This morning’s release of small business sentiment from the NFIB showed another month-over-month decline in the headline Optimism Index.  The politically sensitive survey has shown that the headline index has managed to remain well above pre-Election levels, though the past two months have marked a dramatic drop.  The index was at a high 105.1 in December thanks to a record increase after the election.  In the two months since then, the index is down 4.4 points, which, as shown in the second chart below, makes February the 10th largest 2-month decline on record.

In the table below we show the readings for each category of the report including the 10 inputs to the optimism index in addition to the eight other indices.  As shown, the latest drop has brought the index down from an 85th percentile reading to a 66th percentile reading. Breadth was notably weak with only three inputs rising month-over-month while the rest fell. Other categories were mixed with three increases, three declines, and two unchanged readings.

As previously noted, historically the NFIB survey has been sensitive to politics. The survey has shown small businesses to be more optimistic when Republicans are in power whereas sentiment has been weaker when Democrats are in power. As we discussed in today’s Morning Lineup, some categories like labor indicators appear less sensitive. Expanding on this, below we have constructed indices within the report that are centered around observed or actual changes to the businesses (which in theory could be less politically sensitive) and expectations or plans (which would be more sensitive).

As shown, both indices got a boost after the election although plans and expectations saw a significantly larger jump, meaning small businesses’ hopes were perhaps ahead of what was actually happening within their firms.  Just as fast as it rose, that expectations index has pulled back sharply in the past couple of months. As a result, expectations continue to outpace actuals, although to a smaller degree than at the end of 2024.

In addition to the various categories of the report, the NFIB also has an Economic Policy Uncertainty index. This index tends to rise the most during election years, and given we are only a few months out from the election, this index has remained near historically elevated levels.  As shown in the second chart below, the move over the past several months has been extremely volatile. The move in the past two months is similar in size to the two-month period leading up to last fall’s election. Prior to that, the only moves of this size were observed in the summer of 2022 and in early 2016 before that.

Elsewhere in the report, there were other mixed signals which could cause some uncertainty outside of politics.  The higher prices index ticked up meaningfully with a 10-point jump resulting in the highest reading since May 2023. However, the percentage of firms reporting inflation as their single biggest problem has fallen massively to only 16% versus a recent high of 25% last summer.

For the cohort of businesses that reported lower earnings, inflation was the second most common response accounting for 10% of respondents. That is still well below the past few years’ range, and plays second fiddle to sales volumes, which rose to 16% to match last October and November 2023 for the highest reading since March 2021.

Another big move in last month’s report had to do with capex.  While ‘actual changes to capex’ was flat on the month, credit availability rose another point to continue its massive improvement from the past few months.

Perhaps as a result of that greater ease for credit or perhaps to front run any potential tariff impact on the heavily exposed auto industry, we would also note that February saw a historic surge in the percentage of firms reporting capex spend on vehicles.

Below are some of Bespoke’s favorite quotes about markets, investing, and life in general.  We feature a Quote of the Day in our Morning Lineup sent to subscribers each day.  Click here to sign up for Bespoke Premium to receive our Morning Lineup in your inbox every trading day.

“Every time one person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute.” – William Feather

“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” – Warren Buffett

“The secret to investing is to figure out the value of something – and then pay a lot less.” – Joel Greenblatt

“The person who is the star of previous era is often the last one to adapt to change, the last one to yield to logic of a strategic inflection point and tends to fall harder than most.” – Andrew Grove

“I have talked to the heads of almost every single one of these firms in the last 72 hours, and Ben Bernanke has no idea what it’s like out there. None. And Former St. Louis Fed. President Bill Poole has no idea what it’s like out there. My people have been in this game for 25 years and they’re losing their jobs, and these firms are going to go out of business, and he’s nuts! They’re nuts! They know nothing! … This is a different kind of market, and the Fed is asleep.” – Jim Cramer

“Wall Street sells stocks and bonds but what it really peddles is hope.” – Jason Zweig

“There is a time to go long, a time to go short, and a time to go fishing.” – Jesse Livermore

“Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.” – Paul Samuelson

“The four most dangerous words in investing are: this time it’s different.” – Sir John Templeton

“There is a huge difference between a good trade and good trading.” – Steve Burns

“The investor’s chief problem – and his worst enemy – is likely to be himself. In the end, how your investments behave is much less important than how you behave.” – Benjamin Graham

“From neither the White House nor any other senior administration post would there come any leadership, any attempt to set priorities, any attempt to coordinate activities, any attempt to deliver resources.” – John M. Barry, The Great Influenza

“Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.” – Warren Buffett

“If most traders would learn to sit on their hands fifty percent of the time, they would make a lot more money.” – Bill Lipschutz

“The most dangerous people in the world are very smart traders who have never gotten their teeth kicked in.” – F. Helmut Weymar

“As sure as the spring will follow the winter, prosperity and economic growth will follow recession.” – Bo Bennett

“In business or in life, don’t follow the wagon tracks too closley.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.

“Waiting helps you as an investor and a lot of people just can’t stand to wait.” – Charlie Munger

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it’s doing.” – Peter Lynch

“You have people walking around with all the knowledge of humanity on their phone, but they have no idea how to integrate it.” – David Epstein – Range

“Stock market bubbles don’t grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but reality as distorted by a misconception.” – George Soros

“The most important quality for an investor is tremperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.” – Warren Buffett

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.” – Albert Einstein

“If I had asked the public what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.“ – Henry Ford

“Although it’s easy to forget sometimes, a share is not a lottery ticket… it’s part ownership of a business.” – Peter Lynch

“I’m totally used to deflation. Deflation is finished.” – RIchard Fisher

“Drunkenness is not romantic; it’s a form of temporary insanity. And hangovers are the body’s way of asking, ‘What were you thinking?” ― Susan J Anderson

