Lou Simpson

“One of the things I have learned over the years is how important management is in building or subtracting from value.”

“Even the world’s greatest business is not a good investment if the price is too high.”

“Attempting to guess short-term swings in individual stocks, the stock market or the economy is not likely to produce consistently good results. Short-term developments are too unpredictable.”

“An investor is not likely to obtain superior results by buying a broad cross-section of the market. The more diversification, the more performance is likely to be average, at best.”

“One lesson I have learned is to make fewer decisions. Sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing. The hardest thing to do is to sit with cash. It is very boring.”

“We do not have any hard and fast rules on selling. We do not sell that well.”

“We are sort of the polar opposites of a lot of investors. We do a lot of thinking and not a lot of acting. A lot of investors do a lot of acting, and not a lot of thinking.”

“The more you trade, the harder it is to add value because you’re absorbing a lot of transaction costs, not to mention taxes.”

“You can only know so many companies. If you’re managing 50 or 100 positions, the chances that you can add value are much, much lower.”

“The more decisions you make, the higher the chances are that you will make a poor decision.”

“If I’ve made one mistake in the course of managing investments it was selling really good companies too soon. Because generally, if you’ve made good investments, they will last for a long time.”