Investment Performance Quotes

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.

The actions of hedge fund managers in exercising their fiduciary responsibilities to their investors is not the reason why Chrysler is in jeopardy.

Pension funds, endowments, and private investors trust Mitt Romney's former company Bain Capital enough to hand it billions of dollars in assets.

Making an investment decision is like formulating a scientific hypothesis and submitting it to a practical test.

There are a few investment managers, of course, who are very good - though in the short run, it's difficult to determine whether a great record is due to luck or talent. Most advisors, however, are far better at generating high fees than they are at generating high returns. In truth, their core competence is salesmanship. Rather than listen to their siren songs, investors - large and small - should instead read Jack Bogle's The Little Book of Common Sense Investing.

Often, investors will discover a manager after he's had a terrific run, usually when he lands on a magazine cover somewhere. Invariably, funds swell up with new investor money just before they revert to their long-term averages.

Thousands of people have tried, and the evidence is clear: The more you trade, the less you keep.

By any measure, CapitalSource outperformed both our direct competitors and the financial services industry in general, particularly in the context of the near collapse of the financial services industry where 19 of the 20 largest financial institutions in the country either failed or were bailed out by the government.

If book knowledge made great investors, than the librarians would all be rich.

I haven't changed any of my investments since I've been in the Senate and haven't purchased any stocks since I've been in the Senate.

I think over any period of time, especially if you don't use leverage, it is difficult to continually beat the S&P 500.

99% of fund managers demonstrate no evidence of skill whatsoever.

Most investors would be better off in an index fund.

In my opinion, the entire field of investment management, involving hundreds of billions of dollars, would be more satisfactorily conducted if everyone had a good yardstick for measurement of ability and sensibly applied it.

Just because one happens to be wealthy, it doesn't mean you are naturally any good at building an investment operation that is world-class or successful.

[With] closet indexing....you're paying a manager a fortune and he has 85% of his assets invested parallel to the indexes. If you have such a system, you're being played for a sucker.

While it is probably a poor idea to own actively managed funds in general, it is truly a terrible idea to own them in taxable accounts... taxes are a drag on performance of up to 4 percentage points each year... many index funds allow your capital gains to grow largely undisturbed until you sell... For the taxable investor, indexing means never having to say you're sorry.

For the taxable investor, indexing means never having to say you're sorry.

If I were to leave and raise a venture fund, I would have to find 10 or 100 LPs. They would all give me a bunch of money, and I would take a percentage of that to pay myself. They would expect me to invest that over the next three years, and they want that money back in seven or eight years.

The way to build long-term returns is through preservation of capital and home runs.

Successful hedge funds will be entrepreneurial; it is the essence of the craft.

The deeper one delves, the worse things look for actively managed funds.

Twenty years in this business convinces me that any normal person using the customary three percent of the brain can pick stocks just as well, if not better, than the average Wall Street expert.

As a result of overdiversification, their (active managers) returns get watered down. Diversification covers up ignorance. Active managers haven't done enough research into any of their companies. If managers have 200 positions, do you think they know what's going on at any one of those companies at this moment?

I've been investing in the stock market for 27 years and, within that time, have helped investors beat the market nearly four to one.