Top 120 Seth Klarman Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “In contrast to the speculators preoccupation with rapid gain, value investors demonstrate their risk aversion by striving to avoid loss.”

— Seth Klarman

52. “Costs and liabilities are rarely overstated.”

— Seth Klarman

53. “There’s no such thing as a value company. Price is all that matters. At some price, an asset is a buy, at another it’s a hold, and at another it’s a sell.”

— Seth Klarman

54. “As Graham, Dodd and Buffett have all said, you should always remember that you don’t have to swing at every pitch. You can wait for opportunities that fit your criteria and if you don’t find them, patiently wait. Deciding not to act is still a decision.”

— Seth Klarman

55. “When you buy bargains and they become better bargains, it is easy to start to question yourself, which can impair your judgement. Real or imagined concerns about client redemptions, employee defections can greatly influence behavior away from rational.”

— Seth Klarman

56. “Courage is a function of process.”

— Seth Klarman

57. “By investing at a discount, Benjamin Graham knew that he was unlikely to experience losses.”

— Seth Klarman

58. “Most investors are primarily oriented toward return, how much they can make and pay little attention to risk, how much they can lose.”

— Seth Klarman

59. “Value investing is risk aversion.”

— Seth Klarman

60. “A simple rule applies: if you don’t quickly comprehend what a company is doing, then management probably doesn’t either.”

— Seth Klarman

61. “Analysts recommendations may not produce good results. In part this is due to the pressure placed on these analysts to recommend frequently rather than wisely.”

— Seth Klarman

62. “When people give away stocks based on forced selling or fear that is usually a great opportunity.”

— Seth Klarman

63. “All an investor can do is follow a consistently disciplined and rigorous approach; over time the returns will come.”

— Seth Klarman

64. “A value strategy is of little use to the impatient investor since it usually takes time to pay off.”

— Seth Klarman

65. “Having clients with a long-term orientation is crucial. Nothing else is as important to the success of an investment firm.”

— Seth Klarman

66. “It is always easiest to run with the herd; at times, it can take a deep reservoir of courage and conviction to stand apart from it. Yet distancing yourself from the crowd is an essential component of long-term investment success.”

— Seth Klarman

67. “Successful investors must temper the arrogance of taking a stand with a large dose of humility, accepting that despite their efforts and care, they may in fact be wrong.”

— Seth Klarman

68. “Bad things happen, but really bad things do not. Do buy the dips, especially the lowest quality securities when they come under pressure, because declines will quickly be reversed.”

— Seth Klarman

69. “In investing it is never wrong to change your mind. It is only wrong to change your mind and do nothing about it.”

— Seth Klarman

70. “Avoiding where others go wrong is an important step in achieving investment success. In fact, it almost assures it.”

— Seth Klarman

71. “It turns out that value investing is something that is in your blood. There are people who just don’t have the patience and discipline to do it, and there are people who do. So it leads me to think it’s genetic.”

— Seth Klarman

72. “I know of no long-time practitioner who regrets adhering to a value philosophy; few investors who embrace the fundamental principles ever abandon this investment approach for another.”

— Seth Klarman

73. “Ultimately, nothing should be more important to investors than the ability to sleep soundly at night.”

— Seth Klarman

74. “Things that have never happened before are bound to occur with some regularity. You must always be prepared for the unexpected, including sudden, sharp downward swings in markets and the economy. Whatever adverse scenario you can contemplate, reality can be far worse.”

— Seth Klarman

75. “Do not suffer interim losses, relish and appreciate them.”

— Seth Klarman

76. “It’s incredibly important to note that when you don’t allow failure, you get more failure.”

— Seth Klarman

77. “Macro worries are like sports talk radio. Everyone has a good opinion which probably means that none of them are good.”

— Seth Klarman

78. “As Buffett has often observed, value investing is not a concept that can be learned and gradually applied over time. It is either absorbed and adopted at once, or it is never truly learned.”

— Seth Klarman

79. “We are big fans of fear, and in investing it is clearly better to be scared than sorry.”

— Seth Klarman

80. “Complexity – limits competition.”

— Seth Klarman

81. “The real secret to investing is that there is no secret to investing.”

— Seth Klarman

82. “Most institutional investors feel compelled to swing at almost every pitch and forgo batting selectivity for frequency.”

— Seth Klarman

83. “When all feels calm and prices surge, the markets may feel safe; but, in fact, they are dangerous because few investors are focusing on risk.”

— Seth Klarman

84. “Investors need to pick their poison: Either make more money when times are good and have a really ugly year every so often, or protect on the downside and don’t be at the party so long when things are good.”

— Seth Klarman

85. “You probably would not choose to dine at a restaurant whose chef always ate elsewhere. I do eat my own cooking, and I don’t “dine out” when it comes to investing.”

— Seth Klarman

86. “In a rising market, everyone makes money and a value philosophy is unnecessary. But because there is no certain way to predict what the market will do, one must follow a value philosophy at all times.”

— Seth Klarman

87. “Flexible approach – will look at ALL asset classes.”

— Seth Klarman

88. “When a stock is selling at a discount to liquidation value per share, a near rock-bottom appraisal, it is frequently an attractive investment.”

— Seth Klarman

89. “Selling, in particular, can be a challenge; many investors are tempted to become more optimistic when a security is performing well. This temptation must be resisted; tax considerations aside, when a security reaches full valuation, there is no longer a reason to own it.”

— Seth Klarman

90. “Ratings agencies are highly conflicted, unimaginative dupes. They are blissfully unaware of adverse selection and moral hazard. Investors should never trust them.”

— Seth Klarman

91. “Literally draw a detailed map-like an organization chart-of interlocking ownership and affiliates, many of which were also publicly traded. So, identifying one stock led him to a dozen other potential investments. To tirelessly pull threads is the lesson that I learned from Mike Price.”

— Seth Klarman

92. “Benjamin Graham wrote, “Those with enterprise haven’t the money, and those with money haven’t the enterprise, to buy stocks when they are cheap.””

— Seth Klarman

93. “We buy expecting to hold a bond to maturity and a stock forever.”

— Seth Klarman

94. “Warren Buffett once wrote that value investing is like an inoculation – it either takes or it doesn’t – and when you explain to somebody what it is and how it works and why it works and show them the returns, either they get it or they don’t.”

— Seth Klarman

95. “The cost of performing well in bad times can be relative underperformance in good times.”

— Seth Klarman

96. “Investment success cannot be captured in a mathematical equation or a computer program.”

— Seth Klarman

97. “We are not so brazen as to believe that we can perfectly calibrate valuation; determining risk and return for any investment remains an art not an exact science.”

— Seth Klarman

98. “When a government official says a problem has been “contained,” pay no attention.”

— Seth Klarman

99. “If an asset has cash flow or the likelihood of cash flow in the near term and is not purely dependment on what a future buyer might pay, then it’s an investment. If an asset’s value is totally dependent on the amount a future buyer might pay, then its purchase is speculation.”

— Seth Klarman

100. “The best protection against risk is knowing what you are doing.”

— Seth Klarman