Savings will not make you rich. Only canny investments do that. The role of savings is to keep you from becoming poor.

The rule on staying alive as a forecaster is to give 'em a number or give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once.

You normally don't get a margin call unless your securities, minus the debt, are worth 30% or less of their nominal market value.

Quinn's First Law of Investing is never to buy anything whose price you can't follow in the newspapers. An investment without a public marketplace attracts the fabulists the way picnics attract ants. Stock brokers and financial planners can tell you anything they want, because no one really knows what's true. The First Corollary to Quinn's First Law states that, even when the price is in the newspapers, you shouldn't buy anything too complex to explain to the average 12-year-old.

Everyone needs a small-town banker. Especially in a big town.

It's a fact: stock investors sometimes lose money on their way to wealth. Get over it.

Everyone said, 'You can't lose money in real estate, because they're not making any more of it.' Hmmmm. Where did everyone go wrong?