The American billionaire is as much a fan of good words as he is of good financial shots. Here are some of its most famous formulas, and often very colorful.
Warren Buffett is one of those rare billionaires who have real sympathy for the general public.
But the great investor is also very funny and humorous .
His sense of formula has found fertile ground in the world of finance.
Check out 55 Warren Buffett Quotes and words On Investment from one of the wealthiest people in the world.
“It is when the sea recedes that we see those who bathe naked.”
With the subprime crisis, this prediction took on its full meaning. The large American banking groups, which seemed solid, proved to be largely exposed to massive defaults on repayments of subprime loans.
“Wall Street is the only place people ride in a Rolls Royce for advice from those who take the subway.”
The American billionaire has never paid much attention to Wall Street. The Berkshire headquarters are located in Omaha (Nebraska), the city where he was born.
“On the stock market, there are two fundamental rules to respect. The first is not to lose, the second is to never forget the first.”
It’s a maxim that Warren Buffett had to follow to the letter. At the start of his career, in the 1960s, the rate of return on his investments thus exceeded 30% when the market average hovered around 10%.
“Our goal is to discover extraordinary companies at ordinary prices and not ordinary companies at extraordinary prices.”
Warren Buffett is used to investing in companies he considers undervalued but with significant growth potential.
“When smart people explain their ideas to an orangutan, it improves the quality of their decision-making.”
Warren Buffett has always strived to express himself in a language that is simple and understandable for the greatest number. In the annual letters, which he addresses to his shareholders, he is particularly fond of pictorial explanations.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to destroy it. If you keep that in mind, you behave differently.”
In addition to his fortune, Warren Buffett has patiently built a reputation as a brilliant investor and a man of integrity.
“In the business world, the rear mirror is unfortunately always lighter than the windshield.”
Even if he distrusts the forecasts of others, “the Oracle of Omaha” anticipates rather well the tendencies to come. As early as May 2006, during his annual high mass in front of his followers in Omaha, the city where he has always lived, he warned against the existence of a real estate bubble and a possible multiplication of credit defaults.
“If you ever find yourself in a sinking boat, the energy to change boats is more productive than the energy to plug the holes.”
With this phrase, the businessman means that it is useless to persist in a declining activity.
“Most people are interested in stocks when everyone is interested in them. The time to buy is when no one wants to buy. You can only buy what is popular.”
Warren Buffett likes to take the opposite view from finance specialists. Example: PetroChina.
“Everything is going very well for the rich in this country, we have never been so prosperous. It is a class war, and it is my class which is winning”
With nearly $ 60 billion, Warren Buffett is one of the richest men in the world. This does not prevent him from campaigning for a better redistribution of wealth.
“If you don’t know the jewelry, know the jeweler”
Warren Buffett invests only in sectors, such as industry, of which he knows the companies, the economic model and the leaders.
“Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”
Warren Buffett likes to go against the general trend of the markets. He recently invested …. in the train and the paperweight.
“Buy only things that you will be perfectly happy to own if the market collapses for 10 years.”
In choosing his acquisitions, Warren Buffett generally reasons over the long term, like his stake in Coca-Cola. He is wary of cyclical market downturns and is betting on the valuation of his investments over the long term.
“You are not right because others agree with you. You are right because your facts are correct and your reasoning is correct.”
Warren Buffett inherited this principle from his mentor in finance, Ben Graham. And it is also against him that the young investor applied it for the first time. In 1951, Ben Graham advised him to wait before embarking on finance. Warren has done only as he pleases, with the success we know of.
“When you’re in a hole, the worst thing you can do is keep digging.”
There is no point in persisting when the situation worsens.
“Good jockeys get results on good horses, but none on canals.”
The first thing Warren Buffett looks at when looking at a business is his business model. Even with the best leaders, a society with unstable foundations can never achieve convincing results.
“When looking for people to recruit, you need to look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don’t have the first, the other two will kill you.”
For years the succession of the Omaha Oracle at the head of Berkshire has fueled conversations.
“In the new theory of portfolio management, there are a lot of little Greek letters and all kinds of things that make you think you are ahead. But there is no added value.”
To make his investments, Warren Buffett is wary of concepts and maintains his old-fashioned analyzes by looking for undervalued companies.
“A very wealthy person should leave enough for their children to do what they want but not enough for them to do nothing.”
Of the fortune of their father, the three children of Warren Buffett will touch only a part. The billionaire has pledged to donate most of his fortune.
“The price is what you pay. The value is what you earn.”
A simple sentence that perfectly sums up Warren Buffett’s strategy. Its investments generally concern companies whose price is low but to which the financier grants growth potential which will increase its value.
“The tax system has completely deviated in favor of the wealthy at the expense of the middle classes. It is dramatic.”
