Bull Market

“It may be a fair generalization to assert that the top levels of most “normal” bull markets are characterized by a tendency to equate stock risks with bond risks.”

“In the halcyon days of prosperity, the investor is satisfied with increased dividends and a rising market, and cares very little about dry statistics.”

“Experience in former markets indicates that just as they are too high in bull markets, they get too low in bear markets.”

“The impression has built up that the stock market is the cause of booms and busts. Actually, it is the thermometer — not the fever.”

“Bull markets typically begin when the following four conditions are present: the economy is bottoming, profits are bottoming, the Fed is stimulating, and valuations are low.”

“If you’re going to invest in stocks for the long term, or real estate, of course, there are going to be periods when there’s a lot of agony and other periods when there’s a boom. I think you just have to learn to live through them.”

“I didn’t get rich by buying stocks at a high price-earnings multiple in the midst of crazy speculative booms, and I’m not going to change.”

“One of the brightest operators who ever played the unbeatable game once told me that all he asked in a bull market — or a bear market, for that matter — was to be the last fool but one.”

“There is an amazing family resemblance about all stories of all booms.”

“Knowledge, indeed, is the enemy of a speculator during a boom.”

“All booms are alike. The stage setting varies, but fundamentally they are as drops of water. Customs, like costumes, change from force of environment and economic conditions, but human nature remains the same.”

“It is a curious fact that although all booms are alike, all are different.”

“Wall Street in boom days is an aggregation of madmen. The Stock Exchange becomes Bedlam well dressed.”

“In the beginning of a stock market boom it is ever the “dear public,” the fleecy lambs, the most guileless victims, who make the most money. They really do not know when to stop winning, and so in the end they lose profit and principal.”

“Happy is the man who has no past! The same seems to be true of corporations in a bull market.”

“Buying stocks of prosperous concerns may be good business — but only at a certain price. But if you will make sure you know what you are getting for your money, you will be doing what nobody does in a bull market.”

“Fortunes are made during panics, not booms.”

“A boom/bust process occurs only when market prices find a way to influence the so-called fundamentals that are supposed to be reflected in market prices.”

“One of the important factors behind the fluctuation between bull and bear markets, between booms and crashes and bubbles, is that investor memory has to fail us – and fail universally – in order for the extremes to be reached.”

“Laws have been passed to outlaw some of the more egregious behavior which contributed to the big bull market of the twenties. Nothing has been done about the seminal lunacy which possesses people who see a chance of becoming rich.”

“Once a boom is well started, it cannot be arrested. It can only be collapsed.”

“Booms start with some tie-in to reality, some reason which justifies the increase in asset values, and then — and this is the critical feature of speculative mood — the market loses touch with reality.”

“My mission isn’t to make money in bull markets. My mission is to preserve capital.”

“History shows us, over and over, that bull markets can go well beyond rational valuation levels as long as the outlook for future earnings is positive.”

“Every economic recovery since World War II has been preceded by a stock market rally. And these rallies often start when conditions are grim.”

“The man in the street associates the acquisition of wealth with rising markets; failures, ruin, depression, panics with falling markets.”

“It is usually a much simpler matter to forecast a bull market than to call the turn at its end.”

“Bull markets and bear markets last long enough so that the average trader is likely to forget by the time the climax is approaching that any sort of movement is possible.”

“We would rather underperform in a huge bull market than get clobbered in a really bad bear market.”

“An old saying is that in a bull market, your time horizons grow longer and longer. In a bear market, they grow shorter and shorter.”