Marty Whitman

“We’re bottom-up investors. We always have to operate on negative macro assumptions.”

“As a value investor, what you are interested in is whether the company is creating wealth.”

“My clients say the way to get rich is to buy what I’m buying — but to wait two years to do it.”

“I don’t even worry about the overall market. I worry about the business and the market will take care of itself.”

“Having a mutual fund management company is like having a toll booth on the George Washington bridge all for yourself.”

“For us the principal test is creditworthiness, don’t buy common stocks of companies that need continuous access to capital markets.”

“With stocks, you have to worry about the market. With debt, I just have to understand the contract. If my analysis is right, I’ll make money.”

“We think diversification is only a surrogate, and usually a poor surrogate, for knowledge, control, and price consciousness.”

“Shorting is difficult. If you short, you are not only making an investment decision, you are making a market decision.”

“Diversification is a damn poor surrogate for knowledge.”

“We get protection by being price-conscious and by being extremely knowledgeable about our holdings.”

“We don’t get involved in all the analytical baggage of trying to figure out where a stock is going to sell. Just try to figure out what it’s worth. And I dare say all the really great investors do it the same way.”

“We don’t pay attention to quarterly earnings or consensus forecasts. That’s performance investing, not value investing.”