William J. Bernstein Quotes

For the taxable investor, indexing means never having to say you're sorry.

Bluntly put, there's no chance that your doctor, dentist, or attorney is a high-school dropout. Your stockbroker, however, just might be.

The purpose of investing is not to simply optimise returns and make yourself rich. The purpose is not to die poor.

The reason that 'guru' is such a popular word is because 'charlatan' is so hard to spell.

There are two kinds of investors, be thay large or small: those who don't know where the market is headed, and those who don't know that they don't know.

99% of fund managers demonstrate no evidence of skill whatsoever.

You have to understand what market history looks like. What market history tells you is that the very, very best investments are made when things look the worst.

If your broker or investment advisor is not familiar with the concept of standard deviation of returns, get a new one.

It's human nature to find patterns where there are none and to find skill where luck is a more likely explanation (particularly if you're the lucky manager).

When it comes to fund managers and market strategists, this year's hero usually turns into next year's zero.

All the things that make us human make us terrible investors and you have to understand what they are and how to avoid them.

Wall Street is littered with the bones of those who knew just what to do, but could not bring themselves to do it.

Mutual fund manager performance does not persist and the return of stock picking is zero.

The typical fund company services 401k plan participants in the same way that Baby Face Nelson serviced banks.

Do the math. Expect catastrophes. Whatever happens, stay the course.

The deeper one delves, the worse things look for actively managed funds.

The key thing about any fund is to make sure its expenses are low. You know, if you look at the funds in your plan and you see that they're all charging 1.5 and 2 percent,you've gota bad plan.

Market risk is like taking a plunge into a cool pool ... a lot of people are finding out right now what their risk tolerance is.

The key aspect of an index fund is that many of them, not all of them, but many of them are extremely cheap.

Investment success accrues not so much to the brilliant as to the disciplined.

The essence of effective portfolio construction is the use of a large number of poorly correlated assets.

It’s human nature to find patterns where there are none and to find skill where luck is a more likely explanation.