Good big decisions do not take time at all, if they do you are in trouble.
I read annual reports of the company I’m looking at and I read the annual reports of the competitors – that is the main source of material.
If you are a professional and have confidence, then I would advocate lots of concentration.
In a commodity business, it’s very hard to be smarter than your dumbest competitor.
When I take a look at a company’s annual report, if I don’t understand it, they don’t want me to understand it.
Investing is simple, but not easy.
I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It cost a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s a fantastic brand loyalty.
They say the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. The chains you put around yourself now have enormous consequences as you go through life.
A lot of great fortunes in the world have been made by owning a single wonderful business. If you understand the business, you don’t need to own very many of them.
I like to go for cinches. I like to shoot fish in a barrel. But I like to do it after the water has run out.
As of 1992, in fact-though the picture would have improved since then-the money that had been made since the dawn of aviation by all of this country’s airline companies was zero. Absolutely zero.
You can’t buy what is popular and do well.
Equities will do well over time – you just have to avoid getting excited when other people are getting excited.
I just think that – when a country needs more income and we do, we’re only taking in 15 percent of GDP, I mean, that – that – when a country needs more income, they should get it from the people that have it.
First, many in Wall Street – a community in which quality control is not prized – will sell investors anything they will buy.
Americans are in a cycle of fear which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, and that leads to more fear. We’ll break out of it. It takes time.
We’re still in a recession. We’re not gonna be out of it for a while, but we will get out.
I think the most important factor in getting out of the recession actually is just the regenerative capacity of – of American capitalism.
Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.
SUPPOSE that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. This is a good one, he says enthusiastically. I’m in it, and I think you should be, too.