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31 Best Quotes on Investing

– Warren Buffett

warren buffett

  1. “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
  2. “Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No.1”
  3. “Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.”
  4. “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price, than a fair company at a wonderful price.”
  5. “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”
  6. “Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”
  7. “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
  8. “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
  9. “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”
  10. “Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.”
  11. “I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors, be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”

 

– Philip Fisher

philip fisher

  1. “Conservative investor sleep well.”
  2. “The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.”

 

– Benjamin Graham

  1. “Buy not on optimism, but on arithmetic.”
  2. “The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator.”
  3. “If you are shopping for common stocks, choose them the way you would buy groceries, not the way you would buy perfume.”
  4. The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate.”

 

– Charlie Munger

  1. “Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up.” – Charlie Munger
  2. “Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world.”
  3. “No wise pilot, no matter how great his talent and experience, fails to use his checklist.” – Charlie Munger Peter

– Peter Lynch

peter lynch

  1. “Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it’s doing.”
  2. “Although it’s easy to forget sometimes, a share is not a lottery ticket… it’s part ownership of a business.”
  3. “If you’re prepared to invest in a company, then you ought to be able to explain why in simple language that a fifth grader could understand, and quickly enough so the fifth grader won’t get bored.”
  4. “Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.”
  5. “If you don’t study any companies, you have the same success buying stocks as you do in a poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.”

 

– A few Other Best Quotes on Investing

  1. “Minimizing downside risk while maximizing the upside is a powerful concept.” – Mohnish Pabrai
  2. “The secret to investing is to figure out the value of something – and then pay a lot less.” Joel Greenblatt
  3. “Every once in a while, the market does something so stupid it takes your breath away.” – Jim Cramer
  4. “While it might seem that anyone can be a value investor, the essential characteristics of this type of investor-patience, discipline, and risk aversion-may well be genetically determined.” -Seth Klarman
  5. “Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.” – Paul Samuelson
  6. “The four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different.’” – Sir John Templeton

Trump to announce a $750m deal to buy 150m rapid Covid-19 tests from Abbott Labs

White House senior adviser Alyssa Farah:
  • “This is a major development that will help our country to remain open, get Americans back to work and kids back to school”
No schedule has been set for Trump’s announcement.
Abbott said it plans to ship tens of millions of the tests in September
expects to increase production to 50 million tests in October
Thursday in Asia time brought news of the rapid test receiving approval:

US initial jobless claims 1006K vs 1000K estimate

US initial jobless claims and continuing claims

  • initial jobless claims 1006K vs 1000K estimate
  • jobless claims four-week average 1068K vs 1175.25K last week
  • continuing jobless claims 14535K vs 14400K estimate
  • continuing claims four-week average 15215K vs 15819.75 last week
Initial jobless claimsThe claims data continues to disappoint with the weekly numbers back above 1 million for the 2nd week in a row after dipping below for one week early in August (to 971).
Continuing claims also was slightly higher than expectations. Nevertheless it was still lower vs. the last week’s revised 14758K number.

India is phasing out equipment from Huawei and other Chinese companies from its telecoms networks

The Financial Times with the report on more moves against Huawei.

Main issue seems to be over the China-India border clashes
  • no formal written ban on Chinese equipment suppliers like Huawei and ZTE, nor any public pronouncements have been made
  • but key ministries have clearly indicated that local telecom service providers should avoid using Chinese equipment
The FT cites:
  • “It’s open now that the government is not going to allow Chinese equipment,” a top telecom industry executive told the FT. “There is now clarity . . . It’s really game over.”

The Financial Times with the report on more moves against Huawei.

Why the US dollar continues to rebound and what’s next

The pressure is on

Dollar
The US dollar has extended its gains as market participants get caught wrong-footed in a rebound after multi-month lows.
The dollar looked to be breaking down yesterday and today but stabled itself and is making a move to the upside. There are two near term factors to watch:
1) The 20-year auction
The US is selling $25B in 20-year bonds at the top of the hour. Last week there was a strong 10-year sale and a very weak 30-year sale so the bond market is off balance. A higher-than-anticipted yield could boost the dollar further.
2) The FOMC minutes
The Fed is a below-the-radar risk at the moment. The strong belief in markets is that they’re creeping towards doing more for the economy but an improvement in US virus cases, decent economic data, higher inflation and the stock market at record highs might make them slow their roll. If so, the dollar could climb further
Overall, this looks like a position-squaring squeeze in a quiet mid-August market to me but you can’t take anything for granted. If it spills over into a broad risk-off move, then the dollar could have a lot of room to run.
The EUR/USD chart to me looks like a retest of the range break before a further breakout but a close over 1.19 today would add confidence.
EURUSD chart

US weekly oil inventories -1632K vs -2850K expected

Weekly US petroleum inventory data

  • Prior was -4512K
  • Gasoline -3322K vs -1000K expected
  • Distillates +152K vs -1200K expected
  • Refinery utilization -0.1% vs +0.3% expected
  • Production unchanged at 10.7 mbpd
API data late yesterday:
  • Crude -4264K
  • Gasoline +4991K
  • Distillates -964K
Crude rose about 20 cents on the headlines to $42.79 per barrel. The headline isn’t as bullish as anticipated but the gasoline drawdown was larger.
US weekly oil inventories
The OPEC JMMC meeting is also taking place right now with Russia’s Novak stressing the need for full compliance.

