Peter Lynch - Beating the Street (1993)

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

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

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
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
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
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
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
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
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
A stock market decline is as routine as a January blizzard in Colorado. If you're prepared, it can't hurt you. A decline is a great opportunity to pick up the bargains left behind by investors who are fleeing the storm in panic.

Peter Lynch
You shouldn't just pick a stock - you should do your homework.

Peter Lynch
There are substantial rewards for adopting a regular routine of investing and following it no matter what, and additional rewards for buying more shares when most investors are scared into selling.

Peter Lynch
When people discover they are no good at baseball or hockey, they put away their bats and their skates and they take up amateur golf or stamp collecting or gardening. But when people discover they are no good at picking stocks, they are likely to continue to do it anyway.

Peter Lynch
If you can't find any companies that you think are attractive, put your money in the bank until you discover some.

Peter Lynch
If you're prepared to invest in a company, then you ought to be able to explain why in simple language that a fifth grader could understand, and quickly enough so the fifth grader won't get bored.

Peter Lynch
Everyone has the brainpower to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach. If you are susceptible to selling everything in a panic, you ought to avoid stocks and mutual funds altogether.

Peter Lynch
In stocks as in romance, ease of divorce is not a sound basis for commitment.

Peter Lynch
Often, there is no correlation between the success of a company's operations and the success of its stock over a few months or even a few years. In the long term, there is a 100 percent correlation between the success of the company and the success of its stock. This disparity is the key to making money; it pays to be patient, and to own successful companies.

Peter Lynch
The stock market really isn't a gamble, as long as you pick good companies that you think will do well, and not just because of the stock price.

Peter Lynch
There is always something to worry about. Avoid weekend thinking and ignoring the latest dire predictions of the newscasters. Sell a stock because the company's fundamentals deteriorate, not because the sky is falling.

Peter Lynch
You should not buy a stock because it's cheap but because you know a lot about it.

Peter Lynch
The extravagance of any corporate office is directly proportional to management's reluctance to reward the shareholders.

Peter Lynch
Your investor's edge is not something you get from Wall Street experts. It's something you already have. You can outperform the experts if you use your edge by investing in companies or industries you already understand.

Peter Lynch