A biography for Barry Ritholtzhasn’t been written yet.
“When it comes to investing, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all portfolio.”
“Whenever I see a forecast written out to two decimal places, I cannot help but wonder if there is a misunderstanding of the limitations of the data, and an illusion of precision.”
“History shows us that people are terrible about guessing what is going to happen - next week, next month, and especially next year.”
“The consumption and production of energy is a major component of the global economy.”
“To know whether stocks are cheap or pricey, we typically look at price-to-earnings ratio. Valuation is a tougher question than many folks realize.”
“Owning a variety of asset classes means that some part of your portfolio will be doing well when the cyclical turmoil arises. A broadly diversified portfolio includes large capitalization stocks, small cap, emerging markets, fixed income, real estate and commodities.”
“Markets are frequently ahead of, and often out of sync with, the economy.”
“Rather than engage in the sort of selective retention that so many investors tend to do and pretend mistakes never happened, I prefer to 'own' them. This allows me to learn from them and, with any luck, avoid making the same errors again.”
“The ability to select stocks, manage them over time and know when to sell them is incredibly difficult, even for professional fund managers.”
“Even when you are right, there are costs and taxes associated with being tactical. When you are wrong, there are opportunity costs.”
“Salesmen always need something to sell.”
“You want less of the annoying nonsense that interferes with your portfolios and more of the significant data that allow you to become a less distracted, more purposeful investor.”
“I credit Google for having the foresight to identify threats to its main business of selling advertising against search results. The potential loss of market share in the mobile space led them to the Android acquisition.”
“Forecasting is simply not a strength of the species; we are much better with tools and narrative storytelling.”
“Gains in corporate profits depend in large part on accelerating global economic growth.”
“Most of Google's home technologies have failed to catch on in a major way.”
“In social media, people cannot build big followings organically unless what they are putting out to the world has value.”
“With Twitter, you can build your own virtual trading floor and research department, populated by the smartest people on earth. Almost any subject or sector has you can think of, you can find a few people with an expertise in that area.”
“How are the cabs in your city? In Manhattan, where I work, they are rather awful.”
“When you buy anything with lots of leverage, it does not require a whole lot to go wrong to lose it all.”