Contrarian Investing Quotes

We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.

Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent.

Bull markets are born on pessimism, grown on skepticism, mature on optimism and die on euphoria. The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell.

Invest at the point of maximum pessimism.

The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposition position. I assume that markets are always wrong… most of the time the trend prevails; only occasionally are the errors corrected. It is only on those occasions that one should go against the trend. This line of reasoning leads me to look for the flaw in every investment thesis. ... I am ahead of the curve. I watch out for telltale signs that a trend may be exhausted. Then I disengage from the herd and look for a different investment thesis. Or, if I think the trend has been carried to excess, I may probe going against it.

The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy.

The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.

When investing, pessimism is your friend, euphoria the enemy.

An intelligent investor gets satisfaction from the thought that his operations are exactly opposite to those of the crowd.

Buy when there's blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own.

Buy when everyone else is selling and hold until everyone else is buying. That's not just a catchy slogan. It's the very essence of successful investing.

As a bull market turns into a bear market, the new pros turn into optimists, hoping and praying the bear market will become a bull and save them. But as the market remains bearish, the optimists become pessimists, quit the profession, and return to their day jobs. This is when the real professional investors re-enter the market.

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

I believe the very best money is made at the market turns. Everyone says you get killed trying to pick tops and bottoms and you make all your money by playing the trend in the middle. Well for twelve years I have been missing the meat in the middle but I have made a lot of money at tops and bottoms.

The late 90s almost forced me to identify myself as a value investor, because I thought what everybody else was doing was insane.

One of the greatest investments of our lifetime has been New York City real estate, and investors made the highest returns when they bought stuff during the 1970s and 1980s when people were getting mugged. The lesson is that you make the most money when you buy stuff that's out of consensus.

Traditionally the investor has been the man with patience and the courage of his convictions who would buy when the harried or disheartened speculator was selling.

To me, the "tape" is the final arbiter of any investment decision. I have a cardinal rule: Never fight the tape!

The market is a pendulum that forever swings between unsustainable optimism (which makes stocks too expensive) and unjustified pessimism (which makes them too cheap). The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.

I try to buy shares of unpopular companies when they look like road kill and sell them when they've been polished up a bit.

Be fearful when the markets get greedy, be greedy when the markets get fearful.

I buy when other people are selling.

When good news about the market hits the front page of the New York Times, sell.

To buy when others are despondently selling and sell when others are greedily buying requires the greatest fortitude and pays the greatest reward.

To succeed as a contrarian you must recognize what the crowd believes, have concrete justification for why the majority is wrong, and have the patience and conviction to stick with what is, by definition, an unpopular bet.