Financial Markets Quotes

• The financial markets generally are unpredictable. So that one has to have different scenarios... The idea that you can actually predict what's going to happen contradicts my way of looking at the market.

  George Soros

  Ideas, Way, Different

  52 Copy quote

• The reality is that financial markets are self-destabilizing; occasionally they tend toward disequilibrium, not equilibrium.

  George Soros

  Reality, Self, Financial

  "My Interview with George Soros: End of Financial Crisis Could Be in Sight". Interview with Nathan Gardels, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 12, 2008.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• As financial markets continue to broaden and deepen, the behavior of asset prices will play an important role in the formulation of monetary policy going forward, perhaps a more important role than in the past.

  Timothy Geithner

  Past, Play, Important

  24 Copy quote

• Taking this view, it is possible to see financial markets as a laboratory for testing hypotheses, albeit not strictly scientific ones. The truth is, successful investing is a kind of alchemy.

  George Soros

  Successful, Views, Investing

  George Soros (1994). “The Alchemy of Finance: Reading the Mind of the Market”, p.14, John Wiley & Sons

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• An open, competitive, and liberalized financial market can effectively allocate scarce resources in a manner that promotes stability and prosperity far better than governmental intervention.

  Henry Paulson

  Financial, Prosperity, Resources

  "Bankers & Brokers Have Learned Nothing From the Current Crisis" by Joseph L. Shaefer, seekingalpha.com. May 13, 2009.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• I contend that financial markets never reflect the underlying reality accurately; they always distort it in some way or another and the distortions find expression in market prices. Those distortions can, occasionally, find ways to affect the fundamentals that market prices are supposed to reflect.

  George Soros

  Reality, Expression, Investing

  George Soros (2009). “The Crash of 2008 and What it Means: The New Paradigm for Financial Markets”, p.7, Hachette UK

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• To achieve long-term success over many financial market and economic cycles, observing a few rules is not enough. Too many things change too quickly in the investment world for that approach to succeed. It is necessary instead to understand the rationale behind the rules in order to appreciate why they work when they do and don't when they don't.

  Seth Klarman

  Order, Long, Appreciate

  11 Copy quote

• The full consequences of a default or even the serious prospect of default by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and on the value of the dollar in exchange markets. The Nation can ill afford to allow such a result. The risks, the cost, the disruptions, and the incalculable damage lead me to but one conclusion: the Senate must pass this legislation before the Congress adjourns.

  Ronald Reagan

  Risk, Damage, Serious

  Letter to Majority Leader Howard Baker, November 16, 1983.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Through all aspects of society be it art, design, the financial markets, government, technology or communications we are witnessing unprecedented global transformation - the result of which is impossible to predict.

  Malcolm Mclaren

  Art, Communication, Technology

  4 Copy quote

• Capital movements are no longer necessarily related to the production of goods and services. Through the financial markets of the world, capital movements today are overwhelmingly concerned with the capture of and trade in property rights, the ownership of assets that magnify a corporation's wealth, power, and control. It is what John Maynard Keynes described as "a casino world"-wealth without worth.

  Eric Kierans

  Rights, Movement, World

  3 Copy quote

• America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products.

  Thomas Friedman

  Independent, Thinking, Ideas

  3 Copy quote

• While expanding market access for American industry, financial markets and farmers is critical, I believe it needs to be done responsibly, accounting for the treatment and protection of workers and the environment.

  Mark Udall

  Believe, Needs, Done

  7 Copy quote

• It's a familiar truism that at any one moment, financial markets are dominated by either fear or greed. But the healthiest markets are those that are animated by both fear and greed at the same time.

  James Surowiecki

  Fear, Greed, Financial

  James Surowiecki (2005). “The Wisdom of Crowds”, p.241, Anchor

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only thing that could hurt me is if my success encouraged me to return to my childhood fantasies of omnipotence - but that is not likely to happen as long as I remain engaged in the financial markets, because they constantly remind me of my limitations.

  George Soros

  Hurt, Omnipotence, Long

  George Soros (1994). “The Alchemy of Finance: Reading the Mind of the Market”, p.363, John Wiley & Sons

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• And finally, no matter how good the science gets, there are problems that inevitably depend on judgment, on art, on a feel for financial markets.

  Martin Feldstein

  Art, Investing, Matter

  3 Copy quote

• Trillions of dollars every day are being exchanged around the world in all of the financial markets.

  Kenneth Lay

  Dollars, World, Financial

  6 Copy quote

• The impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime markets seems likely to be contained.

  Ben Bernanke

  Impact, Financial, Problem

  "Explaining FinReg: Shadow bank runs, or the problem behind the problem". voices.washingtonpost.com. June 20, 2007.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• As I discovered, there is a great deal of similarity between a boom-bust process in the financial markets and the rise and fall of the Soviet system.

  George Soros

  Fall, Investing, Financial

  George Soros (1994). “The Alchemy of Finance: Reading the Mind of the Market”, p.5, John Wiley & Sons

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Reversion to the mean is the iron rule of the financial markets.

  John C. Bogle

  Business, Mean, Iron

  23 Copy quote

• Sometimes it is my impression that most politicians are still not aware of being under the control of the financial markets and are even governed by them.

  Hans Tietmeyer

  Financial, Sometimes, Politician

  5 Copy quote

• The financial markets play an active role in determining what's going to happen, how the economy is going to function.

  George Soros

  Play, Roles, Financial

  9 Copy quote

• You cannot cheat with the law of conservation of violence: all violence is paid for, and for example, the structural violence exerted by the financial markets, in the form of layoffs, loss of security, etc., is matched sooner or later in the form of suicides, crime and delinquency, drug addiction, alcoholism, a whole host of minor and major everyday acts of violence.

  Pierre Bourdieu

  Suicide, Loss, Law

  68 Copy quote

• Let us not be defeated by the tyranny of the world financial markets that threaten peace and democracy everywhere.

  Stephane Hessel

  Democracy, World, Financial

  "A French Manifesto to Unite Occupy Wall Street" by William D. Cohan, www.sfgate.com. November 30, 2011.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The new social question is: democracy or the rule of the financial markets. We are currently witnessing the end of an era. The neoliberal ideology has failed worldwide. The U.S. movement Occupy Wall Street is a good example of this.

  Sigmar Gabriel

  Wall, Democracy, Example

  6 Copy quote

• In rising financial markets, the world is forever new. The bull or optimist has no eyes for past or present, but only for the future, where streams of revenue play in his imagination.

  James Buchan

  Eye, Past, Play

  "Greed and amnesia: the devils in financial history" by James Buchan, www.theguardian.com. October 10, 2008.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source