“The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.” – Herclitus

“Invest for the long haul. Don’t get too greedy and don’t get too scared.” – Shelby M.C. Davis

“We’re not retreating, we’re advancing in reverse” –Skulduggery Pleasant, Playing with Fire by Derek Landy

“Seek advice on risk from the wealthy who still take risks, not friends who dare nothing more than a football bet.” – J. Paul Getty

“The report continues to be that a plane hit the World Trade Center.” – Mark Haines, CNBC 9/11/01

“Teachers Open The Doors, But You Must Enter By Yourself.” – Chinese Proverb

“The light at the end of the tunnel is just the light of an oncoming train.” – Robert Lowell

“The first one gets the oyster, the second gets the shell.” – Andrew Carnegie

“The person who turns over the most rocks wins the game.” – Peter Lynch

“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.” – John Naisbitt

“I want to put a ding in the universe.” – Steve Jobs

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

“Cash combined with courage in a time of crisis is priceless.” – Warren Buffett

“For September so far this year the spending by $BAC customers both on debit and credit cards is up–spending overall is up.” – Brian Moynihan, CEO Bank of America

“Short term volatility is greatest at turning points and diminishes as a trend becomes established.” – George Soros

“Do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.” – Steve Clark

“There is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side.” – Jesse Livermore

“Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” – Macbeth

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” – Winston Churchill

“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.” – Ray Bradbury

“How many millionaires do you know who have become wealthy by investing in savings accounts? I rest my case.” – Robert G. Allen

“Beyond this, the problem is universal. It is that governments are now held responsible for the welfare of the people. The aspirations of the people can outrun their ability to pay for them, and nobody has yet found a way to create answers to the aspirations out of thin air.” – Adam Smith, The Money Game

“Never judge a potato by its skin. One day, it will be french fries.” – Ian Wilson

“I sometimes compare my brainstorming on paper to the drilling of oil wells. The only way to strike oil is to drill a lot of wells.” – Tom Monaghan, Founder Domino’s Pizza

“When you learn to let go of the need to be right, being wrong gradually loses its power to disturb you.” – Yvan Byeajee

“Grow or die, that’s what I believed, no matter the situation.” – Phil Knight, Shoe Dog

“A few solid pros are more powerful than dozens of cons,” – Steve Jobs

“If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.” – Warren Buffett

“My main life lesson from investing: self-interest is the most powerful force on earth.” – Jesse Livermore

“You can’t have a mid-life crisis in the airline industry because every day is a crisis.” – Herb Kelleher

“You never really know a stock until you own it.” – Walter J. Schloss

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.” – Dorothy Parker

“It’s easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out of date.” – Roger von Oech

“When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.“ – Unknown

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” – Walt Whitman

“Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain.” – Unknown

“I believe in analysis and not forecasting.” – Nicolas Darvas

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” – Epictetus

“My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.” – Steve Jobs

“The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It’s come to the point where you almost can’t run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip on each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics.” – Hunter Thompson

“I have an idea about voting, how about on every ballot we include “None of the above”. People may laugh at that, but what that is, it is a vote of no confidence in your government and I’m willing to bet that in some elections, ‘None of the Above’ would win. Imagine if you won the election but lost to ‘None of the Above’. Wouldn’t that make you re-think your positions?” – Jesse Ventura

“The poll that matters is the one that happens on Election Day.” – Heather Wilson

“Information is not knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

“Happiness does not come from a job. It comes from knowing what you truly value, and behaving in a way that’s consistent with those beliefs.” – Mike Rowe

“The fear, not the disease, threatened to break the society apart.” – John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

“The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.” – Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

“Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country’s cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause.” – Abraham Lincoln

“I was reading in the paper today that Congress wants to replace the dollar bill with a coin. They’ve already done it. It’s called a nickel.” – Jay Leno

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” – Jim Rohn

“In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.” – Robert Arnott

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.“ – Abraham Maslow

“I used to be indecisive but now I am not quite sure.” – Tommy Cooper

“You live and you learn. At any rate, you live.” – Douglas Adams

“Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden.” – Phaedrus

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” – Henry David Thoreau

“I love to talk about nothing. It’s the only thing I know anything about.” – Oscar Wilde

“You can’t solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level.” – Albert Einstein

“I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.“ – Jeff Bezos

“Well, I don’t have any greater insight than anybody else.” – Jensen Huang

“Confidence is not ‘I will profit on this trade.’ Confidence is ‘I will be fine if I don’t profit from this trade.’” – Yvan Byeajee

“I buy when other people are selling.” – J. Paul Getty

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence—it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” – Peter Drucker

“Now that I can work from home, I simply don’t have an excuse to quit.” – Howard Stern

“There’s a way to do it better. Find it.“ – Thomas Edison

“A fool and his money are soon parted.” – Thomas Tusser

“Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.” – Winston Churchill

“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up.” – Charlie Munger

“What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.” – Warren Buffett

“Buying’s easier, selling’s hard – [it’s] hard to know when to get out.” – Seth Klarman

“The path to innovation begins with curiosity” – Robert Iger, The Ride of a Lifetime

“I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” – Isaac Newton

“If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry it’ll change. If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry it’ll change.” – John A. Simone Sr.

