Joel Greenblatt famous quotes

04-17-2025

Choosing individual stocks without any idea of what you're looking for is like running through a dynamite factory with a burning match. You may live, but you're still an idiot.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Running #Ideas #Burning
The secret to investing is to figure out the value of something - and then pay a lot less.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Secret #Investing #Pay
It just seems logical that sticking to investing in only a small number of companies that you understand well, rather than moving down the list to your thirtieth or fiftieth favorite pick, would create a much greater potential to earn above-average investment returns.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Moving #Average #Numbers
If you spend your energies looking for and analysing situations not closely followed by other informed investors, your chance of finding bargains greatly increases.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Energy #Chance #Increase
Remember, itâ€™s the quality of your ideas not the quantity that will result in the big money.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Ideas #Quality #Remember
Here is part of the tradeoff with diversification. You must be diversified enough to survive bad times or bad luck so that skill and good process can have the chance to pay off over the long term.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Skills #Long #Luck
The more confidence I have in each one of my stock picks, the fewer companies I need to own in my portfolio to feel comfortable.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Needs #Portfolios #Company
Over the long term, despite significant drops from time to time, stocks (especially an intelligently selected stock portfolio) will be one of your best investment options. The trick is to GET to the long term. Think in terms of 5 years, 10 years and longer. Do your planning and asset allocation ahead of time. Choose a portion of your assets to invest in the stock market - and stick with it! Yes, the bad times will come, but over the truly long term, the good times will win out - and I hope the lessons from 2008 will help get you there to enjoy them.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Winning #Thinking #Years
Look down, not up, when making your initial investment decision. If you donâ€™t lose money, most of the remaining alternatives are good ones.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Decision #Alternatives #Looks
Something out of the ordinary course of business is taking place that creates an investment opportunity. The list of corporate events that can result in big profits for you runs the gamutâ€”spinoffs, mergers, restructurings, rights offerings, bankruptcies, liquidations, asset sales, distributions.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Running #Opportunity #Rights
So one way to create an attractive risk/reward situation is to limit downside risk severely by investing in situations that have a large margin of safety. The upside, while still difficult to quantify, will usually take care of itself. In other words, look down, not up, when making your initial investment decision. If you donâ€™t lose money, most of the remaining alternatives are good ones.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Safety #Decision #Risk
Value investing doesn't always work. The market doesn't always agree with you. Over time, value is roughly the way the market prices stocks, but over the short term, which sometimes can be as long as two or three years, there are periods when it doesn't work. And that is a very good thing. The fact that our value approach doesn't work over periods of time is precisely the reason why it continues to work over the long term.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Years #Two #Long
Thereâ€™s a virtuous cycle when people have to defend challenges to their ideas. Any gaps in thinking or analysis become clear pretty quickly when smart people ask good, logical questions. You canâ€™t be a good value investor without being an independent thinker â€“ youâ€™re seeing valuations that the market is not appreciating. But itâ€™s critical that you understand why the market isnâ€™t seeing the value you do. The back and forth that goes on in the investment process helps you get at that.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Smart #Independent #Thinking
Figure out what something is worth and pay a lot less.
-- Joel Greenblatt

#Pay #Figures

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