Warren Buffett Quotes

I buy when other people are selling.

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

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.

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.

You want to be greedy when others are fearful.

Be fearful when there is greed and be greedy when there is fear.

Be fearful when the markets get greedy, be greedy when the markets get fearful.

Invest at the point of maximum pessimism.

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.

The wisest rule in investment is: when others are selling, buy. When others are buying, sell. Usually, of course, we do the opposite. When everyone else is buying, we assume they know something we don't, so we buy. Then people start selling, panic sets in, and we sell too.

The single biggest advantage a value investor has is not IQ. It's patience and waiting. Waiting for the right pitch, and waiting for many years for the right pitch.

A rule of thumb is that the best investors focus on losers, and the winners take care of themselves.

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.

We call ourselves 'opportunistic value investors.'

What's hot today isn't likely to be hot tomorrow. The stock market reverts to fundamental returns over the long run. Don't follow the herd.

When investing, pessimism is your friend, euphoria the enemy.

A price decline is of no real importance to the bona fide investor unless it is either very substantial say, more than a third from cost or unless it reflects a known deterioration of consequence in the company's position. In a well-defined bear market many sound common stocks sell temporarily at extraordinary low prices. It is possible that the investor may then have a paper loss of fully 50 per cent on some of his holdings, without any convincing indication that the underlying values have been permanently affected.

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.

Outperforming the majority of investors requires doing what they are not doing. Buying when others have despaired, and selling when they are full of hope, takes fortitude.

Traditionally the investor has been the man with patience and the courage of his convictions who would buy when the harried or disheartened speculator was selling.

Warren Buffett has said many times that people either get value investing in five minutes or they won't get it in five years. So, there is something in the human brain, that for some of us, makes all the difference in the world right away and the patience it requires is part of the wiring process.

Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can't buy what is popular and do well.

Mr. Market is kind of a drunken psycho. Some days he gets very enthused, some days he gets very depressed. And when he get really enthused you sell to him, and if he gets depressed, you buy from him. There's no moral taint attached to that.

An intelligent investor gets satisfaction from the thought that his operations are exactly opposite to those of the crowd.

The late 90s almost forced me to identify myself as a value investor, because I thought what everybody else was doing was insane.