"The latter part of bull markets are typically led by stocks that are seen then as high quality, but the ones that do best are the ones that weren't seen as such high quality before."
"Normally, if you have a huge category that leads a bear market all the way down to the bottom - like tech after 2000, or energy in the '80-'82 bear market - you get one quick pop, and then years of lag as we fight the old war."
"People do dollar cost averaging because they have regret of making one big mistake. But the fact of the matter is that, mathematically, the market rises more of the time than it falls. It falls, but it rises more of the time than it falls."
"If you can predict where the market's going, just do what you can predict. If you can't, which is the presumption of dollar cost averaging or time cost averaging, either one, then you're trying to ease in. But if the market rises more than it falls most of the time, easing in is, by definition, a loser's game."
"I never liked quantitative easing. It's misunderstood by almost everybody. Flattening the yield curve is not stimulative; flattening the yield curve is anti-stimulative."
"Anyone can see how if a feared tax hike doesn't happen, that's a positive factor. But even if tax hikes happen as feared, vast history tells me it doesn't have to have the big bad impact folks fear. And fear of a false factor is always bullish."
"Readers regularly ask what can go wrong but almost never what could positively surprise."
"Investors covet past improvements but also always believe pricing unimaginable future creativity and efficiency gains is Pollyannaish. And they're always wrong. Bet on it."
"If some stock categories get too hot-and-pricey, mass supply is created via stock offerings to tap that cheap money - and, when overdone, drives it all down."
"You may have seen my firm's ads screaming, 'I Hate Annuities.' Folks ask why we run them. Simple: Because I do."
"When I was a young man in the 1970s, tech firms were scattered across the developed world. Since then, America has come to dominate tech almost totally."
"Over rolling long periods, U.S. and non-U.S. stocks tend to equalize."
"All equity categories, correctly calculated, create near-identical lifelong returns. They just get there via wildly differing paths."
"Back in the '60s and '70s, data were scarce, and while analysts knew that companies with fat gross margins lagged those with thin gross margins early in bull markets - and overachieved in the later phases - they couldn't do much about it."
"Long before folks fretted the demise of 'quantitative easing,' I fretted its existence. It proved the reverse of its image, an antistimulus, and we've done okay not because of it, but despite it."
"Both cheap value stocks and more glamorous growth stocks can work well in a portfolio - if done right."
"Having different types of stocks in your portfolio can enhance returns."
"Generally, variations in earnings aren't nearly as impactful on glamour growth stocks as are changes in image and, well, sexiness. I often think of glamour stocks as though they are attractive women dressing to the nines."
"Fundamentally cheap stocks are often held in low regard by market participants. Something may be tainting their perception in investors' minds."
"What is the most common investor mistake? Trading - getting in and getting out at all the wrong times, for all the wrong reasons."
"The average mutual fund holding period for equity or fixed income is only about three years. It's too short."
"Buy into good, well-researched companies and then wait. Let's call it a sit-on-your-hands investment strategy."
"Hundreds of investors ask me questions each year about the dilemmas they confront. Their worst problem? Uncertainty. They are traumatized and become emotional or confused to the state of inaction. Even worse, they try to solve a short-term problem in a way that hurts them financially in the long run."
"If you are prepared for some risk, junk bonds pay about 5%, but they tend to get whacked when interest rates rise. Same with lower-yielding but higher-quality corporate bonds."
"To me 'The Big Easy' is shorthand for owning big stocks that are easy for wary investors to buy into. These stocks tend to outperform during the back half of bull markets."
