Benoit Mandelbrot Quotes

When the weather changes, nobody believes the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed.

All market response results from a reduction of uncertainty.

I like having a routine, because everything else... is so unpredictable.

Investors don't like uncertainty.

I guess I crave stability.

Markets love volatility.

I like consistency. If you've had a childhood like mine, you want some things you can rely on to stay the same.

If the ... President has much more than a hangnail, the stock market goes crazy.

… there is little rhyme or reason to the going up or coming down of the [Stock] Market

I don’t know why the Stock Market does what it does.

The markets do numbers, not nuance.

One of the reasons why we can make a lot of money in equity markets is because they're auction-driven, and auction-driven markets are very different from almost any other kind of market.

I don't think policy makers surprise unnecessarily. You don't pick surprise as a part of your policy. Markets value a certain amount of predictability. But there are certain areas where surprise is a tool.

I believe, in the stock market - that's one of my fields - that most people are irrational. And to be irrational, you can be irrational in so many different ways that, practically, the result is indeterminate.

As I have said before, the daily machinations of the stock market are like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

When asked what the stock market will do: It will fluctuate.

A show that's been successful that been on a while, chances are it's going to stay that way. At least it's going to maintain some kind of standard. But when a show begins, there's no telling. Even after 13 shows or a whole year, you don't know what will become of it.

Nothing important on Wall Street can be counted on to occur exactly in the same way as it happened before.

We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.

My mom just told me it's impossible to know what's going to happen in life. Except with breakfast, cause she eats the same thing every day.

Sometimes I doubt and sometimes I believe. And I like not making myself believe when I am doubting, and not making myself doubt when I am believing. Surely neither God nor Accident need my consistency.

I would not be good with someone who did drugs. As long as I know something, I can deal with anything. I'm really good. But what I'm not good with is inconsistency. And I'm not good with not knowing.

The recent market run-up that appreciated run-of-the- mill shares also chanced to send up those token gold holdings. Pure luck, undeserved and unlikely to reoccur. Good questions outrank easy answers.

The stock market resembles a huge laundry in which institutions take in large blocks of each others washing ... without rhyme or reason.

Predictability can lead to failure.