“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house.  Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse” – Clement Clarke Moore

“Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” – Richard Branson

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.” – Steve Jobs

“Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.” – John D. Rockefeller

“The record shows I took the blows and did it my way.” – Frank Sinatra, “My Way”

“An end is only a beginning in disguise.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough

“The most important election that has taken place since the adoption of the federal constitution.” – Pittsfield Sun, 1813

“What is now proved was once only imagined.” – William Blake

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” – Flannery O’Connor

“Even the intelligent investor is likely to need considerable willpower to keep from following the crowd.” – Benjamin Graham

“If I had nine hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the frist six sharpening my ax.” – Abraham Lincoln

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity” – Sun-Tzu

“The intelligent investor is a realist who sells to optimists and buys from pessimists.” – Benjamin Graham

“The ability to recognize that the winds have shifted and to take appropriate action before you wreck your boat is crucial to the future of an enterprise” – Andrew Grove

“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“Most entrepreneurial ideas will sound crazy, stupid and uneconomic, and then they’ll turn out to be right.” – Reed Hastings

“But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.” – Thomas Jefferson

“A plan without action isn’t a plan, it’s a speech.” – T. Boone Pickens

“Complacency often afflicts precisely those who have been the most successful.” – Andrew Grove

“It’s not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for.” – Robert Kiyosaki

“Every once in a while, the market does something so stupid it takes your breath away.” – Jim Cramer

“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” – George Bernard Shaw

“There is nothing new in Wall Street. There can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market to-day has happened before and will happen again. I’ve never forgotten that.” – Edwin Lefevre

“Short cuts make long delays.“ – J.R.R. Tolkien

“The stock market is a device to transfer money from the impatient to the patient.” – Warren Buffett

“I very frequently get the question: ‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?’ And that is a very interesting question; it’s a very common one. I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’ And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two — because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time. – Jeff Bezos

“Your margin is my opportunity” – Jeff Bezos

“An investor without investment objectives is like a traveler without a destination.” – Ralph Seger

“Gambling, beer and football filled the horizons of their minds.” – George Orwell

“Everyone is digging deeper into their own trench and rarely standing up to look in the next trench over, even though the solution to their problem happens to reside there.” – David Epstein – Range

“The desire to perform all the time is usually a barrier to performing over time.” – Robert Olstein

“Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader. Don’t fall victim to what I call the Ready- Aim-Aim-Aim Syndrome. You must be willing to fire.” – T. Boone Pickens

“Wherever we look upon this earth, the opportunities take shape within the problems.” – Nelson A. Rockefeller

“Finance is not merely about making money. It’s about achieving our deep goals and protecting the fruits of our labor. It’s about stewardship and, therefore, about achieving the good society.” – Robert J. Shiller

“Big market price changes happen when lots of people are forced to reevaluate their prejudices, not necessarily when the world actually changes – Colm O’Shea

“High expectations are the key to everything.” – Sam Walton

“Lately it occurs to me, what a long, strange trip it’s been.” – “Truckin'”, Grateful Dead

“The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.” – Phillip Fisher

“If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it.” – John D. Rockefeller

“Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.” – Bertrand Russell

“All intelligent investing is value investing. Acquiring more that you are paying for. You must value the business in order to value the stock.” – Charlie Munger

“We will ensure that there is no unwarranted tightening of financing conditions,” – Isabel Schnabel, ECB Board Member

“A market downturn doesn’t bother us. It is an opportunity to increase our ownership of great companies with great management at good prices.” – Warren Buffett

“It is said that good things come to those who wait. I believe that good things come to those who work.” – Wilt Chamberlain

“I went looking for trouble, and I found it.” – Charles Ponzi

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.” – George Bernard Shaw

“You must not only learn to live with tension, you must seek it out. You must learn to thrive on stress.” – J. Paul Getty

“Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.” – Henry Ford

“There are no facts, only interpretations.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.” – Ernest Hemingway

“The key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them.” – Peter Lynch

“If you work really hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.” – Conan O’Brien

“Capital isn’t scarce, vision is.” – Sam Walton

“Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” – John F. Kennedy

“PELLEY: Fair to say you simply flooded the system with money? POWELL: Yes. We did.”

“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

“If football taught me anything about business, it is that you win the game one play at a time.” – Fran Tarkenton

“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” – Colin R. Davis

“In a wicked world, relying upon experience from a single domain is not only limiting, it can be disastrous.” – David Epstein – Range

“It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, it’s how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.” – George Soros

“Experience is a good school. But the fees are high.” – Heinrich Heine

“‘Experience’ is what you got when you didn’t get what you wanted.” – Howard Marks

“When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.” – Warren Buffett

“The window to the world can be covered by a newspaper.” – Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

“End? No, the journey doesn’t end here.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

“If the end doesn’t justify the means, what does?” – Robert Moses

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it.“ – Thomas Edison

“How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” – Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

“The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.” – Lee Iacocca

“I am so far from being a pessimist…on the contrary, in spite of my scars, I am tickled to death at life.” – Eugene O’Neill

“Slow and steady wins the race.” – Aesop

“The person who starts simply with the idea of getting rich won’t succeed; you must have a larger ambition.” – John D. Rockefeller

“There are only three ways to meet the unpaid bills of a nation. The first is taxation. The second is repudiation. The third is inflation.” – Herbert Hoover

“No price is too great for a work of unquestioned beauty and known authenticity.” – J.P. Morgan

“Money is made by sitting, not trading.” – Jesse Livermore

“It all comes down to interest rates. As an investor, all you’re doing is putting up a lump-sum payment for a future cash flow.” – Ray Dalio

“I look at a streak as I don’t lose – literally.” – Tiger Woods

“If a man didn’t make mistakes he’d own the world in a month. But if he didn’t profit by his mistakes he wouldn’t own a blessed thing.” – Edwin Lefevre

“Be brutally honest about the short term and optimistic and confident about the long term.” – Reed Hastings

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” – Confucius

“Focus and simplicity…once you get there, you can move mountains.” – Steve Jobs

“When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, ‘Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?’ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked.” – Elon Musk

“I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.” – Bill Gates

“I didn’t know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time.” – Betty White

“No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.” – John Locke

“Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed.” – Peter Drucker

“As society becomes more and more complex, cheating will in many ways become progressively easier and easier to do and harder to police or even understand.” – Vitalik Buterin

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford

“Chronic indecision is not only inefficient and counterproductive, but it is deeply corrosive to morale.” – Robert Iger, The Ride of a Lifetime

“Fear incites human action far more urgently than does the impressive weight of historical evidence.” – Jeremy Siegel

