Michael Steinhardt Quotes

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.

Just as outright euphoria is often a sign of a market top, fear is for sure a sign of a market bottom. Time and time again, in every market cycle I have witnessed, the extremes of emotion always appear, even among experienced investors. When the world wants to buy only treasury bills, you can almost close your eys and get long stocks.

Buy when everyone else is selling and hold until everyone else is buying. That's not just a catchy slogan. It's the very essence of successful investing.

I buy when other people are selling.

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.

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.

Buy when there's blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own.

You want to be greedy when others are fearful.

The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy.

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

When good news about the market hits the front page of the New York Times, sell.

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

The real key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them.

Cash - in savings accounts, short-term CDs or money market deposits - is great for an emergency fund. But to fulfill a long-term investment goal like funding your retirement, consider buying stocks. The more distant your financial target, the longer inflation will gnaw at the purchasing power of your money.

Why not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, 'Too much of a good thing can be wonderful'.

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

The older I get, the less respect I have for the signals emitted by our vaunted speculative markets.

Markets are self-regulating only because some brave investors are prepared to bet against the market trend.

When the man who ought to want a stock doesn't want it, why should I want it?

I have mutual funds. I have a lot of individual stocks. I'm across the board, really well diversified.

When even the analysts are bored, it's time to start buying.

Bull-markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria.

The intelligent investor should recognize that market panics can create great prices for good companies and good prices for great companies.

I think there's something to be said for developing the disposition to own stocks without fretting.

The investor who permits himself to be stampeded or unduly worried by unjustified market declines in his holdings is perversely transforming his basic advantage into a basic disadvantage.