Charlie Munger Quotes

A second reason why science cannot replace judgement is the behavior of financial markets.

Remember that banks aren't markets. The market is amoral. The market doesn't care who you are. You're a trade to the market. The market will sell you if they think you're riskier.

Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.

Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.

Maybe there are too many restaurants. Maybe some of mine need to close. So be it. I'll live with the market place.

One of the most constant aspects of American life is change - and nowhere is it more evident than in our financial markets.

I invested in many companies, and I'm happy this one worked. This is capitalism. You invest in stock, it goes up, it goes down. You know, if you don't like capitalism, you don't like making money with stock, move to Cuba or China.

The price of every thing rises and falls from time to time and place to place; and with every such change the purchasing power of money changes so far as that thing goes.

If I finance a bank and I know if the bank will get in trouble, I will be hit and I will lose money, I will put a price on that.

When we look at investing, we always think about 'how defensible is this, how likely is it that somebody is going to copy this.' E-commerce tends to be something easy to copy because it's execution.

The thing is, people can't complain about profit-oriented moves if they're only interested in profit themselves. You can't have it both ways. If they're willing to polish up a gift and sell it to make money, they can't really complain about the fact that somebody above them has sold them down the river. That's the way it goes.

The global financial crisis - missed by most analysts - shows that most forecasters are poor at pricing in economic/financial risks, let alone geopolitical ones.

For too long people have backed companies on hope value rather than solid products coming out. Now we are coming out the other side.

I make no claim to being a business genius. You can make so much money in this business that it loses its value.

If interest rates don't come down, there is going to be bloody retribution, not from government, but from the people .... The market likes high rates. the market's keeping the price artificially high to increase profits.

When you’re dealing with a commodity, high productivity means that nobody makes any money.

A Merchant may gain where the Nation loses.

When you're in 45 markets, you take it on the chin here and there.

When the price of a drug rises, it becomes profitable and the target of new competition.

When you see a 'Shark fight' erupt, we aggressively want to understand what we are committing our money toward.

Once in a blue moon, an entire industry is a good short.

Market risk is like taking a plunge into a cool pool ... a lot of people are finding out right now what their risk tolerance is.

Business is more exciting than any game.

Who would you trust right now? Which bank would you trust? Which investment would you trust? Do you really want to put your money; do you want to suffer more of these losses that we just had? You know, these volatility that we see is just unexplainable by any rational standards. Nobody has any clue about how to explain this, and nobody wants to experience that. So, we hold more money back, we don't necessarily want to invest in the market and by default, people are saving more.

Stock market risk is ok, but not for Social Security.