Investor Risk Quotes

A pin lies in wait for every bubble. And when the two eventually meet, a new wave of investors learns some very old lessons: First, many in Wall Street (a community in which quality control is not prized) will sell investors anything they will buy. Second, speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest.

Technology tends toward avoidance of risks by investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if possible. People generally prefer the predictable. Few recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our universe can throw the dice.

Do I think it is good policy for the government to own companies? Normally, I'd say 'no.' But in my world, if a firm puts itself in a position that it needs a last minute rescue, and the future is uncertain at best, then the investor who steps into that breach ends up owning the company. Full stop.

Investors are sometimes too busy looking for profits to notice where the truth ends and the deception begins.

You are spending millions and millions of dollars of other peoples money when you make a movie. You have to at least approach it in a way where you can see how you can make that money back for the people who are investing.

It's a fact: stock investors sometimes lose money on their way to wealth. Get over it.

There is not necessarily a good reason why a regulator should have to be involved in product design and marketing for rich and sophisticated investors. We recommend that such investors should be able to sign a piece of paper, which allows them to go ahead and buy unregulated products at their own risk.

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.

It's the greatest game I ever saw. You can't lose. Everybody buys to sell and nobody buys to keep. What's worrying me is who is going to be the last owner. It's just like an auction; the only one stuck is the last one.

We [US government] have used our taxpayer dollars not only to subsidize these banks but also to subsidize the creditors of those banks and the equity holders in those banks. We could have talked about forcing those investors to take some serious hits on their risky dealings. The idea that taxpayer dollars go in first rather than last - after the equity has been used up - is shocking.

The chief losses to investors come from the purchase of low-quality securities at times of favorable business conditions.

Henry Ford has several times sneered at unproductive stockholders.... Well, now. Let's see. Who made Henry Ford's own automobile company possible? The stockholders who originally advanced money to him. Who makes it possible for you and me to be carried to and from business by train or street car? Stockholders.... Who made our vast telephone and telegraph service possible? Stockholders.... Were stockholders all over the country to withdraw their capital from the enterprises in which they are invested, there would be a panic ... on a scale never before known.

There was a time when a company could not sell its shares to the public unless its revenues were growing and it was turning a profit. Companies that lost money were deemed too risky for public investors.

Investors do not like losing money. They do not like companies that fail. They do not like entrepreneurs that fail. There is not a culture of celebrating failure in Silicon Valley or anyplace else. That is a myth. Recognize this, and if you start another business, get it to a successful point before approaching outside investors again.

Even a casual reader of the financial pages knows that microcaps are a perennial headache for regulators and, above all, for investors because they have been prone to abuse by stock manipulators.