In addition to attacking the remuneration of the big CEOs, Warren Buffett defends the principle of redistribution and supports the democratic candidates for the presidential election.
“I want to be able to explain my mistakes. That’s why I only do things that I understand. “
The guru of finance has in particular always been wary of technological values, which has enabled him to cross the Internet bubble without a hitch.
“Forecasts tell you a lot about those who make them, they tell you nothing about the future.”
Warren Buffett considers that all intermediaries and brokers benefit from the multiplication of exchanges, at the expense of investors.
“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone else planted a tree a long time ago.”
Warren Buffett does not create companies, he buys them when he judges that the concept has significant growth potential.
“I broke Noah’s rule: predicting rain doesn’t count. What’s important is to build arches.”
Warren Buffett made these comments after September 11. He blames himself for not taking into account the terrorist threat in the risk calculation of the reinsurance company General Re, which is part of the Berkshire Hathaway group and which, like all American insurers, suffered large losses at following the attacks.
- “Rule No. 1 is never lose money. Rule No. 2 is never forget Rule No. 1.”
- “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
- “Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble.”
- “Widespread fear is your friend as an investor because it serves up bargain purchases.”
- “Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.”
- “We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”
- “The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble…We want to buy them when they’re on the operating table.”
- “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”
- “For the investor, a too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favorable business developments.”
- “The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.”
- “You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
- “On the margin of safety, which means, don’t try and drive a 9,800-pound truck over a bridge that says it’s, you know, capacity: 10,000 pounds. But go down the road a little bit and find one that says, capacity: 15,000 pounds.”
- “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago”
- “If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes.”
- “When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.”
- “An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it.”
- “Since I know of no way to reliably predict market movements, I recommend that you purchase Berkshire shares only if you expect to hold them for at least five years. Those who seek short-term profits should look elsewhere.”
- “Buy a stock the way you would buy a house. Understand and like it such that you’d be content to own it in the absence of any market.”
- “All there is to investing is picking good stocks at good times and staying with them as long as they remain good companies.”
- “Do not take yearly results too seriously. Instead, focus on four or five-year averages.”
- “I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”
- “It is a terrible mistake for investors with long-term horizons — among them pension funds, college endowments, and savings-minded individuals — to measure their investment ‘risk’ by their portfolio’s ratio of bonds to stocks.”
- “Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be a more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.”
- “The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.”
- “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
- “Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.”
- “The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.”
- “The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don’t have to swing at everything — you can wait for your pitch.”
- Success in investing doesn’t correlate with IQ … what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.
- “You don’t need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ.”
- “When trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients.”
- “Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”
- “If returns are going to be 7 or 8 percent and you’re paying 1 percent for fees, that makes an enormous difference in how much money you’re going to have in retirement.”
- “Too-big-to-fail is not a fallback position at Berkshire. Instead, we will always arrange our affairs so that any requirements for cash we may conceivably have will be dwarfed by our own liquidity.”
- “We never want to count on the kindness of strangers in order to meet tomorrow’s obligations. When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night’s sleep for the chance of extra profits.”
- “Cash … is to a business as oxygen is to an individual: never thought about when it is present, the only thing in mind when it is absent.”
- “After 25 years of buying and supervising a great variety of businesses, Charlie and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them.”
- “Speculation is most dangerous when it looks easiest.”
- “Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies.”
- “Keep things simple and don’t swing for the fences. When promised quick profits, respond with a quick “no.”
- Half of all coin-flippers will win their first toss; none of those winners has an expectation of profit if he continues to play the game.
- “When you have able managers of high character running businesses about which they are passionate, you can have a dozen or more reporting to you and still have time for an afternoon nap. Conversely, if you have even one person reporting to you who is deceitful, inept or uninterested, you will find yourself with more than you can handle.”
- “And so the important thing we do with managers, generally, is to find the .400 hitters and then not tell them how to swing.”
- “When stock can be bought below a business’s value it is probably the best use of cash.”
- “What is smart at one price is stupid at another.”
- “Among the various propositions offered to you, if you invested in a very low cost index fund — where you don’t put the money in at one time, but average in over 10 years — you’ll do better than 90% of people who start investing at the same time.”
- “Just pick a broad index like the S&P 500. Don’t put your money in all at once; do it over a period of time.”
- “It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.”
- “Because if you’re wrong and rates go to 2 percent, which I don’t think they will, you pay it off. It’s a one-way renegotiation. It is an incredibly attractive instrument for the homeowner and you’ve got a one-way bet.”
- “There is nothing wrong with a ‘know nothing’ investor who realizes it. The problem is when you are a ‘know nothing’ investor but you think you know something.”
- “You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.”
- “We believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics before buying into it.”
- “Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they’re doing.”
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