Peter Lynch Quotes

The only way one should buy stocks is if you understand the underlying business. You stay within the circle of competence. You buy businesses you understand.

One of the first things I tell people is, if you want to learn about investing, you want to open an account and make real investments because that's when it becomes real.

We shouldn't think anyone needs a Ph.D. in advanced investing in order to begin to invest.

Republicans are suggesting that you take your retirement money and invest it in the stock market to take care of yourself but that leaves you with choices that you may not know anything about. The purpose of social Security is that you don't fall through the crack and find yourself destitute.

You can learn investing by reading books.

People who lie to themselves about investing are the same as overweight people who blame their genes for their obesity.

I don't think it makes any sense for an individual to invest in common stocks unless they know the company, work at the company, and so on.

Maybe we should teach schoolchildren probability theory and investment risk management.

The real key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them.

I'm not wedded to covering the markets. I'm intrigued by the markets. If I can connect Main Street with Wall Street, then I've succeeded.

In college, I was told the market can't be beat.

If there's a recession, I'd buy stocks. That's when you make money: when markets are spooked.

You'll get nowhere buying stocks just because they have a great story.

Individual investors have become far more powerful than anyone gives them credit for. Today, 85 million Americans invest in stocks. Collectively, that kind of buying and selling power can move markets.

I will never be in the stock market. It's just gambling. I'm a gambler, but I'll gamble on the practicality of things.

With 'posts' running in the millions, Internet message boards have become an essential part of the savvy investor's arsenal.

Actually, I bought one share of Warren Buffett's stock, probably 35 years ago, in order to read his letters.

When the man who ought to want a stock doesn't want it, why should I want it?

I was about thirteen when I started thinking about the stock market. My dad helped me a little bit. I'd see it in the 'Santa Barbara News-Press.' These prices would change every day - what was that all about?

Wall Street has played a role in everyone's life, and it has been vilified by everyone, but I think that the average trader didn't have a sense of what was coming. The culture is so vacuous, it's possible to come to it straight out of college and never have a real adult life, even if you have the wife and kids.

I'd like to see great textbooks, great opportunities for kids to really understand stock market investing, because at the end of the day, they are going to be all they have in terms of creating a life for themselves, a retirement account, and things like that.

The truth is, a large majority of the market, I'd guess 80 percent, doesn't know anything more than what they are sold.

All the math you need in the stock market you get in the fourth grade.

In terms of my profession, I'm passionate about financial literacy. I want to live in a financially literate society. I want kids to understand the importance of savings and investing. I want to try to replicate the great savers who came out of the Depression, the best savers the country has ever seen. It's crucial that people understand the importance of financial literacy, because it's actually life saving.

More money is lost anticipating the changes in the overall stock market than any other way of investing.