Frank Armstrong III
Investors, like pilots, operate in a complex environment. The environment occasionally produces moments of stress... The primary cause of investor failure is the behavior of the investors themselves. Many of them are their own worst enemy. To put it bluntly, they haven't yet learned to resist the overwhelming urge to do stupid things with their money. Investors, like pilots, can benefit from disciplined, rational, and logical thought processes when the pucker factor rises. - Frank Armstrong III, The Informed Investor
Daniel Solin
Beware of brokers and insurance agents eager to escort your cash to another annuity. Investors get switched from one mediocre annuity to another all the time because brokers receive healthy commissions every time they convince someone to jump. - Daniel Solin
William Bernstein
"You are engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the financial services industry. Every dollar in fees, expenses, and spreads you pay them comes directly out of your pocket. If you act on the assumption that every broker, insurance salesman, mutual fund salesperson, and financial advisor you encounter is a hardened criminal, you will do just fine." - William Bernstein
David Swensen
The overwhelming number of mutual-fund investors clearly suffer at the hands of the mutual-fund industry. Some of the causes—outrageous fees, excessive trading, and bloated assets-stand as obvious culprits in producing performance deficits. Other factors—unethical kickbacks and indefensible distribution practices—remain generally hidden from view. An examination of the sources of mutual-fund industry’s performance deficit serves to buttress the argument in favor of passive management. - David Swensen
Jason Zweig
Buying funds based purely on their past performance is one of the stupidest things an investor can do. - Jason Zweig
Michael Lewis
A vast industry of stockbrokers, financial planners, and investment advisers skims a fortune for themselves off the top in exchange for passing their clients' money on to people who, as a whole, cannot possibly outperform the market. - Michael Lewis
Warren Buffett
I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for ten years. – Warren Buffett
John Bogle
Index funds eliminate the risks of individual stocks, market sectors, and manager selection. Only stock market risk remains. - John Bogle
William Bernstein
The prudent investor treats almost the entirety of the financial industrial landscape as an urban combat zone. That means any stock broker or full-service brokerage firm, any newsletter, any advisor who purchases individual securities, and any hedge fund. Most Mutual fund companies spew more toxic waste into the investment environment than a third world refinery. Most financial advisors cannot invest their way out of a paper bag. Who can you trust? Almost no one. - William Bernstein, The Investor's Manifesto
John Bogle
Reward and risk go hand in hand. The conventional wisdom of finance teaches that if one is to increase (or decrease), so must the other. Cost has a significant impact on both reward and risk. Lower costs make it possible to earn a higher return without assuming extra risk, or to hold reward constant and reduce risk. And because the passage of years multiplies the aggregate reward, moderates the volatility risk, and magnifies the burden of cost, time interacts with each of the three spatial dimensions of investing. - John Bogle