Valuation Quotes

• Managers and investors alike must understand that accounting numbers are the beginning, not the end, of business valuation.

  Warren Buffett

  Numbers, Ends, Billionaire

  Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman's Letter, www.berkshirehathaway.com. 1982.

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• Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Inspirational, Life

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• It's a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.

  Henry James

  Responsibility, Fighting, Fate

  Henry James (2013). “Daisy Miller and An International Episode”, p.22, OUP Oxford

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• We are not so brazen as to believe that we can perfectly calibrate valuation; determining risk and return for any investment remains an art not an exact science

  Seth Klarman

  Art, Believe, Risk

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• Nothing turns off an investor more than when an entrepreneur comes in with a ridiculous valuation.

  Kevin Harrington

  Entrepreneur, Ridiculous, Turns

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• Asset values and earning power are the dominant factors affecting the valuation of a controlling interest in a business. Market price, which governs valuation of minority interest positions, is of little or no importance in valuing a controlling interest.

  Warren Buffett

  Minorities, Littles, Earning

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• Valuation is vague and arbitrary, when there is no assurance that it will be generally acquiesced in by others.

  Jean-Baptiste Say

  Arbitrary, Assurance, Vague

  Jean Baptiste Say (1827). “A treatise on political economy: or, The production, distribution and consumption of wealth”, p.236

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• High valuations entail high risks.

  Benjamin Graham

  Risk, Investing, High Risk

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• When a new idea comes our way, we must put it on our mental scales and weigh it carefully before deciding its value.

  Jim Rohn

  Ideas, Way, Scales

  FaceBook post by Jim Rohn from Sep 13, 2016

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• The dominant factors affecting control valuations are earning power (past and prospective) and asset values.

  Warren Buffett

  Past, Earning, Assets

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• I don't read, much less follow, the valuations or predictions. I study the numbers.

  John Neff

  Numbers, Study, Predictions

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• I am not naive enough to settle for anything less than a reasonable valuation of my worth.

  Roy Keane

  Settling, Enough, Reasonable

  "Roy Keane: a history of speaking out", www.theguardian.com. May 28, 2002.

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• A genius is a person who is seeing further and probing deeper than other people has a different set of ethical valuations from their and has energy enough to give effect to this extra vision and its valuations in whatever manner best suits his or her

  George Bernard Shaw

  People, Giving, Vision

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• The world is terribly apt to take people at their own valuation.

  Amelia B. Edwards

  People, World

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• Earnings can be pliable as putty when a charlatan heads the company reporting them.

  Warren Buffett

  Business, Decision, Earning

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• A conventional valuation which is established as the outcome of the mass psychology of a large number of ignorant individuals is liable to change violently as the result of a sudden fluctuation of opinion due to factors which do not really make much difference to the prospective yield; since there will be no strong roots of conviction to hold it steady.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Strong, Roots, Differences

  John Maynard Keynes (2006). “General Theory Of Employment , Interest And Money”, p.138, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• Selling, in particular, can be a challenge; many investors are tempted to become more optimistic when a security is performing well. This temptation must be resisted; tax considerations aside, when a security reaches full valuation, there is no longer a reason to own it.

  Seth Klarman

  Optimistic, Temptation, Challenges

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• Though it is very easy to do valuations, eyeballs and brand prominence surveys, you should never allow any of them to influence the balance sheet.

  Ashwin Sanghi

  Balance, Influence, Easy

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• The strictly logical mind is usually if not always at fault in its valuations of that defiantly illogical thing known as human nature.

  Oscar W. Firkins

  Nature, Mind, Faults

  Oscar W. Firkins (1934). “Memoirs and Letters”, p.202, U of Minnesota Press

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• There’s a virtuous cycle when people have to defend challenges to their ideas. Any gaps in thinking or analysis become clear pretty quickly when smart people ask good, logical questions. You can’t be a good value investor without being an independent thinker – you’re seeing valuations that the market is not appreciating. But it’s critical that you understand why the market isn’t seeing the value you do. The back and forth that goes on in the investment process helps you get at that.

  Joel Greenblatt

  Smart, Independent, Thinking

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• The stock market has gone up and if you are stock picking, that's fine, you may do a bit better than the market. But if you want to play in another game where you can get rapid increases of value and so on and so forth, this apparently has become the new parlour game, to invest in these companies and many their cases, the private equity that has been piling in onto of the venture capital is creating the unicorn, in other words the company with the $1 billion valuation.

  Kevin Kinsella

  Games, Play, Creating

  Source: www.sfgate.com

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• Money values do not simply mirror the state of affairs in the real world; valuation is a positive act that makes an impact on the course of events. Monetary and real phenomena are connected in a reflexive fashion; that is, they influence each other mutually. The reflexive relationship manifests itself most clearly in the use and abuse of credit.

  George Soros

  Fashion, Real, Impact

  George Soros (1994). “The Alchemy of Finance: Reading the Mind of the Market”, p.17, John Wiley & Sons

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• Like all sciences and all valuations, the psychology of women has hitherto been considered only from the point of view of men.

  Karen Horney

  Funny, Life, Witty

  Karen Horney (1967). “Feminine Psychology”

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• The ideal form of common stock analysis leads to a valuation of the issue which can be compared with the current price to determine whether or not the security is an attractive purchase.

  Benjamin Graham

  Issues, Analysis, Investing

  Benjamin Graham (1959). “The Intelligent Investor: A Book of Practical Counsel”

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• I think there are some groups of stocks that are highly vulnerable because they're in cuckoo land in terms of valuations.

  Marc Faber

  Thinking, Land, Groups

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