100 Minds That Made the Market Quotes

“Buy straw hats in the winter, when nobody wants them, and sell them in the summer when everybody needs them.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“Graham was not only the original quantitative analyst, to whom today's whole school of such thinking owes its heritage, but he was also a source of much of the fundamental analysis and lore that Wall Streeters follow today.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“1. Divide capital into 10 equal parts and never risk more than a tenth of it on any one trade.
2. Never overtrade.
3. Never let a profit run into a loss.
4. Do not buck the trend.
5. Trade only in active stocks.
6. When in doubt, get out, and don't get in when in doubt.
7. Never buy just to get a dividend.
8. Never average a loss.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“As early as 1947, Birrell had acquired Doeskin Products, a listed corporation, by selling it $2 million in overvalued securities, then using the proceeds to buy out the controlling stockholders. In essence, he bought it with its own money!”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“Sure enough, America was shocked by Babson's words: "More people are borrowing and speculating today than ever in our history. Sooner or later a crash is coming which will take in the leading stocks and cause a decline of from 60 to 80 points in the Dow Jones barometer. Wise are those investors who get out of debt and reef their sails.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“1. Keep speculation and investments separate.
2. Don't be fooled by a name.
3. Be wary of new promotions.
4. Give due consideration to market ability.
5. Don't buy without proper facts.
6. Safeguard purchases through diversification.
7. Don't try to diversify by buying different securities of the same company.
8. Small companies should be carefully scrutinized.
9. Buy adequate security, not super abundance.
10. Choose your dealer and buy outright. (Babson abhorred any type of margin or installment payment plans and, in fact, claimed he never borrowed money.)”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“If a stock is high enough to be sold, it is high enough to be sold short," was another Sage maxim.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“My special job is the most interesting I know of anywhere. More fun than being king, pope, or prime minister anywhere-for no one can turn me out of it and I don't have to make any compromises with principles," Morgan once said. His principles-"Do your work; be honest; keep your word; help when you can; be fair"-were the words he lived by.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“En route, Perkins revolutionized insurance sales, replacing the agency system with branch offices, and offered employees profit sharing.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“One of their most famous coups was underwriting a $10 million loan for a growing mail-order house called Sears, Roebuck, headed by Goldman's distant relative. It was the first time a mail-order security had ever been on the market-a calculated risk, but one that paid off.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“He accomplished this primarily by hooking up with his best friend, Henry Goldman, before the Goldman Sachs partnership. (They toyed with creating Goldman and Lehman but instead decided on splitting the profits 50/50.)”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“harting the rise of Lehman Brothers, one of Wall Street's greatest investment banking houses, essentially traces the gradual emergence of a powerful, industrial United States. Beginning as cotton brokers in an agricultural society, the first Lehmans to arrive in America helped finance the Confederacy during the Civil War, and then turned to Wall Street to dabble in commodities well into the 1900s.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“He even invented being "fashionably late.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“Within four years, Belmont's name was on the lips of every New Yorker. He was the city's leading investment banker and the hottest thing to hit society-and he was a Jew.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“ike the Rothschilds before him in Europe, August Belmont helped transform America from a provincial and almost purely agricultural nation to a prosperous industrial country.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“publishers Little, Brown and Company approached Engel to expand his ideas into a book, and he penned How to Buy Stocks in six weeks.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“When is it safe to invest?' there are two answers ...
1. Never!
2. Always!
`Never for' the crowd... `Always' for the reasonable man; for it all depends upon what you call `safe,' in a world peopled by fallible human beings.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“No professional Wall Street tipster or plausible promoter can turn a sane person into a stock gambler as easily as his next-door neighbor bragging about his winnings. If all men profited by experience, the world would be peopled exclusively by the wise....”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“Drew was the market's first major speculator to venture inside business. Instead of just buying and selling stock as a speculator, he was the first of what we today would see as takeover artists, using the stock market as a way to acquire controlling interests in businesses, then get inside them and alter their destiny.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“While Morgan-who died in 1890 after falling off his horse-drawn carriage near the Italian border-must be remembered for laying the foundation for the House of Morgan,”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“Morgan challenged London's established banking firms and eventually surpassed them, becoming the most important American banker in London in the 1860s.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“Peabody believed that in the long run, American investments meant sound investments.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“Once, early on, while still engaged in shipping and sidetracked by a rare vacation in his lavish, specially built yacht, he came back to find that his partners had ousted
him from his firm. The classic Vanderbilt response? "I won't sue you for the law is too slow. I will ruin you!”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“The Commodore taught the financial world how to corner stocks, something illegal these days. But back then it was quite a feat.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“Stock watering, bribery, and stock corners were all methods to his madness, but for good reason. "My God, you don't suppose you can run a railroad in accordance with the statutes of New York, do you?”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“They bought blocks of bonds priced from 80 to 82 cents on the dollar, paying for them in bank notes worth half their face value!”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“Astor was among his era's most controversial figures because of his millions-and the methods by which he earned them.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“The Rothschild brothers-Nathan, James, Amschel, Carl, and Salomon-comprised the world's largest private bank.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“Their fame is based to a large extent on how the pigeons enabled Nathan to know before anyone else outside the battle zone of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market

“Quick-thinking Nathan eventually bought the prince his consols, but he first used the money to successfully speculate in gold bullion, making a killing and a reputation for himself in the London exchange.”
― Kenneth L. Fisher, 100 Minds That Made the Market