“If you understand chapters 8 and 20 of The Intelligent Investor (Benjamin Graham, 1949) and chapter 12 of the General Theory (John Maynard Keynes, 1936), you don’t need to read anything else and you can turn off your TV.” - Warren Buffett
Jason Zweig - Chapter 8 Commentary; The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham
"If you listen to financial TV, or read most market columnists, you’d think that investing is some kind of sport, or a war, or a struggle for survival in a hostile wilderness. But investing isn’t about beating others at their game. It’s about controlling yourself at your own game. The challenge for the intelligent investor is not to find the stocks that will go up the most and down the least, but rather to prevent yourself from being your own worst enemy—from buying high just because Mr. Market says “Buy!” and from selling low just because Mr. Market says “Sell!”
If you investment horizon is long—at least 25 or 30 years—there is only one sensible approach: Buy every month, automatically, and whenever else you can spare some money. The single best choice for this lifelong holding is a total stock-market index fund. Sell only when you need the cash. To be an intelligent investor, you must also refuse to judge your financial success by how a bunch of total strangers are doing. You’re not one penny poorer if someone in Dubuque or Dallas or Denver beats the S & P 500 and you don’t. No one’s gravestone reads “HE BEAT THE MARKET.”
I once interviewed a group of retirees in Boca Raton, one of Florida’s wealthiest retirement communities. I asked these people— mostly in their seventies—if they had beaten the market over their investing lifetimes. Some said yes, some said no; most weren’t sure. Then one man said, “Who cares? All I know is, my investments earned enough for me to end up in Boca.” Could there be a more perfect answer?
After all, the whole point of investing is not to earn more money than average, but to earn enough money to meet your own needs. The best way to measure your investing success is not by whether you’re beating the market but by whether you’ve put in place a financial plan and a behavioral discipline that are likely to get you where you want to go. In the end, what matters isn’t crossing the finish line before anybody else but just making sure that you do cross it." - Jason Zweig
Just Thoughts
Others mileage may vary (and usually does)
- Scoot
Note: I will try and provide a link to The intelligent Investor (revised Edition) by Benjamin Graham
in the "Resources" Section for those who wish to download it in .PDF format later today for
those who would like a copy for their virtual Libraries.
Jason Zweig - Chapter 8 Commentary; The Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham
"If you listen to financial TV, or read most market columnists, you’d think that investing is some kind of sport, or a war, or a struggle for survival in a hostile wilderness. But investing isn’t about beating others at their game. It’s about controlling yourself at your own game. The challenge for the intelligent investor is not to find the stocks that will go up the most and down the least, but rather to prevent yourself from being your own worst enemy—from buying high just because Mr. Market says “Buy!” and from selling low just because Mr. Market says “Sell!”
If you investment horizon is long—at least 25 or 30 years—there is only one sensible approach: Buy every month, automatically, and whenever else you can spare some money. The single best choice for this lifelong holding is a total stock-market index fund. Sell only when you need the cash. To be an intelligent investor, you must also refuse to judge your financial success by how a bunch of total strangers are doing. You’re not one penny poorer if someone in Dubuque or Dallas or Denver beats the S & P 500 and you don’t. No one’s gravestone reads “HE BEAT THE MARKET.”
I once interviewed a group of retirees in Boca Raton, one of Florida’s wealthiest retirement communities. I asked these people— mostly in their seventies—if they had beaten the market over their investing lifetimes. Some said yes, some said no; most weren’t sure. Then one man said, “Who cares? All I know is, my investments earned enough for me to end up in Boca.” Could there be a more perfect answer?
After all, the whole point of investing is not to earn more money than average, but to earn enough money to meet your own needs. The best way to measure your investing success is not by whether you’re beating the market but by whether you’ve put in place a financial plan and a behavioral discipline that are likely to get you where you want to go. In the end, what matters isn’t crossing the finish line before anybody else but just making sure that you do cross it." - Jason Zweig
Just Thoughts
Others mileage may vary (and usually does)
- Scoot
Note: I will try and provide a link to The intelligent Investor (revised Edition) by Benjamin Graham
in the "Resources" Section for those who wish to download it in .PDF format later today for
those who would like a copy for their virtual Libraries.