Your best investing maxim?

[Onward]

Just wondering what single investing maxim, if any, has helped you most over the years? I find that a good maxim can act like a mantra and sustain me in tough times.

My #1 is from Warren Buffet, though I can only paraphrase it, since I forgot where I read it and can't find it on the Internet:

The stock market is like an evil tutor, trying to teach you trade badly.

I'd love to hear yours, if you have one.

 

[LOL!]

I have two:

1. Always sell your losers before they go long term.

2. Always buy equities on a one-day dip that is one of the worst days in the last 3 to 6 months.

But your questions also implies that current times are tough. The stock market is up for the year, some things are up more than 10%. Times are very good.

 

[winger]

There's more than one road to Dublin.

and

Where are the customer's yachts?

 

[DblDoc]

Like LOL I'll throw 2 out there:

1) Stay the course

2) The most expensive words in investing: "This time it's different"

DD

 

[traineeinvestor]

If you are not worried then you are not risking enough - Max Gunther

Only the little people pay taxes - Leona Helmsley

 

[NW-Bound]

“Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful” - Warren Buffett

Of course I could not heed that advice 100%, but just remembering that has kept me from going 100% to cash at market bottom and 100% equities at market top.

 

[CuppaJoe]

Okay, I'll make one up: Just do it. (That is, get that cash into the market).

 

[jebmke]

Only the little people pay taxes - Leona Helmsley

Was she married to Carl-Henric Svanberg?

 

[Focus]

Surprised I haven't seen this chestnut here yet: "Pay yourself first."

 

[clifp]

In short run the market is a voting mechanism in the long run it is a weighing mechanism.

The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
Useful for times when you short stocks.

 

[Badger]

Surprised I haven't seen this chestnut here yet: "Pay yourself first."

My father always said this and I finally listened before it was too late.

Cheers!

 

[Gone4Good]

If you wouldn't buy it at today's price, you should sell it at today's price.

 

[Gumby]

Don't invest in anything you can't explain to an intelligent 12 year old.

 

[WhoDaresWins]

My 93 year-old aunt likes to say that the bulls and the bears make money on Wall Street but the pigs never do. She still buys individual stocks after much study.

 

[RonBoyd]

Sheep get sheared;
Pigs get fat;
Hogs get slaughtered.

 

[BUM]

I like, "When you're ready to diddle with your portfolio, don't".

 

[Gone4Good]

I like, "When you're ready to diddle with your portfolio, don't".

. . . or you'll go blind.

 

[NW-Bound]

Okay, I'll make one up: Just do it. (That is, get that cash into the market).

Isn't that the same as "Buy, buy, buy"?

Don't invest in anything you can't explain to an intelligent 12 year old.

"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five." — Groucho Marx

Soo, you can't explain CDO and CDS to a 12 year old?

Of course, the above toxic assets, or financial weapons of mass destruction as Buffett called them, are truly advantageous to the people who [-]deploy[/-] sell them, and not the buyers.

Oops, forgot that they also "got high on their own supply", were OD'ed and needed public funding for resuscitation.

 

[David1961]

Buy low, sell high.

 

[HFWR]

Surprised I haven't seen this chestnut here yet: "Pay yourself first."

+1

And it's corollary: You can't control the market, but you can control your spending...

 

[CyclingInvestor]

The world will only end once. All other downturns are merely buying opportunities

A stupid idea looks exactly like a brilliant idea, right up until the moment that it fails

 

[scrabbler1]

Buy low, sell high.

I learned this one from watching a Flintstones episode when I was about 8 years old. So simple even a child can understand it!

 

[NW-Bound]

Variations of "Buy low, sell high" include:

1) Sell high (shorting), then buy back low (covering)

2) Sell low, buy back even lower

3) Buy high, sell even higher
​

So many ways to make money, and why am I not a decamillionaire?

 

[dex]

The stock market teaches you to lose.

 

[NW-Bound]

Sheep get sheared;
Pigs get fat;
Hogs get slaughtered.

At what point do fat pigs get relabeled as hogs?

I guess I still have some time to ponder that question. Still working on getting fat first.

Signed: Skinny Pig