Jeremy C. Miller > Quotes

“The results of these [investment] companies in some ways resemble the activity of a duck sitting on a pond. When the water (the market) rises, the duck rises; when it falls, back goes the duck. … I think the duck can only take the credit (or blame) for his own activities. The rise and fall of the lake is hardly something for him to quack about. The water level has been of great importance to BPL’s performance … however, we have also occasionally flapped our wings.”5 While”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“You can never let the market quote turn from an asset to a liability. Graham”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“We will not go into businesses where technology which is way over my head is crucial to the investment decision. I know about as much about semi-conductors or integrated circuits as I do of the mating habits of the chrzaszcz. (That’s a Polish May bug, students—if you have trouble pronouncing it, rhyme it with thrzaszcz.) Furthermore,”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“Operationally, a business can be improved in only three ways: (1) increase the level of sales; (2) reduce costs as a percent of sales; (3) reduce assets as a percentage of sales. The other factors, (4) increase leverage or (5) lower the tax rate, are the financial drivers of business value. These are the only ways a business can make itself more valuable. Buffett”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“You will not be right simply because a large number of people momentarily agree with you. You will not be right simply because important people agree with you. In many quarters the simultaneous occurrence of the two above factors is enough to make a course of action meet the test of conservatism. You will be right, over the course of many transactions, if your hypotheses are correct, your facts are correct, and your reasoning is correct. True conservatism is only possible through knowledge and reason. I”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“Stan Druckenmiller, reflecting on his unbelievable success as an investor, said that the only way to make superior returns is to concentrate heavily. He thinks “diversification and all the stuff they’re teaching at business school today is probably the most misguided concept everywhere. And if you look at great investors that are as different as Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn, Ken Langone, they tend to be very, very concentrated bets. They see something, they bet it, and they bet the ranch on it… . [T]he mistake I’d say 98 percent of the money managers and individuals make is they feel like they got to be playing in a bunch of stuff.”4”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“The willingness and ability to see investment capital as completely fungible, whether it is capital tied up in the assets of a businesses or capital that’s invested in securities, is an exceedingly rare trait. With”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“The availability of a quotation for your business interest (stock) should always be an asset to be utilized if desired. If it gets silly enough in either direction, you take advantage of it.”1 —”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“about a new phenomenon that had emerged largely in this decade, the price/earnings (PE) ratio, which was calculated by dividing the price of a company’s shares by its earnings. The”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“You can’t let the market do your thinking for you. Investors know they have to do their own work. When”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“I would rather sustain the penalties resulting from over-conservatism than face the consequences of error, perhaps with permanent capital loss, resulting from the adoption of a “New Era” philosophy where trees really do grow to the sky.”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“we tend to concentrate on what should happen, not when it should happen. In”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“The takeaway for the rest of us is to establish and ensure the yardsticks are in place ahead of time in order to avoid any misunderstanding about what you should be cheering for, because, as Buffett puts it, you don’t want soft fruit thrown when the expectation is for vigorous applause. If”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“The course of the stock market will determine, to a great degree, when we will be right, but the accuracy of our analysis of the company will largely determine whether we will be right. In other words, we tend to concentrate on what should happen, not when it should happen.”7 This”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“As Charlie Munger has said, “I think I’ve been in the top 5% of my age cohort almost my entire adult life in understanding the power of incentives, and yet I’ve always underestimated that power. Never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes a little further my appreciation of incentive superpower.” An example from FedEx is one of his favorite cases in point. As he explains, the integrity of the FedEx system relies heavily on the ability to unload and then quickly reload packages at one central location within an allotted time. Years ago, the company was having a terrible problem getting its workers to get all the boxes off and then back on the planes in time. They tried numerous different things that didn’t work, until someone had the brilliant idea of paying the workers by the shift as opposed to by the hour. Poof, the problem was solved.2 FedEx’s old pay-by-the-hour system rewarded those who took longer to get the job done. They were incentivized to take longer. By switching to pay-by-the-shift, workers were motivated to work faster and without error so they could go home, yet still earn the wages of a full shift. For the workers, finishing early amounted to a higher effective hourly wage. By aligning the business’s interests with the worker’s incentives, FedEx got the outcome it and its workers both desired. The”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“To many people conventionality is indistinguishable from conservatism. In my view, this represents erroneous thinking. Neither a conventional nor an unconventional approach, per se, is conservative. Truly conservative actions arise from intelligent hypotheses, correct facts and sound reasoning. These qualities may lead to conventional acts, but there have been many times when they have led to unorthodoxy. In some corner of the world they are probably still holding regular meetings of the Flat Earth Society. We derive no comfort because important people, vocal people, or great numbers of people agree with us. Nor do we derive comfort if they don’t. A public opinion poll is no substitute for thought. When we really sit back with a smile on our face is when we run into a situation we can understand, where the facts are ascertainable and clear, and the course of action obvious. In that case—whether conventional or unconventional—whether others agree or disagree—we feel we are progressing in a conservative manner. The”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“Mr. Market.” The idea is that a securities market can be thought of like a moody, manic-depressive fellow who stands ready to buy or sell you a half stake in his business every day. His behavior can be wild, and irrational, and is difficult to predict. Sometimes he’s euphoric and thinks highly of his prospects. Here he’ll offer to sell you his stake only at the highest of prices. At other times he’s depressed and doesn’t think much of himself or his business. Here he offers to sell you the same stake in the same business at a much lower, bargain price. Oftentimes he’s neutral. While you can never be sure what mood you will find him in, you can be sure that regardless of whether you trade with him today, Mr. Market will be back again with a new set of prices tomorrow.”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor

