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“Rather, risk is a perception in each investor's mind that results from analysis of the probability and amount of potential loss from an investment. If an exploratory oil well proves to be a dry hole, it is called risky. If a bond defaults or a stock plunges in price, they are called risky. But if the well is a gusher, the bond matures on schedule, and the stock rallies strongly, can we say they weren't risky when the investment after it is concluded than was known when it was made.”

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“Investors frequently benefit from making decisions with less than perfect knowledge and are well rewarded for bearing the risk of uncertainty. The time other investors spend delving into the last unanswered detail may cost them the chance to buy into situations at prices so low they offer a margin of safety despite the incomplete information”

WellsMayLastsChanceDecisionPerfectSituationRiskInformationCostOffersBenefitsLowsSafetyDetailsDespiteUncertaintyInvestorsMarginsIncompleteMaking DecisionsUnansweredDelvingIncomplete Information
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“Value investors will not invest in businesses that they cannot readily understand or ones they find excessively risky. Hence few value investors will own the shares of technology companies. Many also shun commercial banks, which they consider to have unanalyzable assets, as well as property and casualty insurance companies, which have both unanalyzable assets and liabilities.”

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“Frequent comparative ranking can only reinforce a short-term investment perspective. It is understandably difficult to maintain a long-term view when, faced with the penalties for poor short-term performance, the long-term view may well be from the unemployment line ... Relative-performance-oriented investors really act as speculators. Rather than making sensible judgments about the attractiveness of specific stocks and bonds, they try to guess what others are going to do and then do it first.”

TryingFirstsWellsMayLongDifficultTermLinesPoorViewsPerspectiveJudgmentPerformancesInvestmentLong TermInvestorsRelativeSensiblePenaltiesUnemploymentShort TermAttractivenessRankingSpeculators
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“Below, we itemize some of the quite different lessons investors seem to have learned as of late 2009 - false lessons, we believe. To not only learn but also effectively implement investment lessons requires a disciplined, often contrary, and long-term-oriented investment approach. It requires a resolute focus on risk aversion rather than maximizing immediate returns, as well as an understanding of history, a sense of financial market cycles, and, at times, extraordinary patience.”

BelieveWellsLongDifferentSeemsUnderstandingTermFocusRiskReturnLessonsLateApproachInvestmentExtraordinaryFinancialContraryLong TermCyclesInvestorsAversionResoluteFinancial MarketsMaximizingRisk Aversion
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“The government can always rescue the markets or interfere with contract law whenever it deems convenient with little or no apparent cost. (Investors believe this now and, worse still, the government believes it as well. We are probably doomed to a lasting legacy of government tampering with financial markets and the economy, which is likely to create the mother of all moral hazards. The government is blissfully unaware of the wisdom of Friedrich Hayek: "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.")”

KnowsMenBelieveWellsLittlesStillsGovernmentLawMotherMoralEconomyImagineDesignCostEconomicsTasksFinancialCuriousLegacyLastingContractsInvestorsRescueInterfereDoomedConvenientHazardsFinancial MarketsHayekFriedrich HayekLasting LegacyMoral Hazard
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“We suppose that could be considered a hedged position for the awards committee, one that would never occur in the hard sciences such as physics and chemistry, where a prize shared among three with divergent views would be an embarrassing mistake or a bad joke. While a Nobel Prize might well be the culmination of a life’s work, shouldn’t the work accurately describe the real world?”

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