Warren Buffett Quotes

Everyone has the idea of owning good companies. The problem is that they have high prices in relations to assets and earnings, and that takes all of the fun out of the game.

Warren Buffett is famous for talking about the 'intrinsic value' of stocks. But while many people parrot this phrase, few know what it really means.

The number one idea is to view a stock as an ownership of the business and to judge the staying quality of the business in terms of its competitive advantage. Look for more value in terms of discounted future cash-flow than you are paying for. Move only when you have an advantage.

Don't invest in pieces of papers (stocks), invest in great businesses underlying them

Whenever you hear a discussion about the short-term swings in any given stock's price, your immediate thought should be whether it matters to why you are investing.

It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

The single biggest advantage a value investor has is not IQ. It's patience and waiting. Waiting for the right pitch, and waiting for many years for the right pitch.

I think investors ought to focus on making sure that the stock is within their circle of competence, that it's worth a lot more than it's valued at - and once you have those two things, a stop-loss makes no sense.

Ignore the stock market, ignore the economy, and buy a business you understand.

[In picking stocks] You really have to know a lot about business. You have to know a lot about competitive advantage. You have to know a lot about the maintainability of competitive advantage. You have to have a mind that quantifies things in terms of value. And you have to be able to compare those values with other values available in the stock market.

To have a true investment, there must be a true margin of safety. And a true margin of safety is one that can be demonstrated by figures, by persuasive reasoning, and by reference to a body of actual experience.

No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the "margin of safety" - never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be - can you minimize your odds of error.

The only intelligence investing is value investing...to acquire more than one is paying for.

I believe that the mutual fund industry's biggest shortcoming is too much focus on the momentary price of a stock - an illusion - and too little focus on the intrinsic value of the corporation - the ultimate reality. I'm comforted by the fact that Warren Buffett feels the same way.

It would be nice if this [finding really cheap stocks] happened all the time. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

If you understood a business perfectly and the future of the business, you need very little in the way of a margin of safety.

The three most important words in investing...Margin of Safety.

Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of Safety.

All intelligent investing is value investing - acquiring more that you are paying for. You must value the business in order to value the stock.

Investing is where you find a few great companies and then sit on your ass.

If I owned any of these Hot New Issues that have doubled, tripled, quintupled or umptupled within days and in some cases hours after they were issued, I most certainly would grab my fabulous windfall, thank my lucky stars and invest the money. It's utter nonsense to think any newly issued stock is really worth two, ten or 20 times the [offering] price.... A management so stupid as to sell shares [cheap], and an underwriter so obtuse as not to discern the real value, together would provide reason enough for a sensible man to get rid of his shares.

Read Ben Graham and Phil Fisher read annual reports, but don't do equations with Greek letters in them.

Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.

Mr. Market is kind of a drunken psycho. Some days he gets very enthused, some days he gets very depressed. And when he get really enthused you sell to him, and if he gets depressed, you buy from him. There's no moral taint attached to that.

The chief obstacle to success lies in the stubborn fact that if the favorable prospects of a concern are clearly apparent they are almost always reflected already in the current price of the stock. Buying such an issue is like betting on a topheavy favorite in a horse race. The chances may be on your side, but the real odds are against you.