Investing Quotes by Barry Ritholtz

Any investment bought via credit always runs the risk of margin calls and, eventually, liquidation.

— Barry Ritholtz

When it comes to investing, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all portfolio.

— Barry Ritholtz

In the investment business, you must expect to be wrong.

— Barry Ritholtz

The beauty of diversification is it's about as close as you can get to a free lunch in investing.

— Barry Ritholtz

When it comes to investing, you are your own worst enemy.

— Barry Ritholtz

When markets are rallying, cash in the portfolio is a drag on performance, returning about zero.

— Barry Ritholtz

Good investors must learn to contextualize the daily background noise.

— Barry Ritholtz

Markets are frequently ahead of, and often out of sync with, the economy.

— Barry Ritholtz

Getting more and more of our news from the social network is having significant repercussions for markets - and your money.

— Barry Ritholtz

We must recognize our own behavioral errors. To be blunt, you are not likely to become a cognitive Zen master anytime soon.…

— Barry Ritholtz

Indeed, eventually, random outcomes all revert to the mean, meaning that streaks eventually end. Understanding this is a key part of intelligent…

— Barry Ritholtz

You want less of the annoying nonsense that interferes with your portfolios and more of the significant data that allow you to…

— Barry Ritholtz

People forget that although we can pinpoint the price, we can only guess at future earnings. The past isn't much help: It…

— Barry Ritholtz

If you think too-big-to-fail banks are not worthy of investment because of their impossible-to-read balance sheets, well then, don't buy them.

— Barry Ritholtz

Investors tend to discover 'hot' mutual fund managers just after a successful run and just before the inescapable force of mean reversion…

— Barry Ritholtz

Yearly data put the rest of the noise into perspective. Most of the weekly or monthly random up-and-down movements get smoothed out.…

— Barry Ritholtz

Hedge funds are not especially liquid. Many are 'gated' - meaning there are only small windows when you can withdraw your money.…

— Barry Ritholtz

It is important for investors to understand what they do and don't know. Learn to recognize that you cannot possibly know what…

— Barry Ritholtz

Here is a dirty little secret: Stock-picking is wildly overrated. Sure, it makes for great cocktail party chatter, and what is more…

— Barry Ritholtz

Commissions add up, taxes are a big drag, margin ain't cheap. A good accountant costs money as well. The math on this…

— Barry Ritholtz

Often, investors will discover a manager after he's had a terrific run, usually when he lands on a magazine cover somewhere. Invariably,…

— Barry Ritholtz

A hedge fund manager whose clients demand monthly performance reports has different needs than any individual investors with a 20-year time horizon.…

— Barry Ritholtz

Rather than engage in the sort of selective retention that so many investors tend to do and pretend mistakes never happened, I…

— Barry Ritholtz

As investors, we want to believe we are smart, insightful and uniquely talented - even though we often fail to do the…

— Barry Ritholtz

If your investing approach requires that you become Nostradamus to succeed, then you are destined to fail.

— Barry Ritholtz

'Excessive regulation in the banking reform bill will destroy a substantial part of our bond-distributing machinery. Can anyone expect that a step…

— Barry Ritholtz

Despite all the media coverage, glitz and glam of hedge funds, they have not done well for their investors. They have high…

— Barry Ritholtz

Truth be told, most financial television bores me. Two or more people discussing the latest economic trends or hot stocks is not…

— Barry Ritholtz

The market is going to love it. The market always seems to applaud major mergers, even though the vast majority of them…

— Barry Ritholtz

The good news is that economists are intelligent, engaging and often charming folks. The bad news is their work is often of…

— Barry Ritholtz

Unlike cheap stocks, inexpensive asset classes have a lower chance of big drawdowns (broad asset classes don't go to zero) and a…

— Barry Ritholtz

You have a natural tendency to want an emotionally satisfying tale - and to make investments based on that - despite times…

— Barry Ritholtz

The ability to select stocks, manage them over time and know when to sell them is incredibly difficult, even for professional fund…

— Barry Ritholtz

Whenever you hear a discussion about the short-term swings in any given stock's price, your immediate thought should be whether it matters…

— Barry Ritholtz

What you pay for an investment is the single biggest determinant for how successful that investment will be. When equity prices are…

— Barry Ritholtz

If you are not making any mistakes, you are being excessively risk-averse. Investing involves risk, and that means you will occasionally be…

— Barry Ritholtz

Active management leads to lots of poor investor behavior. It sends people chasing after whoever has the hot hand at the moment.

— Barry Ritholtz

Based on a lifetime of observations and a few decades in the markets, I understand that societies, beliefs and fashions all move…

— Barry Ritholtz

Investing is about making probabilistic decisions with limited information about an unknowable future. The variables are well known, as are the possible…

— Barry Ritholtz

Secular cycles are the long periods - as long as decades - that come to define each market era. These cycles alternate…

— Barry Ritholtz