Whitney Tilson Quotes

Warren Buffett is famous for talking about the 'intrinsic value' of stocks. But while many people parrot this phrase, few know what it really means.

Of course. I favor passive investing for most investors, because markets are amazingly successful devices for incorporating information into stock prices.

The proposition is that prices reflect all available information, which in simple terms means since prices reflect all available information, there's no way to beat the market.

Whenever you hear a discussion about the short-term swings in any given stock's price, your immediate thought should be whether it matters to why you are investing.

What we do is we test what works on Wall Street. And sometimes it is earnings momentum, and sometimes it's earnings surprises. Sometimes it's price-to-sales cash flow, and then we put together our stock selection models.

Since we try and take a fairly buy-and-hold approach to our newsletter portfolios and don't sell at every whipsaw, we want to have a mix of stocks that will perform at both ends of the oscillation.

Part of my advantage is that my strength is economic forecasting, but that only works in free markets, when markets are smarter than people. That's how I started. I watched the stock market, how equities reacted to change in levels of economic activity, and I could understand how price signals worked and how to forecast them.

We continue to advise that investors remain committed to a patient, long-term outlook and that the best way to do well in stocks is to use a disciplined, time-tested strategy that has the benefit of empirically tested results over a variety of market environments.

Everyone has the idea of owning good companies. The problem is that they have high prices in relations to assets and earnings, and that takes all of the fun out of the game.

The markets are efficient over time.

In my business investing, you are buying a stock, and someone else is selling the stock. Right there, that's like a debate. Is the stock going up, or is it going to go down?

Just because a stock is down doesn't mean it's a great buy.

A large and growing body of academic research suggests there are market anomalies that can be exploited to beat a strict index approach. Some of that research has been recognized with Nobels in economic science - William F. Sharpe in 1990 and Eugene F. Fama in 2013.

I'm going to reveal the grand secret to getting rich by investing. It's a simple formula that has worked for Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn and all the greatest investment gurus over the years. Ready? Buy low, sell high.

Market timing doesn't work. If all the bubbles and all this mispricing really exist, how come so few people see it before it turns out that way?

The key thing when you short is to make sure you're not wrong on the fundamental intrinsic value.

Wise investors won't try to outsmart the market.

I think a lot of hedge funds get their trades from Wall Street and get their ideas from Wall Street. And I just like to find my own ideas. I'm reading a lot; I read a lot of news. I'm addicted to it. I basically - I follow my nose on news stories.

To establish the right price for a stock, the market must have adequate information, but it by no means follows that is the market has this information it will thereupon establish the right price.

I particularly remember the time I gave (the research director) my paper on the banking industry. I felt very proud of my work. However, he read through it and said, 'This is useless. What makes the stock go up and down?' That comment acted as a spur. Thereafter, I focused my analysis on seeking to identify the factors that were strongly correlated to a stock's price movement as opposed to looking at all the fundamentals. Frankly, even today, many analysts still don't know what makes their particular stocks go up and down.

I think Stockman is an interesting sort of amalgam.

I believe that the mutual fund industry's biggest shortcoming is too much focus on the momentary price of a stock - an illusion - and too little focus on the intrinsic value of the corporation - the ultimate reality. I'm comforted by the fact that Warren Buffett feels the same way.

The efficient market theory is one of the better models in the sense that it can be taken as true for every purpose I can think of. For investment purposes, there are very few investors that shouldn't behave as if markets are totally efficient.

The concept of paying one-hundred-and-something times earnings for any company for me is just anathema. Having said that, at the end of the day, your job is to buy what goes up and to sell what goes down so really who gives a damn about PE's?

The investment game always involves considering both quality and price, and the trick is to get more quality than you pay for in price. It's just that simple.