Bank of Japan refuses trader requests to work from home

Bloomberg had this piece up earlier (link for more), citing ‘people familiar:

  • The BOJ doesn’t allow home computers to connect to its network for conducting asset purchases and other market transactions
  • Three firms (at least) have asked the BOJ whether traders can participate in its operations from outside the office
  • BOJ-Net infrastructure is used for yen transactions daily, connected via dedicated cables to computers at dozens of financial firms so they can trade assets with the central bank or buy bonds from the government
  • BOJ is concerned about cybersecurity risk.
The hot new toy for summer probably won’t be keenly sought after amongst BOJ counterparties:
Bloomberg had this piece up earlier (link for more), citing 'people familiar:

The coming debt and population problem

Death and taxes

Debt levels are set to rise to unprecedented levels. According to the International Monetary Fund in June the public debt, as a share of GDP in advanced economies, is set to come in at over 130% for this year and next. To put that into perspective that surpasses the debt levels from the second world war.If you look at the chart below you can see that the double whammy of the Global Financial Crisis, followed by the present pandemic is pushing debt to record levels.

Death and taxes

 

The population problem

The general thinking now is that the present crisis is a one in a hundred years kind of event (what if it isn’t) and that future generations will be able to claw back the debt levels over time. However, a publication from the Lancet in the UK suggests that there is a falling population that could fall by 9% at the end of the century. So, this means that there will be a large decline in numbers of working age adults. There are some countries which are projected to be particularly badly hit. Japan, Spain, Portugal, and Thailand are expected to see their populations halve by the end of the century. The countries which are projected to see 25% population declines are also projected to see a higher ration of older to younger people. So, more of this debt is going to be shouldered by fewer as an ageing population raises further spending considerations.

What will happen next?

There will be moves by governments to start to cap this debt problem. It will not be allowed to continue unless we get into worst disasters than we presently are in. The main concern is that of default. As long as willingness to repay remains, then the debt pile can be reduced. The main risk is if the debt becomes too great and the easiest solution is to just walk away…

Fauci says its likely there will be tens of million of vaccine doses by the end of this year

US infectious diseases expert Fauci speaking in an interview with Reuters

Expects a safe and effective vaccine will have received approval by the end of 2020
  • says there is a middle ground where the country can prudently open amid the coronavirus
  • says some sections of the country have done well but other parts are on fire
  • says he does expect a safe and effective vaccine to receive approval by year end
  • says manufacturers say a billion doses of vaccine will be available by the end of 2021
  • we will likely have tens of millions of doses of vaccine by the end of this year
  • he would be satisfied by a trial that included thousands of people and showed no signs of unexpected severe adverse events
  • he has not seen any indication of pressure from white house on vaccine
  •  says regulatory authorities have promised that safety and efficacy of vaccine will be paramount concern

US infectious diseases expert Fauci speaking in an interview with Reuters 

Verbatim: Exactly what Trump said about ‘another big jobs number’

Exactly what Trump said in the interview

Exactly what Trump said in the interview
Trump spoke with Fox & Friends yesterday and touched on the non-farm payrolls report for Friday. His comments got a wide airing because they were framed as him predicting a strong employment report.
Here’s what he actually said:
Based on all the numbers we’re getting, and you’ll have a big number on Friday. I don’t know what it’s going to be, but you’ll have another jobs number. Last two months we set a record on the job numbers. And now we will have another big job number on Friday, so it’ll be interesting to see what that is. But we are heading definitely a V.
He explicitly says he doesn’t know what the number is going to be. Now, he’s a notorious liar so I wouldn’t necessarily take that at face value.
He does say it’s ‘based on the all the numbers we’re getting’ which implies there is some data behind that conclusion but it could be no more than a read on the +1.5m consensus. That’s ‘big’ by any historical definition and the President will surely tout anything over +1m as a huge win (and why not?).
There’s been far too much emphasis on the word ‘big’. It has two definitions, one is ‘large’ but the other is ‘important’ and it’s the latter that he’s using here.