🔴How to get rich ― William J. Bernstein

“The easiest way to get rich is to spend as little as possible.” 

“When all is said and done, there are only two kinds of investors: those who don’t know where the market is headed, and those who don’t know that they don’t know. Then again, there is a third kind: those who know they don’t know, but whose livelihoods depend on appearing to know.”

“Would you believe me if I told you that there’s an investment strategy that a seven-year-old could understand, will take you fifteen minutes of work per year, outperform 90 percent of finance professionals in the long run, and make you a millionaire over time?   Well, it is true, and here it is: Start by saving 15 percent of your salary at age 25 into a 401(k) plan, an IRA, or a taxable account (or all three). Put equal amounts of that 15 percent into just three different mutual funds:   A U.S. total stock market index fund An international total stock market index fund A U.S. total bond market index fund.   Over time, the three funds will grow at different rates, so once per year you’ll adjust their amounts so that they’re again equal. (That’s the fifteen minutes per year, assuming you’ve enrolled in an automatic savings plan.)   That’s it; if you can follow this simple recipe throughout your working career, you will almost certainly beat out most professional investors. More importantly, you’ll likely accumulate enough savings to retire comfortably.”
 

“the best fishing is done in the most stormy waters.”

“market history shows that when there’s economic blue sky, future returns are low, and when the economy is on the skids, future returns are high;”

“When, and only when, you’ve gotten rid of all your debt are you truly saving for retirement.”

“Dieting and investing are both simple, but neither is easy.”

“In the words of Fred Schwed, one of the most astute observers of the investment scene (and certainly the funniest): There are certain things that cannot be adequately explained to a virgin either by words or pictures. Nor can any description I might offer here even approximate what it feels like to lose a real chunk of money that you used to own.”

“Those who ignore financial history are condemned to repeat it.”

“Why the correlation between popular interest and subsequent low returns? Simple: Driving the price of any asset higher requires the entry of new buyers, and when everyone is invested in stocks, real estate, or gold, there’s no one left to join the party; the entry of naïve, inexperienced investors usually signals the end.”

“We tend to extrapolate the recent past indefinitely into the future; in the 1970s, investors thought that inflation would never end, whereas now most people think it will never occur again. The first viewpoint was proven wrong within a few years, and the latter viewpoint most likely will be soon.”

“The point here is that runs of 4 or more heads or tails are perceived as a nonrandom pattern, when in fact they are in fact the rule in random sequences, not the exception. Stock market participants frequently make this mistake, and an entirely bogus field of finance known as “technical analysis” is devoted to finding patterns in random financial data.”

“Act as if every broker, insurance salesman, mutual fund salesperson, and financial advisor you encounter is a hardened criminal, and stick to low-cost index funds, and you’ll do just fine.”

“The reason that ‘guru’ is such a popular word is because ‘charlatan’ is so hard to spell.”

“Do not trust historical data—especially recent data—to estimate the future returns of stocks and bonds. Instead, rely on interest and dividend payouts and their growth/failure rates.”

“In every field of human endeavor, whether it is flying, medicine, or armed combat, this reflexive/reflective split cleaves the world into amateurs and professionals, the former driven by their emotions, the latter by calculation and logic.”

“Among his many accomplishments was inventing the “efficient market hypothesis” (EMH) which states, more or less, that all known information about a security has already been factored into its price. This has two implications for investors: First, stock picking is futile, to say nothing of expensive, and second, stock prices move only in response to new information—that is, surprises. Since surprises are by definition unexpected, stocks, and the stock market overall, move in a purely random pattern.”

“I see the supposed convenience of being able to trade ETFs throughout the day as a psychological disadvantage. Unless you are able to predict intraday market moves—a fool’s errand if ever there was one—you are faced with the oftentimes paralyzing choice of exactly when to buy or sell.”

“Because we cannot predict the future, we diversify. —Paul Samuelson”

“Investment wisdom, however, begins with the realization that long-term returns are the only ones that matter. Investors who can earn an 8 percent annualized return will multiply their wealth tenfold over the course of 30 years, and if they have half a brain, they will care little that many days, or even years, along the way their portfolios will suffer significant losses. If they are, in fact, anguished by the bad days and years, they can at least comfort themselves that the rewards of equity ownership are paid for in the universal currencies of financial risk: stomach acid and sleepless nights.”

“If done properly, successful investing entertains as much as watching clothes tumble in the dryer window. Always remember that the more exciting a given stock or asset class is, the more likely it is to be over-owned, overpriced, and destined for low future returns.”

“The most important investment ability of all is emotional discipline.”

“Investors cannot earn high returns without occasionally bearing great loss.”

“My rule of thumb is that if you spend 2 percent of your nest egg per year, adjusted upward for the cost of living, you are as secure as possible; at 3 percent, you are probably safe; at 4 percent, you are taking real risks; and at 5 percent, you had better like cat food and vacations very close to home. For example, if, in addition to Social Security and pensions, you spend $50,000 per year in living expenses, that means you will need $2.5 million to be perfectly safe, and $1.67 million to be fairly secure. If you have “only” $1.25 million, you are taking chances; if you are starting with $1 million, there is a good chance you will eventually run out of money.”

“That is, we are hardwired to detect relationships where often none exist, a tendency science writer Michael Shermer has labeled “patternicity.”