You have to understand accounting and you have to understand the nuances of accounting. It's the language of business and it's an imperfect language, but unless you are willing to put in the effort to learn accounting - how to read and interpret financial statements - you really shouldn't select stocks yourself
Warren BuffettWhy not invest your assets in the companies you really like? As Mae West said, 'Too much of a good thing can be wonderful'.
Warren BuffettI don't want to be on the other side of the table from the customer. I was never selling anything that I didn't believe in myself or use myself.
Warren BuffettIt takes 150 years to build an investment bank and only five minutes to convince you to sell me preferred stock in it at a 10% interest rate.
Warren BuffettIf you gave me the choice of being CEO of General Electric or IBM or General Motors, you name it, or delivering papers, I would deliver papers. I would. I enjoyed doing that. I can think about what I want to think. I don't have to do anything I don't want to do.
Warren BuffettI have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone - not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 - shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain.
Warren BuffettI would say the biggest single cause was we had an incredible residential real estate bubble.
Warren BuffettI insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business.
Warren BuffettTruly conservative actions arise from intelligent hypotheses, correct facts and sound reasoning.
Warren BuffettOur future rates of gain will fall far short of those achieved in the past. Berkshire's capital base is now simply too large to allow us to earn truly outsized returns. If you believe otherwise, you should consider a career in sales but avoid one in mathematics.
Warren BuffettI don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
Warren BuffettThe stock market is a wonderfully efficient mechanism for transferring wealth from the impatient to the patient.
Warren BuffettIf you want your business to survive for 100 years, you've got to make it through every single day for 100 years. It's not enough to do it 99.9% of the time.
Warren BuffettI certainly do believe anyone engaged in the management of money should have a standard of measurement, and that both he and the party whose money is managed should have a clear understanding why it is the appropriate standard, what time period should be utilized, etc.
Warren BuffettMr. Market is kind of a drunken psycho. Some days he gets very enthused, some days he gets very depressed. And when he get really enthused you sell to him, and if he gets depressed, you buy from him. There's no moral taint attached to that.
Warren BuffettThe speed at which a business success is recognized, furthermore, is not that important as long as the company's intrinsic value is increasing at a satisfactory rate. In fact, delayed recognition can be an advantage: It may give us the chance to buy more of a good thing at a bargain price.
Warren BuffettI would say that life at 84, I am having as much fun as I've ever had in my life. I mean I get to do what I love every day with the people I love-and it just doesn't get any better than that.
Warren BuffettPeople who watch their weight, golf scores, and fuel bills seem to shun quantitative evaluation of their investment management skills although it involves the most important client in the world-themselves.
Warren BuffettAn argument is made that there are just too many question marks about the near future; wouldn't it be better to wait until things clear up a bit? You know the prose: "Maintain buying reserves until current uncertainties are resolved," etc. Before reaching for that crutch, face up to two unpleasant facts: The future is never clear and you pay a very high price for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty actually is the friend of the buyer of long-term values.
Warren BuffettI think any time you couple the term "Wall Street" with "bailout" or something like that, you know - I don't like what's going on in Wall Street.
Warren BuffettIn the great majority of cases we simply do not know enough about the industry or company to come to sensible judgments-in that situation we pass.
Warren BuffettLethargy bordering on sloth remains the cornerstone of our investment style. The exception was Wells Fargo, a superbly-managed, high-return banking operation in which we increased our ownership to just under 10%, the most we can own without the approval of the Federal Reserve Board.
Warren BuffettWe've been in a recession, by any common sense definition, because if you look at the American public, they've got 20 billion - 20 trillion, I should say, worth of residential homes.
Warren BuffettNone of this means, however, that a business or stock is an intelligent purchase simply because it is unpopular; a contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling. Unfortunately, Bertrand Russell's observation about life in general applies with unusual force in the financial world: "Most men would rather die than think. Many do."
Warren BuffettThat's been lost. It's a huge problem. What you have is you have the major institutions of the world all wanting to deleverage. They want to take down their assets and liabilities. What seemed so easy to borrow against a year ago now looks like rat poison to them. So they're trying to deleverage. There is only one institution in the world that can leverage up in a way that's all a countervailing force to that, and that's the United States Treasury.
Warren BuffettEvery day that goes by, I mean, if you don't react to Pearl Harbor for a week or two weeks or three weeks, you're behind in the war that you otherwise would have fought.
Warren BuffettConfidence is key. You're not going to put your money - you're not going to leave your money with me unless you're confident I'm going to give it back to you.
Warren BuffettThe stockmarket is a semi-psychotic creature given to extremes of elation and despair.
Warren BuffettWhat could be more advantageous in an intellectual contest - whether it be chess, bridge, or stock selection - than to have opponents who have been taught that thinking is a waste of energy?
Warren BuffettWhat you really want to do in investments is figure out what's important and knowable. If it's unimportant or unknowable you forget about it.
Warren BuffettI mean, Hank Paulson is in there [ Treasury] at the wrong time, probably shouldn't have taken the job. He's a friend of mine. But he knows markets, he knows corporations' work, he knows money, and he's got the interests of the country at heart.
Warren BuffettIf you can't communicate and talk to other people and get across your ideas, you're giving up your potential.
Warren BuffettYou have to be able to communicate in life and probably schools underemphasize that. If you can't talk to people or write, you're giving up your potential.
Warren BuffettAn investor needs to do very few things right as long as he or she avoids big mistakes.
Warren BuffettThe fact that people will be full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable.
Warren BuffettWe are trading away a little bit of our country all the time for this access consumption that we have over what we've produced. That is not good. I think it's terrible over time. But our country's productive grows enough so we actually can do that, and we'll still be better off. We just don't be as well off as if we hadn't done it.
Warren Buffett