Investing Quotes

Investing Words of Wisdom

"Dividend stocks have several advantages, since 1926 dividends have accounted for about 42 per cent of investor returns, while being less volatile than the market. To some extent the dividend acts like an anchor, slowing the stock down. The beauty of dividends is that you get paid, whether or not the market is up."

Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst with Standard & Poor’s

"Don't get the wrong idea about dividend mutual funds and ETFs. They're still a great way to benefit from total return investing, which means dividends tacked onto share price gains. But if you want to build a flow of dividend income that grows year by year, individual stocks look better."

Rob Carrick, journalist The Globe and Mail

"There are 60,000 economists in the U.S., many of them employed full-time trying to forecast recessions and interest rates, and if they could do it successfully twice in a row, they'd all be millionaires by now...as far as I know, most of them are still gainfully employed, which ought to tell us something."

Peter Lynch, author of "One Up on Wall Street"

"I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful."

Warren Buffett

"If the job has been correctly done when a common stock is purchased, the time to sell it is almost never."

Philip Fisher

"Investing is not rocket science. You don't earn more if you have the higher IQ, nor do you need to be a math genius to make money. You can spend many hours a week or just a few hours a year investing and still earn satisfactory returns."

Joe Ponzio, author of "F Wall Street"

"Based on my own personal experience - both as an investor in recent years and an expert witness in years past - rarely do more than three or four variables really count. Everything else is noise."

Marty Whitman

"All intelligent investing is value investing - to acquire more than you are paying for. Investing is where you find a few great companies and then sit on your ass."

Charlie Munger

"You stick to value, to Benjamin Graham, the man who wrote the bible for the market. It’s a mistake to believe you can do more, I warn you. John Maynard Keynes was one of the most famous economists in history. He was a genius, but he failed as a macro investor. It was hard to believe at the time. But when he became a bottom-up value guy, well, he became very successful. With value investing, you don’t have to bend the truth to accommodate periods with derivatives and manias. Value investing will almost always be right."

Irving Kahn

"Dividend increases are a sign that companies are comfortable their future profit will be resilient."

Tom Connolly, Founder Connolly Report

"Look to add quality, dividend-paying, blue chips when they become irrationally oversold and undervalued. That is how and when experienced investors create blue chip investment portfolios which serve them well throughout their entire lives with growth of capital and growth of dividend income. The process is called 'investing' as opposed to whatever the hype and hope of the moment is in style."

Kelley Wright, Managing Editor, Investment Quality Trends

"The beauty of the high-quality, worldwide, non-cyclical approach is that it gives a good reward while being low-risk, simple, non-commission intensive, and exposed to few surprises. I have often recommended it to people who want to build a simple, sound portfolio and do not have the capital to go to investment counsel. It adapts well to a do-it-yourself approach, because there is no need for constant, high-quality security analysis to support it - which a management firm can provide, but often at a hefty price."

Stephan Jarislowsky

"Stocks are simple. All you do is buy shares in a great business for less than the business is intrinsically worth, with management of the highest integrity and ability. Then you own those shares forever."

Warren Buffett

"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."

Peter Lynch, author of "One Up on Wall Street"

"Focus on 'value' stocks. Studies have shown that buying companies when they're cheap (when the market value of the company is only slightly higher than the value of the assets on its books) generates much greater returns than buying more expensive fast-growing 'growth' companies. Buffett seems to know this, because he routinely buys companies when they are unloved and their stocks are relatively cheap."

Matt Krantz, USA Today, "Invest Like Warren Buffett"

"There are no bad days in the market. When the market is down, you’ve got bargains, and it’s lovely to think of what you are buying at low prices. When the market is up, the bargains have gone, but you’re rich.”

Bruce Greenwald (First Eagle Funds)

“I also do not believe in buying companies that do not pay attractive dividends.  Nobody can forecast the future.   But it’s obvious that companies that have a strong uninterrupted record are more interesting than those that have not.”

Stephan Jarislowsky