Inflation

“I think the future of equities will be roughly the same as their past; in particular, common stock purchases will prove satisfactory when made at appropriate price levels.”

“Investors feelings and reactions regarding inflation are probably more the result of the stock market action that they have recently experienced than the cause of it.”

“People invest in stocks for two opposite reasons — in hope and confidence in the future of an enterprise or in fear that the value of their capital will be lost through inflation.”

“Inflation can only arise if labor or business, or both, have pricing power.”

“When inflation is low, you feel that you know more about the future, and are much more willing to take risks.”

“The riskiness of an investment is not measured by beta (a Wall Street term encompassing volatility and often used in measuring risk) but rather by the probability — the reasoned probability — of that investment causing its owner a loss of purchasing power over his contemplated holding period.”

“The arithmetic makes it plain that inflation is a far more devastating tax than anything that has been enacted by our legislatures. The inflation tax has a fantastic ability to simply consume capital.”