Whitney Tilson Quotes

The starting point of my career in money management in 1973-74 was the time of the only true bear market any living non-Japanese investor has seen in major markets. Equities, real estate, you name it, everyone got run over.

When the market goes to hell, it's more of an opportunity than a problem.

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

If you go back to 2001, the market had two violent short covering rallies then, although I know the market didn't officially get going until March 2003.

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

Shorts wager on price declines by selling shares that they have borrowed in the hope of buying them back at far lower prices.

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

In general, the hedge funds were clobbered by the 1969 bear market, ending up in many cases with records that were worse than those put together by aggressive mutual funds denied the luxury of short sales.

I don't try to get all the meat off the bone. When I get a good figure, I just move something. Too many people try to hit the peak price, and they hold on until it is too late.

Bulls don't read. Bears read financial history. As markets fall to bits, the bears dust off the Dutch tulip mania of 1637, the Banque Royale of 1719-20, the railway speculation of the 1840s, the great crash of 1929.

I heard that you did not have a judge to interview this month in the Bulletin, so I thought I'd help out. Besides, with the Stock Market tanking recently, it reminded me of the good old days.

You know, the market was down yesterday... my first thought when I heard-just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, Time to buy.

Ex-Fidelity mutual fund manager Peter Lynch was certainly brilliant in one respect: he knew to get out when the gettin' was good.

There is no training, classroom or otherwise, that can prepare for trading the last third of a move, whether it's the end of a bull market or the end of a bear market.

Don't bottom fish.

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.

I've found that when the market's going down and you buy funds wisely, at some point in the future you will be happy. You won't get there by reading 'Now is the time to buy.'

Short sellers sell stock they have borrowed, hoping to buy it back later when its price has fallen.

I'm sometimes accused of being hostile to mutual funds. That's not fair, really. There is a place for them. Still, I am hostile to one thing, which is trying to use funds to time your way in and out of the market. That's a recipe for very bad results.

The most important thing is to stay the course - not to get shaken out of the market during a difficult time.

Any bull market covers a multitude of sins, so there may be all sorts of problems with the current system that we won't see until the bear market comes.

I've found that when the market's going down and you buy funds wisely, at some point in the future you will be happy.

The main thing during a crisis is discipline, to begin investing in time again after the crisis subsides.

I do not use short selling. The fund has not shorted a stock since the 2002 to 2003 time frame. At that time I did short three stocks, on which I broke even on two and made money on one of them. The experience taught me that I was not going to be using short selling going forward for a slew of reasons.