Burton Malkiel Quotes

• A blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper's financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by experts.

  Burton Malkiel

  Experts, Monkeys, Pages

  Burton G. Malkiel (2007). “A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing”, p.24, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Stupidity well packaged can sound like wisdom.

  Burton Malkiel

  Stupidity, Sound, Wells

  Burton G. Malkiel (2007). “A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing”, p.67, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Trust in time rather than timing.

  Burton Malkiel

  Timing

  Burton G. Malkiel (2015). “A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing (Eleventh Edition)”, p.168, W. W. Norton & Company

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• J.P. Morgan once had a friend who was so worried about his stock holdings that he could not sleep at night. The friend asked, 'What should I do about my stocks?' Morgan replied, 'Sell down to your sleeping point' Every investor must decide the trade-off he or she is willing to make between eating well and sleeping well. High investment rewards can only be achieved at the cost of substantial risk-taking. So what is your sleeping point? Finding the answer to this question is one of the most important investment steps you must take.

  Burton Malkiel

  Sleep, Night, Eating Well

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• It's not that stock prices are capricious. It's that the news is capricious.

  Burton Malkiel

  News, Investing, Capricious

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• Experience conclusively shows that index-fund buyers are likely to obtain results exceeding those of the typical fund manager, whose large advisory fees and substantial portfolio turnover tend to reduce investment yields. Many people will find the guarantee of playing the stock-market game at par every round a very attractive one. The index fund is a sensible, serviceable method for obtaining the market's rate of return with absolutely no effort and minimal expense.

  Burton Malkiel

  Yield, Games, People

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• Never buy anything from someone who is out of breath.

  Burton Malkiel

  Breaths

  "A Random Walk Down Wall Street: Including a Life-Cycle Guide to Personal Investing". Book by Burton Malkiel, 1973.

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• Historically, the stock market is like a gambling casino with the odds in your favor. Over the long pull, stocks are given something like nine and a half to ten percent compounded per year. The banks have probably given you something in the order of four to five.

  Burton Malkiel

  Gambling, Odds, Order

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• Many of us economists who believe in efficiency do so because we view markets as amazingly successful devices for reflecting new information rapidly and, for the most part, accurately.

  Burton Malkiel

  Believe, Successful, Views

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• Index funds have regularly produced rates of return exceeding those of active managers by close to 2 percentage points. Active management as a whole cannot achieve gross returns exceeding the market as a while and therefore they must, on average, underperform the indexes by the amount of these expense and transaction costs disadvantages.

  Burton Malkiel

  Average, Cost, Investing

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• I have become increasingly convinced that the past records of mutual fund managers are essentially worthless in predicting future success. The few examples of consistently superior performance occur no more frequently than can be expected by chance.

  Burton Malkiel

  Past, Example, Investing

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• The surest way to find an actively managed fund that will have top-quartile returns is to look for a fund that has bottom-quartile expenses.

  Burton Malkiel

  Looks, Investing, Way

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• Index funds are... tax friendly, allowing investors to defer the realization of capital gains or avoid them completely if the shares are later bequeathed. To the extent that the long-run uptrend in stock prices continues, switching from security to security involves realizing capital gains that are subject to tax. Taxes are a crucially important financial consideration because the earlier realization of capital gains will substantially reduce net returns.

  Burton Malkiel

  Running, Long, Friendly

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• We conclude that hedge funds are far riskier and provide much lower returns than commonly supposed.

  Burton Malkiel

  Return, Investing, Fund

  "INVESTING : More risk, less return" by John F. Wasik, www.nytimes.com. November 13, 2004.

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• Index funds do not trade from security to security and, thus, they tend to avoid capital gains taxes.

  Burton Malkiel

  Investing, Gains, Taxes

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• It's like giving up a belief in Santa Claus.

  Burton Malkiel

  Giving Up, Investing, Santa

  "401(k) Participants Need an 'Arab Spring'" by Dan Solin, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 24, 2011.

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