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30 NUGGETS OF STOCK MARKET WISDOM

Wall Street people learn nothing and forget everything.”  Ben Graham

“ Buy on the cannons, sell on the trumpets.” Old French Proverb

“A stock broker is one who invests other people’s money until its all gone.”  Woody Allen

“It is fortunate for Wall Street as an institution that a small minority of people can trade successfully and that many others think they can.” Ben Graham

“Wall Street indices predicted nine out of the last five recessions!” Paul Samuelson

“ There are two kinds of investors, be they large or small: those who don’t know where the market is headed, and those who don’t know that they don’t know. Then again, there is a third type of investor –the investment professional, who indeed knows that he or she doesn’t know, but whose livelihood depends upon appearing to know.” William Bernstein

“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.” Gordon Gekko (more…)

Freudian Trading Techniques

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When I was in college, I had a class in investment analysis. On one particular occasion, we had a group project which consisted of selecting a stock and then giving a recommendation on it. We chose a technology company whose earnings were shot and whose outlook was dismal. As we were deciding on what recommendation to offer, I suggested that  the stock was headed down and that we should recommend a sell. One of the gentlemen in the group immediately replied that he thought we might sound stupid for picking a stock and then recommending to sell it.

That’s when it dawned on me that the ego affects stock selection, evaluation, and recommendation significantly. I told this fellow that the data suggested that the stock was a sell. I also reminded him that the OBJECTIVE of the project was to a evaluate a stock, not to pick a winner. After some thought, I recalled that many analysts viewed the industries which they evaluated as THEIR industry. In doing so, those same analysts were often bullish much too often, including times when it was totally unprofitable to be bullish.

Mine is Better Than Yours

Another example is when I went for an educational seminar. There was no selling whatsoever and it was strictly educational. There were teachers from fixed income, equities, and real estate. Each speaker spoke about how the investment they were discussing was the best performing asset class in history. It was ridiculous but very illuminating. Individuals become emotionally attached when they use the word “my”. “My shoes, my car, my profession, and even my stocks are superior!” Then, I began wandering how detrimental this sort of thinking was. It eats away at profits and increases losses! (more…)

30 NUGGETS OF STOCK MARKET WISDOM

“Wall Street people learn nothing and forget everything.”  Ben Graham

“ Buy on the cannons, sell on the trumpets.” Old French Proverb

“A stock broker is one who invests other people’s money until its all gone.”  Woody Allen

“It is fortunate for Wall Street as an institution that a small minority of people can trade successfully and that many others think they can.” Ben Graham

“Wall Street indices predicted nine out of the last five recessions!” Paul Samuelson

“ There are two kinds of investors, be they large or small: those who don’t know where the market is headed, and those who don’t know that they don’t know. Then again, there is a third type of investor –the investment professional, who indeed knows that he or she doesn’t know, but whose livelihood depends upon appearing to know.” William Bernstein

“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.” Gordon Gekko

“It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.”  George Soros

“October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.”  Mark Twain

“If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.” Warren Buffett

“Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”  Warren Buffett

“A market is the combined behavior of thousands of people responding to information, misinformation and whim.”  Kenneth Chang

“The four most dangerous words in investing are “This time it’s different”.   John Templeton

“Money can’t buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.” Spike Milligan

“If you don’t follow the stock market, you are missing some amazing drama.”  Mark Cuban

“The average man doesn’t wish to be told that it is a bull or a bear market. What he desires is to be told specifically which particular stock to buy or sell. He wants to get something for nothing. He does not wish to work. He doesn’t even wish to have to think.”  Jesse Livermore

In this business if you’re good, you’re right six times out of ten. You’re never going to be right nine times out of ten.” Peter Lynch

“ Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent” John Maynard Keynes

“The markets will return to rationality the moment you have been rendered insolvent.” Dennis Gartman

“Risk is good. Not properly managing your risk is a dangerous leap” Evel Knievel

“Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.” Donald Trump

“The most predictable thing about the stock market is the number of experts who take credit for predicting it.” Dave Weinbaum

“I have probably purchased fifty ‘hot tips’ in my career, maybe even more. When I put them all together, I know I am a net loser.” Charles Schwab

“Money talks… but all mine ever says is good-bye.” Anon

“Don’t gamble! Take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it ‘till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it.” Will Rogers

“Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’II give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’II give you a stock clerk.” James Cash

Never make forecasts, especially about the future.”  Samuel Goldwin

“Stocks are bought on expectations, not facts.” Gerald M. Loeb

“Your success in investing will depend in part on your character and guts, and in part on your ability to realize at the height of the ebullience and the depth of despair alike that this too shall pass.” John Bogle

“You make most of your money in a bear market, you just don’t realize it at the time.” Shelby Davis

“Markets Will Fluctuate”

In the 1927 book “Security Speculation – The Dazzling Adventure,” Laurence H. Sloan repeated the now famous anecdote 1  about J.P.Morgan’s view of the stock markets:

History has it that young man once found himself in the immediate presence of the late Mr. J. P. Morgan. Seeking to improve the golden moment, he ventured to inquire Mr. Morgan’s opinion as to the future course of the stock market. The alleged reply has become classic: “Young man, I believe the market is going to fluctuate.

Fluctuate indeed.

That simple truism seems to been lost to some folks, who were taken aback by yesterday’s market decline. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 274 points, but that sounds worse than it is; in percentage terms the retreat amounted to 1.24 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 38.1 points, or 1.54 percent; the Russell 2000 Index of small cap companies fell 1.78 percent (24.6 points) while the Nasdaq Composite Index had a 1.94 percent (123.2 point) fall.

As Bloomberg News noted, “Evidence is building that the market’s long stretch of tranquility is breaking. The S&P 500 swung at least 1 percent in three of the last six sessions after spending the previous three weeks without a move of more than 0.3 percent.”

The collective question investors are asking is “Why here and now?” It is tempting, and probably correct, to simply declare this the well-known random walk of markets. But rather than leave it at that, let us turn a critical eye to some of the explanations that were circulating. Here they are from least convincing to most . . .

Continues at: The Real Reason Markets Swooned Yesterday

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