Peter Lynch Investing Quotations

You get recessions, you have stock market declines. If you don't understand that's going to happen, then you're not ready, you won't do well in the markets.

I think you have to learn that there's a company behind every stock, and that there's only one real reason why stocks go up. Companies go from doing poorly to doing well or small companies grow to large companies.

Go for a business that any idiot can run - because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.

Although it's easy to forget sometimes, a share is not a lottery ticket... it's part-ownership of a business.

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.

In business, competition is never as healthy as total domination.

People who want to know how stocks fared on any given day ask, "Where did the Dow close?" I'm more interested in how many stocks went up versus how many went down. These so-called advance/decline numbers paint a more realistic picture.

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.

I'm always fully invested. It's a great feeling to be caught with your pants up.

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.

In our society, it's been the men who've handled most of the finances, and the women who've stood by and watched men botch things up.

If you're lucky enough to have been rewarded in life to the degree that I have, there comes a point at which you have to decide whether to become a slave to your net worth by devoting the rest of your life to increasing it or to let what you've accumulated begin to serve you.

Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it's doing.

An important key to investing is to remember that stocks are not lottery tickets.

When you start to confuse Freddie Mac, Sallie Mae and Fannie Mae with members of your family, and you remember 2,000 stock symbols but forget the children's birthdays, there's a good chance you've become too wrapped up in your work.

Everyone has the brainpower to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach. If you are susceptible to selling everything in a panic, you ought to avoid stocks and mutual funds altogether.

The best stock to buy is the one you already own.

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.

Investing is fun and exciting, but dangerous if you don't do any work.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, in business, so is a number.

You have to keep your priorities straight if you plan to do well in stocks.

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.

You can find good reasons to scuttle your equities in every morning paper and on every broadcast of the nightly news.

That's not to say there's no such thing as an overvalued market, but there's no point worrying about it.

I talk to hundreds of companies a year and spend hour after hour in heady pow-wows with CEOs, financial analysts and my colleagues in the mutual-fund business, but I stumble onto the big winners in extracurricular situations, the same way you do.

It only takes a handful of big winners to make a lifetime of investing worthwhile.

More money is lost anticipating the changes in the overall stock market than any other way of investing.

Gentlemen who prefer bonds don't know what they're missing.

If you can't find any companies that you think are attractive, put your money in the bank until you discover some.

There seems to be an unwritten rule on Wall Street: If you don't understand it, then put your life savings into it. Shun the enterprise around the corner, which can at least be observed, and seek out the one that manufactures an incomprehensible product.

Searching for companies is like looking for grubs under rocks: if you turn over 10 rocks you'll likely find one grub; if you turn over 20 rocks you'll find two.

Know what you own, and know why you own it.

Time is on your side when you own shares of superior companies.

There are substantial rewards for adopting a regular routine of investing and following it no matter what, and additional rewards for buying more shares when most investors are scared into selling.

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.

The simpler it is, the better I like it.

Everyone has the brain power to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach.

Owning stocks is like having children - don't get involved with more than you can handle.

It would be wonderful if we could avoid the setbacks with timely exits, but nobody has figured out how to predict them.

The natural-born investor is a myth.

Investing in stocks is an art, not a science, and people who've been trained to rigidly quantify everything have a big disadvantage.

Visiting stores and testing products is one of the critical elements of the analyst's job.

All the math you need in the stock market you get in the fourth grade.

The more cash that builds up in the treasury, the greater the pressure to piss it away.

Stocks are a safe bet, but only if you stay invested long enough to ride out the corrections.

The S&P is up 343.8 percent for 10 years. That is a four-bagger. The general equity funds are up 283 percent. So it's getting worse, the deterioration by professionals is getting worse. The public would be better off in an index fund.

The typical big winner in the Lynch portfolio generally takes three to ten years to play out.