Peter Lynch Quotes

The extravagance of any corporate office is directly proportional to management's reluctance to reward the shareholders.

It would be wonderful if we could avoid the setbacks with timely exits, but nobody has figured out how to predict them.

If you have the stomach for stocks, but neither the time nor the inclination to do the homework, invest in equity mutual funds.

Stocks are a safe bet, but only if you stay invested long enough to ride out the corrections.

Owning stocks is like having children - don't get involved with more than you can handle.

I deal in facts, not forecasting the future. That's crystal ball stuff. That doesn't work.

The simpler it is, the better I like it.

It isn't the head but the stomach that determines the fate of the stockpicker.

Invest in businesses any idiot could run, because someday one will.

All you need for a lifetime of successful investing is a few big winners, and the pluses from those will overwhelm the minuses from the stocks that don't work out.

Searching for companies is like looking for grubs under rocks: if you turn over 10 rocks you'll likely find one grub; if you turn over 20 rocks you'll find two.

Equity mutual funds are the perfect solution for people who want to own stocks without doing their own research.

I've found that when the market's going down and you buy funds wisely, at some point in the future you will be happy. You won't get there by reading 'Now is the time to buy.'

Gentlemen who prefer bonds don't know what they're missing.

When you sell in desperation, you always sell cheap.

Charts are great for predicting the past.

Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it's doing.

As I look back on it now, it's obvious that studying history and philosophy was much better preparation for the stock market than, say, studying statistics.

You can't see the future through a rearview mirror

More money is lost anticipating the changes in the overall stock market than any other way of investing.

Visiting stores and testing products is one of the critical elements of the analyst's job.

If you go to Minnesota in January, you should know that it's gonna be cold. You don't panic when the thermometer falls below zero.

All the time and effort people devote to picking the right fund, the hot hand, the great manager have, in most cases, led to no advantage.

The natural-born investor is a myth.

The most important organ in the body as far as the stock market is concerned is the guts, not the head. Anyone can acquire the know-how for analyzing stocks.

Average investors can become experts in their own field and can pick winning stocks as effectively as Wall Street professionals by doing just a little research.

Long-term investing has gotten so popular, it's easier to admit you're a crack addict than to admit you're a short-term investor.

There's a company behind every stock and a reason companies - and their stocks - perform the way they do.

Avoid hot stocks in hot industries.

Spend at least as much time researching a stock as you would choosing a refrigerator.

I spend about fifteen minutes a year on economic analysis.

Imagine if you borrowed your parents' car without permission and ran it into a tree, how much better you'd feel if you were incorporated.

Improved turnout will give parliament and government the appearance of being more legitimate.

Investing is fun and exciting, but dangerous if you don't do any work.

You shouldn't just pick a stock - you should do your homework.

The more cash that builds up in the treasury, the greater the pressure to piss it away.

The junior high schools and high schools of America have forgotten to teach one of the most important courses of all. Investing.

My high-tech aversion caused me to make fun of the typical biotech enterprise: $100 million in cash from selling shares, one hundred Ph.D.'s, 99 microscopes, and zero revenues.

The worst thing you can do is invest in companies you know nothing about. Unfortunately, buying stocks on ignorance is still a popular American pastime.

Never buy anything that you can't illustrate on the back of a napkin.

Twenty years in this business convinces me that any normal person using the customary three percent of the brain can pick stocks just as well, if not better, than the average Wall Street expert.

You can find good reasons to scuttle your equities in every morning paper and on every broadcast of the nightly news.

I don't go near the money and the money doesn't go near me.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, in business, so is a number.

In our society, it's been the men who've handled most of the finances, and the women who've stood by and watched men botch things up.

You just don't know when you can find the bottom.

If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, it wouldn't be a bad thing.

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Suicide is a choice and I think if we work with that with kids, we'll get somewhere.

When even the analysts are bored, it's time to start buying.

I've always been a great lover of baseball.