“I put forward a pretty general theory that financial markets are intrinsically unstable. That we really have a false picture when we think about markets tending towards equilibrium.” ThinkingTheoryFinancialEquilibriumUnstableFinancial Markets Author:George Soros
“This whole theory [of John Law and Jean Terrasson], as dear to French financial schemers in the eighteenth century as to American "Greenbackers" in the nineteenth, had resulted, under the Orleans Regency and Louis XV, in ruin to France financially and morally, had culminated in the utter destruction of all prosperity, the rooting out of great numbers of the most important industries, and the grinding down of the working people even to starvation.” PeopleImportantWholeLawNumbersCenturyTheoryIndustryDestructionFinancialDearProsperityRuinsFranceStarvation Author:Andrew Dickson White
“While the apostles of the new so-called "behavioral" theory present ample evidence of how often human beings make irrational financial decisions, it remains to be seen whether these decisions lead to predictable errors that create systematic mispricings upon which rational investors can readily and economically capitalize.” HumansHuman BeingsDecisionTheoryEvidenceRemainsErrorsInvestingFinancialRationalInvestorsIrrationalApostlesPredictableSystematic Author:John C. Bogle
“For the individual, as I can testify, a brief grounding in semantics, besides making philosophy unreadable, makes unreadable most political speeches, classical economic theory, after-dinner oratory, diplomatic notes, newspaper editorials, treatises on pedagogics and education, expert financial comment, dissertations on money and credit, accounts of debates, and Great Thoughts from Great Thinkers in general. You would be surprised at the amount of time this saves.” I CanPhilosophyWould BePoliticalIndividualEconomicTheoryAmountSpeechAccountsNotesFinancialCreditDinnerDebateNewspapersExpertsCommentThinkerDiplomaticEditorialsOratoryGroundingSemanticsEconomic TheoryGreat ThinkersDissertationPolitical Speeches Book:Tyranny of Words Source: Tyranny of Words
“The generally accepted theory is that financial markets tend towards equilibrium, and...discount the future correctly. I operate using a different theory, according to which financial markets cannot possibly discount the future correctly because the do not merely discount the future; they help to shape it.” DifferentHelpingTheoryShapesFinancialAcceptedEquilibriumDiscountsFinancial Markets Author:George Soros
“As value investors, our business is to buy bargains that financial market theory says do not exist. We've delivered great returns to our clients for a quarter century-a dollar invested at inception in our largest fund is now worth over 94 dollars, a 20% net compound return. We have achieved this not by incurring high risk as financial theory would suggest, but by deliberately avoiding or hedging the risks that we identified.” ValuesRiskCenturyTheoryReturnDollarsFinancialFundInvestorsQuartersClientsAvoidingBargainsCompoundsFinancial MarketsInceptionHigh RiskIncurringHedging Author:Seth Klarman
“In certain circumstances, financial markets can affect the so-called fundamentals which they are supposed to reflect. When that happens, markets enter into a state of dynamic disequilibrium and behave quite differently from what would be considered normal by the theory of efficient markets. Such boom/bust sequences do not arise very often, but when they do, they can be very disruptive, exactly because they affect the fundamentals of the economy.” StatesHappensWould BeCertainEconomyTheoryCircumstancesNormalFundamentalsFinancialAriseBehaveEfficientSequenceDisruptiveFinancial MarketsEfficient MarketsDisequilibrium Author:George Soros
“War to me is very much like sex. You can develop a theory that says sex is primarily for the exchange of genetic material, or that it's a celebration of life, or you can make up 50,000 theories about why human beings have sex, all of which are in some sense true, all of which by themselves miss the point. Because the answer is extraordinarily complex. It may be for fun, it may be for reproduction, for financial reasons, any number of things.” HumansMayWarReasonFunSexHuman BeingsAnswersNumbersMissingMaterialsTheoryComplexesFinancialCelebrationReproductionCelebration Of Life Author:George Friedman