Peter Lynch Quotes

Corporate profits will be a lot higher 10 years from now. They'll be a lot higher 20 years from now. That's what you can rely on. Microsoft didn't exist 20 years ago. Staples didn't exist 20 years ago—Federal Express didn't exist 20 years ago. New companies will come along. That's what makes stocks go up.

A person who owns property and has a stake in the enterprise is likely to work harder and feel happier and do a better job than a person who doesn’t.

If you don't understand a company, if you can't explain it to a ten-year-old in 2 minutes or less, don't own it.

The typical big winner in the Lynch portfolio (I continue to pick my share of losers, too!) generally takes three to ten years or more to play out.

Stocks you trade, it's wives you're stuck with.

In college, except for the obligatory courses, I avoided science, math, and accounting — all the normal preparations for business. I was on the arts side of school, and along with the usual history, psychology, and political science, I also studied metaphysics, epistemology, logic, religion, and the philosophy of the ancient Greeks. 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. Investing in stocks is an art, not a science, and people who’ve been trained to rigidly quantify everything have a big disadvantage

It’s best to divide your money among three or four types of stock funds (growth, value, emerging growth, etc.) so you’ll always have some money invested in the most profitable sector of the market.

there was no longer an economic benefit in forcing people into a life of servitude.

In general, if you polled all the doctors, I’d bet only a small percentage would turn out to be invested in medical stocks, and more would be invested in oil; and if you polled the shoe-store owners, more would be invested in aerospace than in shoes, while the aerospace engineers are more likely to dabble in shoe stocks. Why it is that stock certificates, like grasses, are always greener in somebody else’s pasture I’m not sure.

The lesson here is: don’t spend a lot of time poring over the past performance charts. That’s not to say you shouldn’t pick a fund with a good long-term record. But it’s better to stick with a steady and consistent performer than to move in and out of funds, trying to catch the waves. Another major issue is what happens to a

If you find a stock with little or no institutional ownership, you’ve found a potential winner. Find a company that no analyst has ever visited, or that no analyst would admit to knowing about, and you’ve got a double winner. When I talk to a company that tells me the last analyst showed up three years ago, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. It frequently happens with banks, savings-and-loans, and insurance companies, since there are thousands of these and Wall Street only keeps up with fifty to one hundred.

Peter Lynch doesn’t advise you to buy stock in your favorite store just because you like shopping in the store, nor should you buy stock in a manufacturer because it makes your favorite product or a restaurant because you like the food. Liking a store, a product, or a restaurant is a good reason to get interested in a company and put it on your research list, but it’s not enough of a reason to own the stock! Never invest in any company before you’ve done the homework on the company’s earnings prospects, financial condition, competitive position, plans for expansion, and so forth.

No wonder people make money in the real estate market and lose money in the stock market. They spend months choosing their houses, and minutes choosing their stocks. In fact, they spend more time shopping for a good microwave oven than shopping for a good investment.

A successful stockpicker has the same relationship with a drop in the market as a Minnesotan has with freezing weather. You know it’s coming, and you’re ready to ride it out, and when your favorite stocks go down with the rest, you jump at the chance to buy more.

If You Spend 13 Minutes A Year On Economics, You've Wasted 10 Minutes