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.
Jim RogersRead
I cannot invest the way I want the world to be; I have to invest the way the world is.
Interpretation
Investment decisions must be based on current realities rather than idealistic visions.
Jim Rogers emphasizes the importance of making investment choices that reflect the existing state of the world instead of how one wishes it to be. This quote suggests that a successful investor must be pragmatic and base their strategies on observable facts and trends rather than hopeful ideals, which can often lead to poor financial outcomes.
In practice
In a finance seminar, when discussing market strategies.
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.
One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is something to do. Most people β not that Iβm better than most people β always have to be playing; they always have to be doing something. They make a big play and say, βBoy, am I smart, I just tripled my money.β Then they rush out and have to do something else with that money. They canβt just sit there and wait for something new to develop
Your priorities, passions, goals, and fears are shown clearly in the flow of your money.
In other words, the percentage change in book value in any given year is likely to be reasonably close to that year's change in intrinsic value.
If nobody can sell mortgage-backed securities based on trillions of dollars of unpayable instruments, there's a lot less risk in the overall system.
Market timing doesn't work. If all the bubbles and all this mispricing really exist, how come so few people see it before it turns out that way?
This message (that attempting to beat the market is futile) can never be sold on Wall Street because it is in effect telling stock analysts to drop dead.
If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.
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