Shareholders

“The stockholder wants both income and appreciation, but in general the more he gets of one the less he realizes of the other.”

“The trouble with stockholders, in my humble opinion, is that not enough of them are disgruntled.”

“The idea of measuring investment risks by price fluctuations is repugnant to me, for the very reason that it confuses what the stock market says with what actually happens to the owners’ stake in the business.”

“What the corporate tax actually works out as is a dilution of the stock equities. It is the equivalent of a payment of a stock dividend which goes to the government instead of to the stockholders.”

“I know that stocks represent fractional ownership in businesses and that, over time, the stock market will reflect their true intrinsic values. And crises bring worries and fears that make many investors forget that simple fact.”

“GDP growth doesn’t equal shareholder returns.”

“The best investors think like business owners, not stock traders”

“Customer surplus precedes shareholder surplus.”

“We partner with managers who behave like owners.”

“Think like an owner, not a speculator.”

“The very important basic premise of what really is a fair deal is a deal where everybody makes money, both the sponsor and the stockholder. That is what it is all about.”

“The two best ways of measuring the life cycle of an industry are unit volume of sales and net earnings available for stockholders.”

“As an investor in businesses, which generate enormous cash flows, my single most important issue to get right is what management will do with cash flow through reinvestment. Do they care about the owner, or do they care about themselves?”

“Sadly, on Wall Street, rewards for acting with self-interest and to disadvantage public shareholders often prove to be too tempting.”

“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.”

“You’re not buying a stock, you’re buying part ownership in a business. You will do well if the business does well. And if you didn’t pay a totally silly price.”