“Remember that stocks are never too high for you to begin buying or too low to begin selling.” – Jesse Livermore

“Earnings don’t move the overall market, it’s the Federal Reserve Board… focus on the central banks, and focus on the movement of liquidity… most people in the market are looking for earnings and conventional measures. It’s liquidity that moves markets.” – Stanley Druckenmiller

“Inflation is not all bad. After all, it has allowed every American to live in a more expensive neighborhood without moving.” – Alan Cranston

“Learn to take losses. The most important thing in making money is not letting your losses get out of hand.” – Marty Schwartz

“Sometimes buying early on the way down looks like being wrong, but it isn’t.” – Seth Klarman

“You don’t pay taxes; they take taxes.” – Chris Rock

“Age doesn’t matter, unless you’re cheese.” – John Paul Getty

“The typical trader wants to be right on every single trade. He is desperately trying to create certainty where it just doesn’t exist.” – Mark Douglas

“It’s not so important who starts the game, but who finished it.” – John Wooden

“I see life almost like one long University education that I never had — everyday I’m learning something new.” – Richard Branson

“Personally, I’d rather have bitcoin than a bond.” – Ray Dalio

“The history of mankind is the history of money losing value.” – Milton Friedman

“I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be.” – Alexander Hamilton

“Focus on the 20 percent that makes 80 percent of the difference.” – Marc Benioff

“Time is your friend; impulse is your enemy.” – John Bogle

“Do not anticipate and move without market confirmation—being a little late in your trade is your insurance that you are right or wrong.” – Jesse Livermore

“We caution you against investing in our Class A common stock, unless you are prepared to incur the risk of losing all or a substantial portion of your investment” – AMC Entertainment

“Public business, my son, must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.” – John Adams

“We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” – Winston Churchill

“You can only do so many things great, and you should cast aside everything else.” – Tim Cook

“The reason that you can win at poker and horse racing is the same – you are not betting against the house; you are betting against the other players.” – Steven Crist

“Inflation hasn’t ruined everything. A dime can still be used as a screwdriver.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

“Americans are getting stronger. Twenty years ago, it took two people to carry ten dollars’ worth of groceries. Today, a five-year-old can do it.” – Henny Youngman

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” – Friedrich August von Hayek

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” – Yogi Berra

“You simply flooded the system with money?” – Scott Pelley

“Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.” – Jack Welch

“I think it’s natural we’ve tilted a little bit hawkish.” – James Bullard

“I’m the fellow who takes away the punch bowl just when the party is getting good.” – William McChesney Martin, Jr.

“If you’re feeling good, don’t worry. You’ll get over it.” – Yogi Berra

“The only constant in the technology industry is change.” – Marc Benioff

“Altogether too often, people substitute opinions for facts and emotions for analysis.” – Andrew S. Grove

“Beating the competition is relatively easy. Beating yourself is a never-ending commitment.” – Phil Knight

“Some people get rich studying artificial intelligence. Me, I make money studying natural stupidity.” – Carl Icahn

“There’s not many things less important than the score at halftime.” – Bill Self

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones.” – John Maynard Keynes

“My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.” – Abraham Lincoln

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb

“Truly brilliant marketing happens when you take something most people think of as a weakness and reposition it so people think of it as a strength.” – Reed Hastings

“People don’t pay attention until they have to.” – Meredith Whitney

“Know what you own and know why you own it.” – Peter Lynch

“I believe that space travel will one day become as common as airline travel is today.” – Buzz Aldrin

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” – George S. Patton

“I continue to believe that the American people have a love-hate relationship with inflation. They hate inflation but love everything that causes it.” – William E. Simon

“Giving debt relief to people that really need it, that’s what foreclosure is.” – J.P. Morgan

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easier person to fool.” – Richard Feynman

“Change before you have to.” – Jack Welch

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.“ – Albert Einstein

“The market does not beat them. They beat themselves, because though they have brains they cannot sit tight.” – Jesse Livermore

“If you don’t study any companies, you have the same success buying stocks as you do in a poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.” – Peter Lynch

“We don’t get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we’ll wait, we’ll wait indefinitely.” – Warren Buffett

“When the facts change, I change my mind.” – John Maynard Keynes

“Learn everyday, but especially from the experiences of others. It’s cheaper!” – John Bogle

“Companies that get confused, that think their goal is revenue or stock price or something. You have to focus on the things that lead to those.” – Tim Cook

“It’s all about the journey, not the outcome.” – Carl Lewis

“Friends congratulate me after a quarterly-earnings announcement and say, ‘Good job, great quarter,'” Bezos said to Forbes. “And I’ll say, ‘Thank you, but that quarter was baked three years ago.’ I’m working on a quarter that’ll happen in 2021 right now.”

“Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.” – W.C. Fields

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” – Francis Bacon

“The most important investment you can make is in yourself.” – Warren Buffett

“Tides do what tides do – they turn.” – Derek Landy

“Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.” – Franklin D Roosevelt

“It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.” – Warren Buffett

“All that glitters is not gold.” – William Shakespeare

“Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.” – Herbert Hoover

“If I knew I’d live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.” – Mickey Mantle

“I was never afraid to go back to Pittsburgh and work in the steel mills.” – David Tepper, when asked where his “preternatural confidence” when making trades comes from.

