From the SAME AS IT EVER WAS file: Bernard Baruch, a colleague and friend of Jesse Livermore’s, who made a fortune shorting the 1929 crash, and then who later advised presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt on economic matters, listed the following investment rules in his autobiography published in 1958 entitled Baruch: My Own Story. These rules are still as applicable today.
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rssWise quotes from Bernard M. Baruch
Wise quotes from Bernard M. Baruch:
Bernard Baruch was a stock market speculator who became a millionaire by age 30 in the early 1900’s and eventually a statesman and advisor to multiple Presidents during WWI and WWII.
- -A speculator is a man who observes the future, and acts before it occurs.
- -If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he is wrong.
- -During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.
- -Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can’t retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.
- Do not blame anybody for your mistakes and failures.
- Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.
- I made my money by selling too soon.
I never lost money by turning a profit. - Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.
- Never pay the slightest attention to what a company president ever says about his stock.
- Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought.
Bernard Baruch:Trading Legend
Baruch was born in 1870 in South Carolina. He was a great student of finance, reading everything he could find about the subject, always trying to learn more. Baruch found out the education process takes time, especially when it comes to trading the stock market.
Early on, Baruch made many of the same mistakes that most traders make. Ultimately, after much dedication to learning proper trading principles, he amassed a huge fortune in the markets. Because of his intellectual reputation, he even held appointive positions in four presidential administrations, and served as an advisor to six different presidents.
In his book titled “My Own Story”, Baruch gives us some rules or guidelines on how to invest or speculate wisely.
1. Don’t speculate unless you can make it a full-time job.
2. Beware of barbers, beauticians, waiters-of anyone-bringing gifts of “inside” information or “tips”.
3. Before you buy a security, find out everything you can about the company, its management and competitors, its earnings and possibilities for growth.
4. Don’t try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can’t be done-except by liars.
5. Learn how to take your losses quickly and cleanly. Don’t expect to be right all the time. If you have made a mistake, cut your losses as quickly as possible.
6. Don’t buy too many different securities. Better to have only a few investments which can be watched.
7. Make a periodic reappraisal of all your investments to see whether changing developments have altered their prospects.
8. Study your tax position to know when you can sell to greatest advantage.
9. Always keep a good part of your capital in a cash reserve. Never invest all your funds.
10. Don’t try to be a jack of all investments. Stick to the field you know best.