Investment Losses Quotes

When the 1929 crash wiped out disposable income, there were not enough consumers to fuel a recovery.

Although the Fed has subjected banks’ portfolios to stress tests to measure the effect of rising interest rates and investment losses, the results might not have shown the whole picture: U.S. banks, particularly small and medium-sized ones, may not have enough capital to maintain solvency and liquidity should their risky loans and investments fail in large numbers. The same is true of the stress tests that the ECB has performed in Europe,

If you were approaching the TARP investments from a pure investment standpoint, then there's no doubt in my mind the taxpayer lost, and probably lost big.

I bought a company in the mid-'90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I've made lots of dumb decisions. That's part of the game.

Little-known fact: When the stock exchange closes, the guy who comes out on the balcony with that big hammer slams it on the head of the person who lost the most money that day.

After 1929, so many people had been traumatized by the stock market crash that there was a lost generation.

Two months ago we were facing serious problems. The country was dying by inches. It was dying because trade and commerce had declined to dangerously low levels; prices for basic commodities were such as to destroy the value of the assets of national institutions such as banks, savings banks, insurance companies, and others. These institutions, because of their great needs, were foreclosing mortgages, calling loans, refusing credit. Thus there was actually in process of destruction the property of millions of people.

I have a real kind of fundamental philosophical belief that movies are better if everyone gets paid when they work, and if they don't work, the people who worked on them make a little bit of money, and the people who finance them, they lose, but they don't lose too much. I believe that that creates better work.

Hundreds of investors ask me questions each year about the dilemmas they confront. Their worst problem? Uncertainty. They are traumatized and become emotional or confused to the state of inaction. Even worse, they try to solve a short-term problem in a way that hurts them financially in the long run.

The danger that we have right now are people who get the same information as I do and, therefore, think they'll reach the same conclusions that haven't traded as long, don't have bear claws up and down their backs like I do.

I was 5 years old when the stock market crashed; I lost everything.

When the housing market fell in Las Vegas, we got so many Rolex and Tag Heuer watches it was ridiculous.

You could have another downgrade. You could certainly have a stock market reaction that would be negative. And, I think nobody who looks at it objectively would want to happen.

Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, 'I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.' If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.

The crisis and recession have led to very low interest rates, it is true, but these events have also destroyed jobs, hamstrung economic growth and led to sharp declines in the values of many homes and businesses.

I experienced the year 2000 dot com crash and the 2008 financial crisis, and it almost wiped out the company.

History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums.

Preventing liquidation of an unbalanced market will leave you in tears.

You never cash out a 401(k) or IRA to pay off debt, unless it's to avoid a foreclosure or bankruptcy.

In 2008, when the real estate market blew up, it principally hurt older people who saw the value of their houses go down, along with their pension plans.

In a Ponzi scheme, a promoter pays back his initial investors with money he has raised from new investors. Eventually, the promoter can no longer find enough new investors to pay off the people who have already put up money, and the scheme collapses.

Investors have few spare tires left. Think of the image of a car on a bumpy road to an uncertain destination that has already used up its spare tire. The cash reserves of people have been eaten up by the recent market volatility.

Within a few months in 2008, household finances were crushed as asset values fell, millions of jobs were lost, countless credit cards were canceled, and thousands of homes were foreclosed on.

In a company like Gucci, you can lose millions and millions in a second.

To the extent that people overpay as a result of the Libor manipulation, they should be able to get their money back. Individuals who have mortgages, pension funds who had pensioner investments - whoever was ripped off is entitled to get their money back.