Warren Buffett Quotes

Once in a while, I see my fellow TV investors praise a business just because they like the entrepreneur behind it. That kind of thinking might make you feel warm and fuzzy inside - but let's get back to reality.

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

Since there are a wide range of entrepreneurs fundraising at any given time, I looked at each opportunity as it has arisen and on its own merits. Then I've sat down with my financial advisers, we've looked at the numbers and gone for the businesses I believe have real potential.

Our mandate is to find the 200 best companies in the world and invest in them, and find the 200 worst companies in the world and go short on them. If the 200 best don't do better than the 200 worst, you should probably be in another business.

You don’t have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.

Every time we make an investment decision at FedEx, we ask ourselves: 'What is the return on this investment?'

I found an approach to investing that made enormous sense to me: rigorously analyzing a company's fundamentals, understanding exactly how it makes money, developing a view on the business's future prospects, and deciding if it's a good business.

When buying shares, ask yourself, would you buy the whole company?

The only way one should buy stocks is if you understand the underlying business. You stay within the circle of competence. You buy businesses you understand.

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

A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price.

When selecting businesses, I first have to be enticed by the product or the industry they are in. Then I look for passion. If a company has these two qualifiers, I go for it.

Netflix is a better company with more upside than we had given it credit for than when we shorted it.

I'm a very commonsense guy - I just look at the viability of the idea, if I feel the team has the ability to execute the idea. I also look at the investment syndicate, the size of the market, and then a lot of gut married on top of it.

One of my rules for investing is, I don't invest in a deal where I don't think I have an unfair advantage and where I don't think I can personally impact the outcome.

I love the Knicks and Rangers, right, but you still have a responsibility to your shareholders. They're not there because they're fans. You don't invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a stock because you're a fan. You do it because you think that the business is going to increase in value, that the stock price is going to go up.

Investigate carefully before you invest. Spend as much time researching the investment as you spend earning the money.

We say we are trying to buy into businesses with excellent economics, run by honest and able people at a decent price. We buy very few securities, so we look at it as "focused" investing.

If the value of a company doesn't just scream out at you, it's too close.

Everybody's got a different circle of competence. The important thing is not how big the circle is. The important thing is staying inside the circle.

I'm a shareholder in Microsoft Corp. of some size, and while I don't work for the place anymore, I think a lot about that investment, how - as an outsider - might I add value or not add value? Do I believe that things are headed in a good direction? So I wouldn't say I spend the majority of my time on that, but I spend some time on that as well.

What you really want to do in investments is figure out what's important and knowable. If it's unimportant or unknowable you forget about it.

Knowledge is only one ingredient on arriving at a stock's proper price. The other ingredient, fully as important as information, is sound judgment.

Making an investment decision is like formulating a scientific hypothesis and submitting it to a practical test. The main difference is that the hypothesis that underlies an investment decision is intended to make money and not to establish a universally valid generalization.

There are all kinds of businesses that Charlie and I don't understand, but that doesn't cause us to stay up at night. It just means we go on to the next one, and that's what the individual investor should do.