“Governments never learn. Only people learn.” – Milton Friedman

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” – George Orwell, Animal Farm (published on this day in 1945)

“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton

“A trader, in addition to studying basic conditions, remembering market precedents and keeping in mind the psychology of the outside public as well as the limitations of his brokers, must also know himself and provide against his own weaknesses.” – Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

“I always believe that prices move first and fundamentals come second.” – Paul Tudor Jones

“Creating success is tough. But keeping it is tougher. You have to keep producing, you can’t ever stop.” – Pete Rose

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.“ – Andy Warhol

“I have always believed that it’s important to show a new look periodically. Predictability can lead to failure.” – T. Boone Pickens

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Every time we can force our opponents into a bad decision, we win.” – Annie Duke

“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” – Aristotle

“I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.” – John D. Rockefeller

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” – William Shakespeare

“You are remembered for the rules you break.” – Douglas MacArthur

“Who controls the memes controls the universe.” – Elon Musk

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T.S. Eliot

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” – Gerald Ford

“Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t” – Jerry Rice

“No day shall erase you from the memory of time.” – Virgil

“The reason I’ve been able to be so financially successful is my focus has never, ever for one minute been money.” – Oprah Winfrey

“There is a time to make money and a time to not lose money.” – David Tepper

“I never once considered that it was appropriate to put taxpayer money on the line in resolving Lehman Brothers.” – Henry Paulson

“It’s not like the CIA. We don’t have private, secret data on the economy.” – Jerome Powell

“If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need.” – Warren Buffett

“failing to raise the debt limit would produce widespread economic catastrophe.” – Janet Tellen

“You can’t predict, [but] you can prepare.” – Howard Marks

“We learn who we are in practice, not in theory.” – David Epstein – Range

“And, you know, it tells a story of inflation expectations moving up.” – Jay Powell

“The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions.“ – Antony Jay

“My formula for success is rise early, work late, and strike oil.” – J. Paul Getty

“Individuals who cannot master their emotions are ill-suited to profit from the investment process.” – Benjamin Graham

“If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.” – Jack Welch

“As an investor my job is to figure out what will happen rather than what should happen.” – David Einhorn

“If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the shade.” – Tom Peters

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” – Henry Ford

“The greatest teacher I know is the job itself.” – James Cash Penney

“No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking.” – J. P. Morgan

“Many will start fast, few will finish strong.” — Gary Ryan Blair

“Inflation is bringing us true democracy. For the first time in history, luxuries and necessities are selling at the same price.” – Robert Orben

“It will fluctuate.” – J. P. Morgan

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau

“The worst market I have ever seen in my lifetime or would hope to see again.” – John J. Phelan Jr.

“Stone Age. Bronze Age. Iron Age. We define entire epics of humanity by the technology they use.” – Reed Hastings

“The problem is that a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative.” – Elon Musk

“We can guarantee cash benefits as far out and at whatever size you like, but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power.” – Alan Greenspan

“Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.” – Elon Musk

“Are you green and growing or ripe and rotting?” – Ray Kroc

“Don’t find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain.” – Henry Ford

“Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy” – Isaac Newton

“Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” – Drew Huston

“It’s amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” – Harry S. Truman

“The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo.“ – Bob Iger

“I don’t mind going back to daylight saving time. With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I’ve saved all year.” – Victor Borge

“If you wish to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.” – Thomas Watson

“It’s such a fine line between stupid, and uh…” – David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap

“Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.” – Walter Scott

“He died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in his heart and hope on his lips, that his country should triumph and its civilization survive.” – Warren G Harding

“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” – Ben Franklin

“The challenge of the retail business is the human condition.” – Howard Schultz

“If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.” – Sam Walton

“Trying to sell short in this market is like being run over by a train that’s going to derail a mile down the road.” – Julian Robertson

“There are two main drivers of asset class returns – inflation and growth.” – Ray Dalio

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” – Hereclitus

“The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator.” – Benjamin Graham

“Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go the opposite direction. I hate the idea of trends.” – Clint Eastwood

“The ability to concentrate and to use time well is everything.” – Lee Iacocca

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” – ???

“I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.” – John Quincy Adams

“Our liquidity is fine. As a matter of fact, it’s better than fine. It’s strong.” – Kenneth Lay

“Never confuse genius with a bull market.” – Unknown

“I would say that financial markets are very inefficient, and capable of extremes of being completely dysfunctional.” – Jeremy Grantham

“Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy. Profit from folly rather than participate in it.” – Warren Buffett

“Change is the investor’s only certainty.” – Thomas Rowe Price Jr.

“Indecision may or may not be my problem.” – Jimmy Buffett

“Inflation is just like alcoholism. The good effects come first.” – Milton Friedman

“To be a better investor, you have to stand on your own. You just can’t copy other people’s insights.” – Li Lu

“Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless.” – James Cash Penney

“There’s always an element of chance and you must be willing to live with that element. If you insist on certainty, you will paralyze yourself.“ – J. Paul Getty

“No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.” – Yogi Berra

“We must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.” – William Shakespeare

“Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.” – Walt Disney

“The best stock to buy is the one you already own.” – Peter Lynch

“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.” – Warren Buffett

“Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

“It’s how tenacious you are that will determine your success.” – Steve Ballmer

“Time sometimes passes quite quickly.” – Jimmy Page

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.” – T.S. Eliot

“While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.” – Lyndon Johnson

“Never confuse movement with action.” – Ernest Hemingway

“Just because the tide is out, doesn’t mean there is less water in the ocean.” – Seth Godin

“Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Mark Twain

“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” – Carl Sagan

“We will use our tools to support the economy and a strong labor market and to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched.” – Jerome Powell

“It is a way to take people’s wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes. Inflation is the most universal tax of all.” – Thomas Sowell

“Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.” – Warren Buffett

“When you expect things to happen – strangely enough – they do happen.” – J.P. Morgan

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

” A good first impression can work wonders.” – J.K. Rowling

“If you absolutely can’t tolerate critics, then don’t do anything new or interesting.” – Jeff Bezos

“The shortage of skilled workers is now so serious that it is dramatically slowing down our economy,” – Christian Duerr, Leader of Free Democratic Party in German Parliament

“Control your own destiny or someone else will.” – Jack Welch

“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vince Lombardi

“The path to innovation begins with curiosity.” – Robert Iger

“There is no risk-free path for monetary policy.” – Jerome Powell

“I’m only rich because I know when I’m wrong.” – George Soros

“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

“To be successful in life, you must get in the habit of turning negatives into positives.” – George Foreman