“Looking back, and continuing to think this problem through, I feel that if anything, I should have concentrated slightly more than I have in the past.” Stan”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“We have never suffered a realized loss of more than 0.5% of 1% of total net assets, and our ratio of total dollars of realized gains to total realized losses is something like 100 to 1.”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will continue to flourish.”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor

“In the great majority of cases the lack of performance exceeding or even matching an unmanaged index in no way reflects lack of either intellectual capacity or integrity. I think it is much more the product of: (1) group decisions—my perhaps jaundiced view is that it is close to impossible for outstanding investment management to come from a group of any size with all parties really participating in decisions; (2) a desire to conform to the policies and (to an extent) the portfolios of other large well-regarded organizations; (3) an institutional framework whereby average is “safe” and the personal rewards for independent action are in no way commensurate with the general risk attached to such action; (4) an adherence to certain diversification practices which are irrational; and finally and importantly, (5) inertia.6 Classical”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“When a new idea comes along, only buy it when it’s more attractive than buying more of what you already own. Buffett”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results. The better sales will be the frosting on the cake.” Never”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“I would consider a year in which we declined 15% and the Average 30% to be much superior to a year when both we and the Average advanced 20%. Over a period of time there are going to be good and bad years; there is nothing to be gained by getting enthused or depressed about the sequence in which they occur. The important thing is to be beating par; a four on a par three hole is not as good as a five on a par five hole and it is unrealistic to assume we are not going to have our share of both par three’s and par five’s.6 Investors”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“I resurrect this “market-guessing” section only because after the Dow declined from 995 at the peak in February to about 865 in May, I received a few calls from partners suggesting that they thought stocks were going a lot lower. This always raises two questions in my mind: (1) if they knew in February that the Dow was going to 865 in May, why didn’t they let me in on it then; and, (2) if they didn’t know what was going to happen during the ensuing three months back in February, how do they know in May? There is also a voice or two after any hundred point or so decline suggesting we sell and wait until the future is clearer. Let me again suggest two points: (1) the future has never been clear to me (give us a call when the next few months are obvious to you—or, for that matter the next few hours); and, (2) no one ever seems to call after the market has gone up one hundred points to focus my attention on how unclear everything is, even though the view back in February doesn’t look so clear in retrospect. If”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“In the short term, the market is like a voting machine, but in the long term, it’s more like a weighing machine.”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“So the really big money tends to be made by investors who are right on qualitative decisions but, at least in my opinion, the more sure money tends to be made on the obvious quantitative decisions. As”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“One sidelight for the fundamentalists in our group: B.P.L. owns 71.7% of Dempster acquired at a cost of $1,262,577.27. On June 30, 1963 Dempster had a small safe deposit box at the Omaha National Bank containing securities worth $2,028,415.25. Our 71.7% share of $2,028,415.25 amounts to $1,454,373.70. Thus, everything above ground (and part of it underground) is profit. My security analyst friends may find this a rather primitive method of accounting, but I must confess that I find a bit more substance in this fingers and toes method than in any prayerful reliance that someone will pay me 35 times next year’s earnings.”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“I am not in the business of predicting general stock market or business fluctuations. If you think I can do this, or think it is essential to an investment program, you should not be in the partnership.”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success

“It doesn’t work that way … we have to work extremely hard to find just a very few attractive investment situations.” The”
― Jeremy C. Miller, Warren Buffett's Ground Rules: Words of Wisdom from the Partnership Letters of the World's Greatest Investor – The Value Investing Framework for Discipline and Success