I cannot invest the way I want the world to be; I have to invest the way the world is.
Jim RogersRead
The price of a commodity will never go to zero. When you invest in commodities futures, you're not buying a piece of paper that says you own an intangible piece of company that can go bankrupt.
Interpretation
Investing in commodities is fundamentally different than investing in companies; commodities retain intrinsic value.
Jim Rogers emphasizes the durability of commodities in investment as opposed to stocks of companies. Unlike shares that can become worthless if a company fails, commodities always retain a value due to their tangible nature, making them a robust investment choice in futures trading.
In practice
In a seminar about smart investing strategies, you might quote Jim Rogers to explain the stability of commodity investments.
I cannot invest the way I want the world to be; I have to invest the way the world is.
One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is something to do. Most people – not that I’m better than most people – always have to be playing; they always have to be doing something. They make a big play and say, “Boy, am I smart, I just tripled my money.” Then they rush out and have to do something else with that money. They can’t just sit there and wait for something new to develop
Remember that the stock market is manic-depressive.
Liquidity is a good proxy for relative net worth. You can't lie about cash, stocks, and bond values.
Never pay the slightest attention to what a company president ever says about his stock.
Most women file for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious medical problem, a job loss, or a family break up. It is hard to protect against those.
The stock market is a wonderfully efficient mechanism for transferring wealth from the impatient to the patient.
Debt is so ingrained into our culture that most Americans can't even envision a car without a payment ... a house without a mortgage ... a student without a loan ... and credit without a card. We've been sold debt with such repetition and with such fervor that most folks can't conceive of what it would be like to have NO payments.
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