“It is an old device in Wall Street—to change the colour of the certificates in order to make them more valuable.” – Edwin Lefèvre

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” – Vlad Lenin

“Always buy your straw hats in the Winter” – Benjamin Graham

“I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“We don’t have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest.” – Warren Buffett

“A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.” – Marina Tsvetaeva

“Things there are no solution to: Inflation, bureaucracy & dandruff.” – Malcolm Forbes

“If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.” – Ray Kroc

“I’m just one person on the committee.” – James Bullard

“What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.” – Isaac Newton

“Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.” – Sam Walton

“If you have more than 120 or 130 IQ points, you can afford to give the rest away. You don’t need extraordinary intelligence to succeed as an investor.” – Warren Buffett

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Do you believe in miracles?” – Al Michaels

“Shut your eyes and see.” – James Joyce

“Don’t blindly follow someone, follow market and try to hear what it is telling you.” – Jaymin Shah

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” – Leo Tolstoy

“One doesn’t recognize the really important moments in one’s life until it’s too late.” – Agatha Christie

“The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis.” – Ben Bernanke

“He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious.” – Sun Tzu

“If you’re changing the world, you’re working on important things, you’re excited to get up in the morning.” – Larry Page

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley

“No fact begins with if” – Nicholas II

“Your reality is as you perceive it to be. So, it is true, that by altering this perception we can alter our reality.” – William Constantine

“The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.” – Vladimir Lenin

“And lord, we’re especially thankful for nuclear power, the cleanest safest energy source there is. Except for solar, which is just a pipe dream.” – Homer Simpson

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

“In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.” – L. Paul Getty

“There’s no one thing that’s true. It’s all true.” – Ernest Hemingway

“Economics is a very difficult subject. I’ve compared it to trying to learn how to repair a car when the engine is running.” – Ben Bernanke

“Let Hercules himself do what he may / The cat will mew and dog will have his day.” – William Shakespeare

“Patience and fortitude conquer all things.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller

“I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night” – T. Boone Pickens

“Your information sources should complement one another, and also be redundant because that gives you a way to verify what you’ve learned.” – Andrew S Grove

“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” – Vladimir Lenin

“Price is rarely the most important thing.” – Tim Cook

“Damn the torpedoes. Four bells, Captain Drayton, go ahead. Jouett, full speed.” – David Farragut

“I ought to be jealous of the tower. She is more famous than I am.” – Gustave Eiffel

“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Phil Jackson

“Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.” – Elon Musk

“The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.” – J. Paul Getty

“Bond investors are the vampires of the investment world. They love decay, recession – anything that leads to low inflation and the protection of the real value of their loans.” – Bill Gross

“If you can learn to create a state of mind that is not affected by the market’s behaviour, the struggle will cease to exist.” – Mark Douglas

“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” – Peter F. Drucker

“You get recession, you have stock market declines. If you don’t understand that’s going to happen, then you’re not ready, you won’t do well in the markets.” – Peter Lynch

“In spite of the cost of living, it’s still popular.” – Kathleen Norris

“We remain optimistic on the economy, at least for the short term – consumer and business balance sheets as well as consumer spending remain at healthy levels – but see significant geopolitical and economic challenges ahead due to high inflation, supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine. – Jamie Dimon

“You only get out of it what you put into it. If you are a sheep in this world, you’re not going to get much out of it.” – Greg Norman

“The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” – Will Rogers

“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” – Elon Musk

“Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slow.” – Reed Hastings

“In trading, you have to be defensive and aggressive at the same time. If you are not aggressive, you are not going to make money, and if you are not defensive, you are not going to keep the money.” – Ray Dalio

“Interest rates are like gravity on valuations. If interest rates are nothing, values can be almost infinite. If interest rates are extremely high, that’s a huge gravitational pull on values.” – Warren Buffett

“Thus fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.” – Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

“Good ideas are always crazy until they’re not” – Larry Page

“I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.” – Johannes Kepler

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs

“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” – Warren Buffett

“Take a simple idea, and take it seriously.” – Charlie Munger

“In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.” – Lee Iacocca

“During this time of reopening, we are likely to see some upward pressure on prices…But those pressures are likely to be temporary as they are associated with the reopening process.” – Jerome Powell

“Democracy is the destiny of humanity; freedom its indestructible arm” – Benito Juárez

“Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of your wealth.” – Paul Clitheroe

“History provides a crucial insight regarding market crises: they are inevitable, painful, and ultimately surmountable.” – Shelby M.C. Davis

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela

“Money does not buy you happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery.” – Daniel Kahneman

“I’d be a bum on the street with a tin cup if the markets were always efficient.” – Warren Buffett

“It is never too late to be wise.” – Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

“You make most of your money in a bear market, you just don’t realize it at the time.” – Shelby M.C. Davis

“A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never-failing spring in the desert.” – Andrew Carnegie

“It can be terribly dangerous, even perilous, to assume that because people hold positions of responsibility they are therefore acting responsibly.” – David McCullough

“All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.” – Babe Ruth

“Someday neither AI nor us will be able to tell whether we are in a virtual or physical world.” – Jensen Huang

“You take an educated gamble. If you don’t occasionally make a mistake, you’re not doing your job.” – James Sinegal

“We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.” – Lyndon Johnson

“Often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” – Helen Keller

“We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return.” – Queen Elizabeth II

“Work takes on new meaning when you feel you are pointed in the right direction. Otherwise, it’s just a job, and life is too short for that.” – Tim Cook

“The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The only thing you can be sure of is that there are times when large numbers of stocks are priced too high and other times when they’re priced too low.” – Benjamin Graham

“You must always examine what’s working, evolve your ideas, and change the way you do things.” – Marc Benioff

“Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory—let the theory go.” – Agatha Christie

“Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair.” – Sam Ewing

“Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance.” – Virgil

“He says we’re going the wrong way.” “Oh, he’s drunk. How would he know where we’re going.” – Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.“ – George Adair

“Everything is bearable.” – Wendy Byrde, Ozark

“We can offer sunshine that glows bright in the afterthought, and scatters the darkness of the tenement for the price of a nickel or a dime.” – L.A. Thompson

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” – William Shedd

“There are no easy fixes nor any short-term answers to the global supply and demand imbalances aggravated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” – Mike Wirth, CEO of Chevron

“Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.” – Karl Wallenda

“The riskiest strategy is to try to avoid risk altogether.” – Fredrick W. Smith

“When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.” – John Maynard Keynes

“In times of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what we’re made of.” – Howard Schultz

“Everything is going to be fine in the end. If it’s not fine it’s not the end.” – Oscar Wilde

“Remember too that your time is your one finite resource, and when you say “yes” to one thing you are inevitably saying “no” to another.” – Andrew S Grove

“Know your strengths and take advantage of them.” – Greg Norman

“There is no free market for oil. It’s controlled by a cartel, OPEC.” – Frederick W. Smith

“Politics is not a game, but a serious business.” – Winston Churchill

“Our predecessors overcame many troubles and much suffering, but each time got back up stronger than before.” – Shinzo Abe

“The euro was born with great hopes. Reality has proven otherwise.” – Joseph Stiglitz

“Inflation is like toothpaste. Once it’s out, you can hardly get it back in again.” – Karl Otto Pöhl

“I am struck that so many of our leaders in the U.S. forget how strong our country can be.” – Jamie Dimon

“The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.” – President Jimmy Carter

“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Lots of companies don’t succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future. I try to focus on that: What is the future really going to be?” – Larry Page

“The single observation I would offer for your consideration is that some things are beyond your control.” – Neil Armstrong

“I like liquor — its taste and its effects — and that is just the reason why I never drink it.” – Stonewall Jackson

“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.” – Agatha Christie

“It’s a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours.” – Harry Truman

“A good thing never ends.” – Mick Jagger

“Learning to fly is not pretty but flying is.” – Satya Nadella

“In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“The time to hesitate is through. No time to wallow in the mire.” – The Doors

“Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll.” – John Lack

“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.” – Norman Schwarzkopf

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“When you invest, you are buying a day that you don’t have to work.” – Aya Laraya

“Because only if you’ve been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.” – Richard Nixon

“Somebody needs to do something — it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.” – Jerry Garcia

“Having a little inflation is like being a little pregnant.” – Leon Henderson

“My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” – Ronald Reagan

“Pressure is what you live for… if you are going to be successful in life, you’re going to have pressure.” – Jack Nicklaus

“A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.” – Charles Dickens

“You should always go to other people funerals, or they wont go to yours.” – George Herman Ruth

“What started as a temporary measure driven by the pandemic is now our new standard.” – Brian Cornell

“Remember this: When you are doing nothing, those speculators who feel they must trade day in and day out, are laying the foundation for your next venture. You will reap benefits from their mistakes.” – Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences Of A Stock Operator

“If you don’t know who you are, the stock market is an expensive place to find out.” – Adam Smith, The Money Game

“You are always a student, never a master. You have to keep moving forward.” – Conrad Hall

“Coaches have to watch for what they don’t want to see and listen to what they don’t want to hear.” – John Madden

“If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.” – John D. Rockefeller

“It’s hard to live your life in color, and tell the truth in black and white.” – Gregg Allman

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein

“The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.” – Mikhail Gorbachev

“Someday computers will make us all obsolete.” – Bobby Fischer

“I’m just opposed to a pure inflation-only mandate in which the only thing a central bank cares about is inflation and not employment.” – Janet Yellen

“There are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very man who discovered electricity” – Bram Stoker

“I believe that, young or old, we have as much to look forward to with confidence and hope as we have to look back on with pride.” – Queen Elizabeth II

“See things in the present, even if they are in the future. ” – Larry Ellison

“As soon as you become complacent your show gets canceled.” – Dick Wolf

“He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“The key to risk management is never putting yourself in a position where you cannot live to fight another day.” – Dick Fuld

“While higher interest rates, slower growth, and softer labor market conditions will bring down inflation, they will also bring some pain to households and businesses.” – Jerome Powell

“Objects in motion stay in motion in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” – Isaac Newton

“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore.” – Ferdinand Magellan

“The worst of Covid may be behind us, but the economic challenges we face are no less daunting.” – Jane Fraser

“But I do think that we’re going to do all that we can at the Federal Reserve to avoid deep, deep pain. And I think there are some scenarios where that’s likely to happen.” – Raphael Bostic

“Treasury securities are considered a safe and secure investment” – treasurydirect.gov

“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” – James Joyce

“When you see only problems, you’re not seeing clearly.” – Phil Knight

“We must recognize that no amount of formal planning can anticipate changes” – Andrew Grove

“If I’ve made myself clear, I’ve misspoken.” – Alan Greenspan

“So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.” – Matthew 20:16

“When nobody wants something, that creates an opportunity.” – Carl Icahn

“Sometimes the wheel turns slowly, but it turns.” – Lorne Michaels

“It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.” – Robert E. Lee

“Inflation is the crabgrass in your savings.” – Robert Orben

“Just before you break through the sound barrier, the cockpit shakes the most.” – Chuck Yeager

“There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.” – William James

“Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.” Vincent Van Gogh

“It’s the nearest thing to a meltdown that I ever want to see.” – John Phelan, NYSE Chairman (1987)

“It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” – Neil Young

“A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well.” – Frederick Douglass

“Our goal has never been to make the most. It’s always been to make the best.” – Tim Cook

“It is not down on any map; true places never are.” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.” – Sandy Koufax

