The best argument for mutual funds is that they offer safety and diversification. But they don't necessarily offer safety and diversification.

The Great Inflation of the 1970s destroyed faith in paper assets, because if you held a bond, suddenly the bond was worth much less money than it was before.

You don't want too much fear in a market, because people will be blinded to some very good buying opportunities. You don't want too much complacency because people will be blinded to some risk.

I have developed a very strong partiality for the dead: they don't talk back, they don't sue, and they don't have angry relatives.

Unless you devote an enormous amount of time to anticipating the future, you won't have any future.

Mutual funds give people the sense that they're investing with the big boys and that they're really not at a disadvantage entering the stock market.

Once the brokerage house, rather than the bank, became the locus for American savings, that money would find its way into the stock market, because the broker was someone with a much higher tolerance for risk than the banker.