Merton Miller Quotes

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

I haven't changed any of my investments since I've been in the Senate and haven't purchased any stocks since I've been in the Senate.

Diversification is an established tenet of conservative investment.

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

The deeper one delves, the worse things look for actively managed funds.

We know that by simply changing our allocation between stocks and bonds, we can lessen the amount of volatility in our portfolio until we reach our comfortable sleep level.

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.

Losing some money is an inevitable part of investing, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. But to be an intelligent investor, you must take responsibility for ensuring that you never lose most or all of your money.

Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.

It's 1450 out of 1500 ETF funds that I just wouldn't touch because they're not diversified enough. Or they have some huge speculative twist to them that if you can guess the markets right you will do very well for a day or two but who can do that? Nobody.

Risk can be greatly reduced by concentrating on only a few holdings.

In the long run, a portfolio of well chosen stocks and/or equity mutual funds will always outperform a portfolio of bonds or a money-market account. In the long run, a portfolio of poorly chosen stocks won't outperform the money left under the mattress.

If you have trouble imagining a 20% loss in the stock market, you shouldn't be in stocks.

The most striking thing about Graham's discussion of how to allocate your assets between stocks and bonds is that he never mentions the word "age".

When you diversify your mutual funds, you are diversifying something that is already diversified. Diversifying mutual funds is like taking high octane gasoline & adding water & then adding orange juice to it.

A decade ago, I really did believe that the average investor could do it himself. I was wrong. I've come to the sad conclusion that only a tiny minority, at most one percent, are capable of pulling it off. Heck, if Helen Young Hayes, Robert Sanborn, Julian Robertson, and the nation's largest pension funds can't get it right, what chance does John Q. Investor have?

Index investing is an investment strategy that Walter Mitty would love. It takes very little investment knowledge, no skill, practically no time or effort-and outperforms about 80 percent of all investors.

If your fund doesn't last for the long term, how can you invest for the long term?

The best stock to buy is the one you already own.

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

Index funds eliminate the risks of individual stocks, market sectors, and manager selection. Only stock market risk remains.

The greater the potential for reward in the value portfolio, the less risk there is.

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.

Always invest for the long term.

You have to keep your priorities straight if you plan to do well in stocks.