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Business

Investment Sayings May Mislead You

Stephen Doty says that the accumulated folk wisdom of the investment community should be taken with a large pinch of salt.

Some people need to invest more in philosophy, not in stocks, so that empty sayings don’t muddle their thinking and mislead them.

A yacht club gentleman gave me a little lecture on investing the other day. He put down his tennis racket, flipped up his collar, and said that the key to investing is to “Buy quality companies.”

That saying is not false, but it is a worthless tautology, because it offers no criteria for determining ‘quality’ – the very thing a buyer needs to know. And it is deceptive, because, in hindsight, it appears to work.

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