually happening to the companies in which you've invested

Peter Lynch
I'm always fully invested. It's a great feeling to be caught with your pants up.

Peter Lynch
A price drop in a good stock is only a tragedy if you sell at that price and never buy more. To me, a price drop is an opportunity to load up on bargains from among your worst performers and your laggards that show promise. If you can't convince yourself 'When I'm down 25 percent, I'm a buyer' and banish forever the fatal thought 'When I'm down 25 percent, I'm a seller,' then you'll never make a decent profit in stocks.

Peter Lynch
If you can follow only one bit of data, follow the earnings - assuming the company in question has earnings. I subscribe to the crusty notion that sooner or later earnings make or break an investment in equities. What the stock price does today, tomorrow, or next week is only a distraction.

Peter Lynch
The more cash that builds up in the treasury, the greater the pressure to piss it away.

Peter Lynch
It only takes a handful of big winners to make a lifetime of investing worthwhile.

Peter Lynch
Your ultimate success or failure will depend on your ability to ignore the worries of the world long enough to allow your investments to succeed.

Peter Lynch
It isn't the head but the stomach that determines the fate of the stockpicker.

Peter Lynch
The biggest winners are surprises to me, and takeovers are even more surprising. It takes years, not months, to produce big results.

Peter Lynch
Bargains are the holy grail of the true stockpicker. The fact that 10 to 30 percent of our net worth is lost in a market sell-off is of little consequence. We see the latest correction not as a disaster but as an opportunity to acquire more shares at low prices. This is how great fortunes are made over time.

Peter Lynch
The Rule of 72 is useful in determining how fast money will grow. Take the annual return from any investment, expressed as a percentage, and divide it into 72. The result is the number of years it will take to double your money.

Peter Lynch
Never invest in a company without understanding its finances. The biggest losses in stocks come from companies with poor balance sheets.

Peter Lynch
The junior high schools and high schools of America have forgotten to teach one of the most important courses of all. Investing.

Peter Lynch
In the long run, it's not just how much money you make that will determine your future prosperity. It's how much of that money you put to work by saving it and investing it.

Peter Lynch
Searching for companies is like looking for grubs under rocks: if you turn over 10 rocks you'll likely find one grub; if you turn over 20 rocks you'll find two.

Peter Lynch
The basic story remains simple and never-ending. Stocks aren't lottery tickets. There's a company attached to every share.

Peter Lynch
Owning stocks is like having children - don't get involved with more than you can handle.

Peter Lynch
Time is on your side when you own shares of superior companies.

Peter Lynch
If a picture is worth a thousand words, in business, so is a number.

Peter Lynch
When you start to confuse Freddie Mac, Sallie Mae and Fannie Mae with members of your family, and you remember 2,000 stock symbols but forget the children's birthdays, there's a good chance you've become too wrapped up in your work.

Peter Lynch
Never invest in any idea you can't illustrate with a crayon.

Peter Lynch
Imagine if you borrowed your parents' car without permission and ran it into a tree, how much better you'd feel if you were incorporated.

Peter Lynch
If you hope to have more money tomorrow than you have today, you've got to put a chunk of your assets into stocks. Sooner or later, a portfolio of stocks or stock mutual funds will turn out to be a lot more valuable than a portfolio of bonds or CDs or money-market funds.

Peter Lynch
I talk to hundreds of companies a year and spend hour after hour in heady pow-wows with CEOs, financial analysts and my colleagues in the mutual-fund business, but I stumble onto the big winners in extracurricular situations, the same way you do.

Peter Lynch
If you're lucky enough to have been rewarded in life to the degree that I have, there comes a point at which you have to decide whether to become a slave to your net worth by devoting the rest of your life to increasing it or to let what you've accumulated begin to serve you.

Peter Lynch
The typical big winner in the Lynch portfolio generally takes three to ten years to play out.

Peter Lynch
There's no shame in losing money on a stock. Everybody does it. What is shameful is to hold on to a stock, or worse, to buy more of it when the fundamentals are deteriorating.

Peter Lynch
There's no use diversifying into unknown companies just for the sake of diversity. A foolish diversity is the hobgoblin of small investors. That said, it isn't safe to own just one stock, because in spite of your best efforts, the one you choose might be the victim of unforeseen circumstances. In small portfolios, I'd be comfortable owning between three and ten stocks.

Peter Lynch