Merton Miller Quotes

Nobody ever lost money taking a profit.

I have a million dollars in the stock market, because if I lose a million dollars, I don't personally care.

I have no complaints about losing money I put in high-risk investments. I did some of that when I had real money; my informed choice, my measured gamble.

If you are not making any mistakes, you are being excessively risk-averse. Investing involves risk, and that means you will occasionally be wrong. And although it is okay to be wrong, it is not okay to stay wrong.

Because in the New Normal you are more worried about the return of your capital, not return on your capital.

In the investment business, you must expect to be wrong.

Doing ventures is great - I'm talking economics now - if you've got a rising market. It's wonderful. If I hadn't got HKT, I would have been just as happy. Because there's a price for everything. And to overpay for something is awful.

We're getting hurt, but I'm a long-term investor.

I called my business manager in California and said, 'Sell all of my stock' - what little of it I had - and it's the only smart financial move I ever made.

Always keep your portfolio and your risk at your own individual comfortable sleeping point.

I have yet to take capital losses on any company. Then again, it's still early.

In the world of money and investing, you must learn to control your emotions.

Investors have to ask themselves two questions. How much can we grow our investments? And, can we afford our mistakes?

In a rising market, enough of your bad ideas will pay off so that you'll never learn that you should have fewer ideas.

Portfolio theory, as used by most financial planners, recommends that you diversify with a balance of stocks and bonds and cash that's suitable to your risk tolerance.

I'm a very passive investor.

The last thing you want to do, unless it's a very unusual situation, is to invest money.

I would never be 100 percent in stocks or 100 percent in bonds or cash.

I don't really like hedging. To me, if something needs to be hedged, you shouldn't have a position in it.

The kind of investors we seek are long term because that's how we make our decisions.

In an ideal world, you raise a lot of money and then there is a downturn, before you start investing so you get better deals. But it doesn't always happen that way.

Well, there's always risk in long-term investment.

It is a tenet of my investment style that, on the subject of common stock investment, maximizing the upside means first and foremost minimizing the downside. The deleterious effect of permanent capital loss on portfolio returns cannot be overstated.

Part of the game of investing is to come into your own. You must find some way that perfectly fits your personality because there is some element of a zero sum game in investing. If you buy, somebody else has to sell. And when you sell, somebody has to buy. You can't both be right.

Never put your savings in risky investments. Only disposable income should find its way there.