John C. Bogle Quotes

The great skill of investment is to know when the right time is to get out. Getting in's easy.

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

I don't invest in the stock market. I did it a long, long time ago when I was really young, and I got involved in all the investigations and all the prosecutions, and I felt it was better if I didn't make individual investments. So I'm invested in funds, but not in individual - not in individual stocks.

I'm sometimes accused of being hostile to mutual funds. That's not fair, really. There is a place for them. Still, I am hostile to one thing, which is trying to use funds to time your way in and out of the market. That's a recipe for very bad results.

What I find very interesting about the mutual funds managers is that here are people who are the new masters of the universe. They're managing billions, yet they're subject to this quiet daily tyranny of numbers.

Mutual funds dare to be average. In fact, they dare to be lousy. They have long since ceased striving for anything resembling perfection when it comes to managing your money.

I'd say the general outline of a sound investment approach is, first of all, you have to decide are you going to try to be an investor yourself? The answer for most people is probably they shouldn't try. You should put your money in index funds and not try to be a stock picker.

Why would you want to invest with a guy whose thought process says, "If a second layer of fees is good, then let's add a third layer.

I was involved with Wells Fargo Bank as a consultant in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when I suggested to them that they develop a product that has become known as index funds.

I know about investment. It's really obvious - you buy property, let it sit for a couple of years and then sell it and reinvest.

Nobody ever lost money taking a profit.

There's a tendency to look at investments in isolation. Investors focus on the risk of individual securities.

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

The thing to do with mutual funds is to buy a couple of decent ones, set up an investment plan and then never, ever think about them again, except maybe once a quarter or so when you take a peek at your statements to make sure that you have not accidentally been buying the Fidelity Peace-in-the-Middle-East fund.

Do not buy the hype from Wall St. and the press that stocks always go up. There are long periods when stocks do nothing and other investments are better.

It is important for investors to understand what they do and don't know. Learn to recognize that you cannot possibly know what is going to happen in the future, and any investment plan that is dependent on accurately forecasting where markets will be next year is doomed to failure.

Leave no stone unturned to help your clients realize maximum profits from their investment.

Well, actually, I manage a couple of stock portfolios or funds or whatever you want to call 'em, and I think I've done relatively well with them.

You'd be safe to hold 5% of your assets and savings in gold and silver. Insurance for the future.

I'm a very passive investor.

If you were approaching the TARP investments from a pure investment standpoint, then there's no doubt in my mind the taxpayer lost, and probably lost big.

When I was very young, maybe 12 years, I began to make investments.

The average mutual fund holding period for equity or fixed income is only about three years. It's too short.

Since we try and take a fairly buy-and-hold approach to our newsletter portfolios and don't sell at every whipsaw, we want to have a mix of stocks that will perform at both ends of the oscillation.

I invest in funds myself even though I run my own fund for my daughters.