Posted on 03/02/2008 5:51:50 AM PST by RKBA Democrat
Without a doubt, we are in an uncertain period for the financial markets. During uncertain periods in the past, you could shelter yourself from all of the bad news. But that’s just not possible in this modern era with 24 hour business news channels, financial talk radio (I am admittedly part of this noise with The Money Guy Show), daily and weekly financial newspapers and magazines, etc.
It should also be noted that even though reading, listening, and watching financial media can be entertaining, it can also be outright harmful to your long-term financial success. Indeed, it has become much easier to let your emotions rule financial decisions since you can now find an “Expert” point of view that matches just about any crazy scenario that you can imagine. With all of this distracting noise it is probably a great time to check-in with the most successful investor of our lifetime… Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha.
As many of you are aware Warren is a humble self-made billionaire that has been successful by being consistent and focused on what he is good at; finding good companies that have good management and healthy financial statements. Below I have compiled a list of the Oracle’s quotes concerning specific investment issues and principles to help guide you during this uncertain period.
Investing:
“The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady experience of that kink, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities – that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future – will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There’s a problem, though: They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands.” (Berkshire Hathaway 2000 Chairman’s Letter)
“If you’re an investor, you’re looking on what the asset is going to do, if you’re a speculator, you’re commonly focusing on what the price of the object is going to do, and that’s not our game.” (1997 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting)
“There are all kinds of businesses that Charlie and I don’t understand, but that doesn’t cause us to stay up at night. It just means we go on to the next one, and that’s what the individual investor should do.” (Morningstar Interview)
“Success in investing doesn’t correlate with I.Q. once you’re above the level of 25. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.” (Business Week Interview June 25, 1999)
“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
“The stock market is designed to transfer money from the Active to the Patient.”
“Our favorite holding period is forever.” (Letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, 1988)
Market Timing and Uncertain Financial Markets:
“Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” (Berkshire Hathaway 2004 Chairman’s Letter)
“You can only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.” (Berkshire Hathaway 2001 Chairman’s Letter)
“The most common cause of low prices is pessimism – some times pervasive, some times specific to a company or industry. We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism but because we like the prices it produces. It’s optimism that is the enemy of the rational buyer.” (Berkshire Hathaway 1990 Chairman’s Letter)
“If you don’t feel comfortable owning something for 10 years, then don’t own it for 10 minutes.”
“The future is never clear, and you pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty is the friend of the buyer of long-term values.”
“Most people get interest in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interest is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.”
The Financial Media and Market Pundits:
“We’ve long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.”
Children and Money:
“[The perfect amount of money to leave children is] enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.” (Fortune article September 29, 1986 titled “Should You Leave It All to the Children?”)
Weird.
When you have a dim party that lies and deceives about mortal enemies at the gate... when you have putrid leftists that sell their soul to satan for their power and position, lying about the economy every day... when they fan the flames of faux crises such as globull warming... when they hate the President and have tried to remove him from office for 8 years... when VICTORY is labeled as defeat... when evil is the basis for your opposition's power, as the dims are to Republicans... you end up in THE World we live in today... where half-white is black... an ignorant and inexperienced imbecile is 50% of the Nation's Messiah... good is evil... and the sheeple are programmed with every TV show and every news cast to believe that reality is 180 degrees from true course... it does not take a shyster billionaire and two pages of mush to tell it like it is.
LLS
1. You sleep with Dogs you get Fleas
2. Don't cast your pearls before swine
3. You are known by the company you keep.
4. Keep your eyes off my portfolio.
5. Filthy Rich is just nasty.
6. You only get to vote once, no matter how many billions you have.
7. Money can't buy you love.
8. Money can't buy you an election..Just ask Romney
9. Bug off Buffett.
10. Not a tip, but a joke..what do you get when you cross Hillary with Warren Buffett? A very witch Person.
What you said! Also, Buffet has no interity. Opposed the repeal of the death tax so the rest of us have to pay it. However, after opposing the repeal, he put his money in a charitable trust so the Government can’t get their hands on it. Also, supports the anti-capitalist democrats. Just a guy that got rich, but has no real vision. He doesn’t deserve any respect.
*
When you have billions like Buffett, you can stay in until it hurts. The average investor simply can’t do that.
You have to have some diluted market timing strategies that dollar cost average you into the market as it goes down, and take profits as it goes up.
Buy and Hold forever only works for the well healed...just ask the tech bubble (media never mentions this Clinton debacle) investors who got wiped out and bought more as stocks went lower.
This market has no risk/reward advantage.
When we follow the money trail, one should notice that fewer people are controlling more of our money than ever.
They can afford to lose our money first. Their money will be safe. When the markets hit bottom, they come back, buy up what everyone lost for cheap, and make even more money when selling back to the suckers they stole from.
Anyone remember gold back in the late 70’s? It took 25 years for the price to rebound after dropping almost half of it’s peak price. Anyone who sat on that gold has some equity now, but adjusted to inflation over the past 25 years, their gold is still worth $300 some dollars in buying power adjusted for inflation.
At least thats the way I see it.
Self contradicting situational “wisdom”. Supposed to “hold forever”, but “sell before midnight”.
Interesting that this thread strikes such a negative chord. More howling in the FR echo chamber?
I don’t care much for WB’s politics. But then again, he isn’t running for political office. He probably also senses which way the wind is blowing and is going to act to protect his interests.
Interesting that this thread strikes such a negative chord. More howling in the FR echo chamber?
I don’t care much for WB’s politics. But then again, he isn’t running for political office. He probably also senses which way the wind is blowing and is going to act to protect his interests.
I saw nothing in there that indicated he knew which way the wind was blowing, only economic platitudes, most of them old.
As many of you are aware Warren is a humble self-made billionaire that has been successful by being consistent and focused on what he is good at; finding good companies that have good management and healthy financial statements.
Most of them bought at bargain basement prices because the heirs had to sell after the founder died, all because of the Death Tax supported by WB. His main source of capital is selling life insurance, the proceeds from which are tax exempt. A nice little parlay for WB.
He cares not one wit for the rest of us.
This thread was about investing, not about Hillary and the election. Did you miss that?
“When the markets hit bottom, they come back, buy up what everyone lost for cheap, and make even more money when selling back to the suckers they stole from”
Are you suggesting that buying when others are selling and selling when others are buying is somehow “stealing from someone”?
“His main source of capital is selling life insurance, the proceeds from which are tax exempt. A nice little parlay for WB. He cares not one wit for the rest of us.”
Warren Buffet and Berkshire did quite well before he got involved in Geico and Reinsurance.
He cares not wit for the rest of us? What’s that about? Why should he? He’s just a guy who makes great long term investments and has stuck with his strategy. It’s not a secret. There’s plenty of books outlining what he and Charley have done.
I was responding to what I considered the tone of the comments by RKBA Democrat to be, that WB is a warm and gentle man despensing investment words of wisdom to the rest of us, words which boil down to "buy low, sell high."
Specifically I was speaking of Buffett frequently complaining about how little we, the average American, pay in taxes versus the rich like himself while at the same time fighting meaningful tax reform because he profits by the present system. He supports higher taxes because he will become even richer because of them, to Hell with the rest of us.
That was my beef, not the free enterprise system.
True enough. But Warren! Your support of Hillary Clinton is....just dumb.
Much as I hat Buffet's politics, he's Midas when it comes to making money. Is there some fund that invests in whatever he does?
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