The following is taken from Reminiscenes Of A Stock Operator
- ... It is inseperable from human nature to hope and to fear. In speculation when the market goes against you, you hope that every day will be the last day - and you lose more than you should had you not listened to hope .... And when the market goes your way you become fearful that the next day will take away your profit, and you get out - too soon. Fear keeps you from making as much money as you ought to. So instead of hoping he must fear; instead of fearing he must hope. He must fear that his loss may develop into a much bigger loss, and hope that his profit may become a big profit.
Instead of hoping he must fear; instead of fearing he must hope!
Ahhh... compare that to what Warren Buffett had mentioned before....
- We will continue to ignore political and economic forecasts, which are an expensive distraction for many investors and businessmen. Thirty years ago, no one could have foreseen the huge expansion of the Vietnam War, wage and price controls, two oil shocks, the resignation of a president, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a one-day drop in the Dow of 508 points, or treasury bill yields fluctuating between 2.8% and 17.4%.
But, surprise - none of these blockbuster events made the slightest dent in Ben Graham's investment principles. Nor did they render unsound the negotiated purchases of fine businesses at sensible prices. Imagine the cost to us, then, if we had let a fear of unknowns cause us to defer or alter the deployment of capital. Indeed, we have usually made our best purchases when apprehensions about some macro event were at a peak. Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist.
A different set of major shocks is sure to occur in the next 30 years. We will neither try to predict these nor to profit from them. If we can identify businesses similar to those we have purchased in the past, external surprises will have little effect on our long-term results.
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2 comments:
So isn't it times like now... world petrol price hike + bird flu + flood etc. the best time to increase our share portfolio...?
Hi UB,
Wassup?
I do understand your point, for it's often said that one should always take advantage of a pessimistic market (err..like right now? correct ah?) to invest in the stock market, however it's often also said that one should also try to invest only when the market is dishing out cheap, cheap stock prices...
which obviously is the tricky issue right now.... assessing the cheapness in the stock price.
And to answer this issue, one needs to understand the impact of the petrol prices on the profitability of the stock you are interested in buying. (bird flu? chicken stocks are lousy business to begin with, so isn't a rather non issue?) If the earnings are badly affected, then what is cheap now, will look expensive later on.
And most important... i think... *blushes*.... is the interest rates dude... if the interest rates goes up more... err... don't you think that the money deposts will prove to be a serious competitor for one's investment money? (why put money in share market when the bank is offering better and safer returns for the moola?)
Or perhaps... wouldn't you want to wait for a better opportunity? Wait for the time when it's easier to win? Or as they say, swing only at them big fat pitches?
How? What say you?
(ps.. i'm really lousy at gauging which way the market will go.. so normally i dun bother about this issue... *blushes*)
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