J. Paul Getty Quotes

I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.

I've learned there's a big difference between a long-focused value investor and a good short-seller. That difference is psychological and I think it falls into the realm of behavioral finance.

The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.

As a bull market turns into a bear market, the new pros turn into optimists, hoping and praying the bear market will become a bull and save them. But as the market remains bearish, the optimists become pessimists, quit the profession, and return to their day jobs. This is when the real professional investors re-enter the market.

The single biggest advantage a value investor has is not IQ. It's patience and waiting. Waiting for the right pitch, and waiting for many years for the right pitch.

The first thing I heard when I got in the business - not from my mentor - was, 'Bulls make money, bears make money, and pigs get slaughtered.' I'm here to tell you I was a pig. And I strongly believe the only way to make long-term returns in our business that are superior is by being a pig.

When high-growth companies slow down, growth and momentum junkies often sell indiscriminately, which can create great opportunities for value investors. Just be careful not to anchor on the stock's previous price or earnings multiple, which are no longer relevant.

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 only when others are fearful.

To buy when others are despondently selling and sell when others are greedily buying requires the greatest fortitude and pays the greatest reward.

I buy when other people are selling.

We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.

Buy into good, well-researched companies and then wait. Let's call it a sit-on-your-hands investment strategy.

If there's a recession, I'd buy stocks. That's when you make money: when markets are spooked.

We call ourselves 'opportunistic value investors.'

Buy stocks like you buy your groceries, not like you buy your perfume.

Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can't buy what is popular and do well.

I'd rather buy something that is relatively depressed than something that is relatively high.

I've been in real estate for my whole life, I've been trying to sharpshoot the market with my investments, I'm never right. All you need to do is get near the bottom. That's good enough.

But my system for over 30 years has been this: When stocks are attractive, you buy them. Sure, they can go lower. I've bought stocks at $12 that went to $2, but then they later went to $30.

Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.

My advice to the average investor in 1988 is to be patient and think long-term. It will take 18 months for confidence to get better and, in the meantime, this is absolutely no place for short-term money.

Investing is a business where you can look very silly for a long period of time before you are proven right.

One has to divide Warren Buffet into different periods. There is a continuously evolving style of Warren Buffett.

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.