Whitney Tilson Quotes

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

We take the traditional value investor's process and just flip it around a little bit. The traditional value investor asks 'Is this cheap?' and then 'Why is it cheap?' We start by identifying a reason something might be mispriced, and then if we find a reason why something is likely mispriced, then we make a determination whether it's cheap.

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.

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

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.

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.

We have usually made our best purchases when apprehensions about some macro event were at a peak. Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist.

Of course. I favor passive investing for most investors, because markets are amazingly successful devices for incorporating information into stock prices.

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.

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.

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

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

We continue to advise that investors remain committed to a patient, long-term outlook and that the best way to do well in stocks is to use a disciplined, time-tested strategy that has the benefit of empirically tested results over a variety of market environments.

Everyone has the idea of owning good companies. The problem is that they have high prices in relations to assets and earnings, and that takes all of the fun out of the game.

It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

Warren Buffett is famous for talking about the 'intrinsic value' of stocks. But while many people parrot this phrase, few know what it really means.

A large and growing body of academic research suggests there are market anomalies that can be exploited to beat a strict index approach. Some of that research has been recognized with Nobels in economic science - William F. Sharpe in 1990 and Eugene F. Fama in 2013.

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.

I think investors ought to focus on making sure that the stock is within their circle of competence, that it's worth a lot more than it's valued at - and once you have those two things, a stop-loss makes no sense.

The market is often stupid, but you can't focus on that. Focus on the underlying value of dividends and earnings.

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

The exact details of how you practice value investing will vary investor to investor, but the fundamental principle of scouring the world, looking for dollar bills that you can buy for 50 cents or at some big discount - that is universal to value investing.

The consequences of overestimating a company and your ability to analyse it are greatly diminished when you're paying a lot less for it than your analysis shows it is worth.

We call ourselves 'opportunistic value investors.'

I try to buy shares of unpopular companies when they look like road kill and sell them when they've been polished up a bit.