Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going
to run it.
– Peter Lynch
Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it’s doing.
– Peter Lynch
Never invest in any idea you can’t illustrate with a crayon.
– Peter Lynch
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.
– Peter Lynch
The natural-born investor is a myth.
– Peter Lynch
It’s a common mistake I do: I think people buy stocks because they have fallen from price X
to two thirds of that, half of that. On that basis alone they’re buying a stock. That’s called
bottom-fishing the stock market. Very, very difficult.
– Peter Lynch
If you spend more than 13 minutes analyzing economic and market forecasts, you’ve wasted
10 minutes.
– Peter Lynch
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.
– Peter Lynch
Everyone has the brainpower to follow the stock market. If you made it through fifth-grade
math, you can do it.
– Peter Lynch
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.
– Peter Lynch
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.
– Peter Lynch
You should not buy a stock because it’s cheap but because you know a lot about it.
– Peter Lynch
The dividend is such an important factor in the success of many stocks that you could hardly
go wrong by making an entire portfolio of companies that have raised their dividends for 10 or
20 years in a row.
– Peter Lynch
Know what you own, and know why you own it.
– Peter Lynch
Investing is fun, exciting, and dangerous if you don’t do any work.
– Peter Lynch
When people discover they are no good at baseball or hockey, they put away their bats and
their skates and they take up amateur golf or stamp collecting or gardening. But when people
discover they are no good at picking stocks, they are likely to continue to do it anyway.
– Peter Lynch
In this business, if you’re good, you’re right six times out of ten. You’re never going to be right
nine times out of ten.
– Peter Lynch
I’m always fully invested. It’s a great feeling to be caught with your pants up.
– Peter Lynch
Absent a lot of surprises, stocks are relatively predictable over twenty years. As to whether
they’re going to be higher or lower in two to three years, you might as well flip a coin to
decide.
– Peter Lynch
The basic story remains simple and never-ending. Stocks aren’t lottery tickets. There’s a
company attached to every share.
– Peter Lynch
You have to keep your priorities straight if you plan to do well in stocks.
– Peter Lynch
If you don’t study any companies, you have the same success buying stocks as you do in a
poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.
– Peter Lynch
All the math you need in the stock market you get in the fourth grade.
– Peter Lynch
There’s no shame in losing money on a stock. Everybody does it. What is shameful is to hold
on to a stock, or worse, to buy more of it when the fundamentals are deteriorating.
– Peter Lynch
A good company usually increases its dividend every year.
– Peter Lynch
It’s human nature to keep doing something as long as it’s pleasurable and you can succeed at
it, which is why the world population continues to double every 40 years.
– Peter Lynch
A stock market decline is as routine as a January blizzard in Colorado. If you’re prepared, it
can’t hurt you. A decline is a great opportunity to pick up the bargains left behind by
investors who are fleeing the storm in panic.
– Peter Lynch
Your investor’s edge is not something you get from Wall Street experts. It’s something you
already have. You can outperform the experts if you use your edge by investing in companies
or industries you already understand.
– Peter Lynch
The simpler it is, the better I like it.
– Peter Lynch
The person that turns over the most rocks wins the game. And that’s always been my
philosophy.
– Peter Lynch
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.
– Peter Lynch
During the Gold Rush, most would-be miners lost money, but people who sold them picks,
shovels, tents and blue-jeans (Levi Strauss) made a nice profit.
– Peter Lynch
Owning stocks is like having children – don’t get involved with more than you can handle.
– Peter Lynch
If you can’t find any companies that you think are attractive, put your money in the bank
until you discover some.
– Peter Lynch
If you’re prepared to invest in a company, then you ought to be able to explain why in simple
language that a fifth grader could understand, and quickly enough so the fifth grader won’t
get bored.
– Peter Lynch
When you invest in the stock market you should always diversify.
– Peter Lynch
Gentlemen who prefer bonds don’t know what they’re missing.
– Peter Lynch
The junior high schools and high schools of America have forgotten to teach one of the most
important courses of all – investing.
– Peter Lynch
You can lose money in a very short time but it takes a long time to make money.
– Peter Lynch
In the long run, it’s not just how much money you make that will determine your future
prosperity. It’s how much of that money you put to work by saving it and investing it.
– Peter Lynch
The key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them.
– Peter Lynch
Equity mutual funds are the perfect solution for people who want to own stocks without
doing their own research.
– Peter Lynch
It would be wonderful if we could avoid the setbacks with timely exits, but nobody has figured
out how to predict them.
– Peter Lynch
Over the last seventy years the market has declined forty times, so an investor has to be
willing to be in the market for the long term.
– Peter Lynch
In the long run, a portfolio of well chosen stocks and/or equity mutual funds will always
outperform a portfolio of bonds or a money-market account. In the long run, a portfolio of
poorly chosen stocks won’t outperform the money left under the mattress.
– Peter Lynch