Jeffrey R. Immelt Quotes

I believe in diversification of income, because you never know what will happen. I'm a slightly paranoid person who thinks things could be ruined at any time.

If there's one thing that's certain in business, it's uncertainty.

Be realistic and truthful - and tell Hong Kong businessmen honestly that they should go for long-term investments since it is unlikely money can be made in the short haul.

The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.

The future is always coming up with surprises for us, and the best way to insulate yourself from these surprises is to diversify.

If my businesses or my investments are not profitable, then I don't eat. And I like to eat.

Good businesses will survive good times and bad times.

Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market right now, this week.

You could lose hundreds or thousands one day on paper and gain it all back the next, and it has literally no effect on your immediate future, provided the money you have in the market is money you're investing for the long haul (meaning at least three to five years).

It is madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because by herself she is nothing and is ruled by prudence.

If your investing approach requires that you become Nostradamus to succeed, then you are destined to fail.

The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.

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

I do not give money for just mere hopes.

I like not to feel that all my eggs are in one basket, or I get nervous.

It is important for investors to understand what they do and don't know. Learn to recognize that you cannot possibly know what is going to happen in the future, and any investment plan that is dependent on accurately forecasting where markets will be next year is doomed to failure.

Well, you know, any defense force worth its salt has to be able to deal with uncertainty, has to be able to deal with events that we may not have planned for.

Life insurance became popular only when insurance companies stopped emphasizing it as a good investment and sold it instead as a symbolic commitment by fathers to the future well-being of their families.

This is the profession I chose, and you really learn to save your money because you never know how it's going to go, but you still want to get out there and work.

My giving is discretionary, but keeping the business going is not.

Between calculated risk and reckless decision-making lies the dividing line between profit and loss.

We're certainly interested in maximizing our return and doing it - we're interested in maximizing our return, but we're also interested in doing it over a long period of time and in doing it in a way that never endangers the firm from a survivability standpoint.

They've been fairly positive, as firm as they could be in regards to the derivatives operations in Montreal. We didn't sense that there was a hesitation about it. But things change.

The biggest thrill wasn't in winning on Sunday but in meeting the payroll on Monday.

We need to keep investing in economic and homeland security. We need to bank on the right kind of economic development. We need to embrace opportunities, but with the right kind of safeguards.