“What I learned is that nothing is given easy to you.” – Christian Pulisic

“Amateurs want to be right. Professionals want to make money.” – Alan Greenspan

“There is nothing government can give you that it hasn’t taken from you in the first place.” – Winston Churchill

“To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try.” – Rosa Parks

“Sometimes, you can learn more from criticism than you can from flattery.” – Doug McMillon

“Happiness is just how you feel when you don’t feel miserable.” – John Lennon

“I’m lazy. But it’s the lazy people who invented the wheel and the bicycle because they didn’t like walking or carrying things. ” – Lech Walesa

“The best is yet to come.” – Frank Sinatra

“Adventure is just bad planning.” – Roald Amundsen

“It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.” – Jane Austen

“To lose is to win” – Japanese Proverb

“Make a game plan and stick to it. Unless it’s not working.” – Yogi Berra

“I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.” – Vincent van Gogh

“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” – Mick Jagger

“I have no views as to where it will be, but the one thing I can tell you is it won’t do anything between now and then except look at you.” – Warren Buffett (discussing gold)

“There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.” – Dante Alighieri

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier’…” – Alfred Lord Tennyson

“The beginning is always today.” – Mary Shelley

“Yet we still live in a troubled and perilous world. There is no longer a single threat. There are many. They differ in intensity and in danger. They require different attitudes and different answers.”– Lyndon B Johnson

“Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.” – Babe Ruth

“The telegraph would bind man to his fellow-man in such bonds of amity as to put an end to war.” – Samuel Morse

“The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.” – Richard Nixon

“Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.” – Agatha Christie

“It is easy to quit; I’ve done it at least a hundred times.” – Unknown

“What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

“Every once in awhile, you do have a bad day.” – Adam Vinatieri, retired placekicker who holds the NFL career points record

“It seems like people don’t learn from the past.” – Thomas Peterffy

“Your mind is like a parachute: If it isn’t open, it doesn’t work.” – Buzz Aldrin

“It’s obvious that we don’t know one millionth of one percent about anything.” – Thomas Edison

“I’ve actually made a prediction that within 30 years a majority of new cars made in the United States will be electric. And I don’t mean hybrid, I mean fully electric.” – Elon Musk, 6/25/08

“Market makers know that the market is always right.  You are wrong if you are losing money for any reason at all.  Market makers have that drilled into their head.  They know value is irrelevant in times of market stress.” — Michael Platt, founder of Bluecrest Capital

“If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?” — Vince Lombardi

“There is no better teacher than history in determining the future. There are billion-dollar answers in $30 history books.” – Charlie Munger

“I would rather hire a man with enthusiasm, than a man who knows everything.” – John D. Rockefeller

“Money is the MC-mansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after 10 years. Power is the old stone building that stands for centuries.” – Frank Underwood, House of Cards

“If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.” – Margaret Thatcher

“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” – Ronald Reagan

“The key to a 3-peat is change. You can’t ‘repeat’ the formula. Your opponent has already figured it out.” – Phil Jackson

“As long as we enjoy it, we’ll do it. ‘Cause we enjoyed it before we made any money.” – George Harrison, 2/7/1964

“I have civilized my own subjects; I have conquered other nations; yet I have not been able to civilize or to conquer myself” – Peter the Great

“Losing a Super Bowl destroys all the good things that happened to get you there.” – Don Shula

“When it’s grim, be the Grim Reaper and go get it.” – Andy Reid

“No company can afford not to move forward. It may be at the top of the heap today but at the bottom of the heap tomorrow, if it doesn’t.” – James Cash Penney

“Like it or not, life is a game. Whoever denies that truth, whoever simply refuses to play, gets left on the sidelines.” – Phil Knight

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” – Thomas Jefferson

“In business, as in politics, it is never easy to go against the beliefs and attitudes held by the majority.” – J. Paul Getty

“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.” – Jonas Salk

“I shall never surrender or retreat.” – Sam Houston

“Money cannot consistently be made trading every day or every week during the year.” – Jesse Livermore

“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happy Hour.” – Hawkeye Pierce

“If you find yourself suddenly wearing a hot cup of coffee on the way to work, the day can only get better from there.” – Anonymous

“Observation is a dying art.” – Stanley Kubrick

“Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion.” – Muhammad Ali

“A minute’s success pays the failure of years.” – Robert Browning

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” – Thomas Jefferson

“History is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.” – Friedrich August von Hayek

“Beware the Ides of March.” – Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“You’re finished…When you’re down by half, people figure you can go down all the way. They’re going to push the market against you.” Vinny Mattone, When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management

“Bank failures are caused by depositors who don’t deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement.” – Dan Quayle

“Those who have the task of making such policy don’t expect you to applaud.” – William McChesney Martin

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” – Henry Ford

“If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care, and so on. The only thing lacking… is freedom.” – Dwight D Eisenhower

“Good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.” – Donald Trump

“Man himself is the beginning and the end of every economy.” – Carl Menger

“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” – Bill Gates

“If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” – Woodrow Wilson

“I don’t think one should ever be satisfied with any objective that you’re trying to accomplish because perfection is never attained.” – Fred Ridley

“What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money if they don’t need to make smart decisions—if they can get rich making dumb decisions?” – Michael Lewis

“People who exit the stock market to avoid a decline are odds-on favorites to miss the next rally.” – Peter Lynch

“When you put your hand in a flowing stream, you touch the last that has gone before and the first of what is still to come.” – Leonardo da Vinci

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” – Ben Franklin

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” – Reed Hastings

“Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.” – Lou Gerstner

“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.” – Winston Churchill

“I don’t think people understand there’s 100% correlation with what happens to a company’s earnings over several years and what happens to the stock.” – Peter Lynch

“In Technology, whatever can be done will be done” – Andy Grove

“Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not.” – Stephen King, The Green Mile

“Employment is nature’s physician and is essential to human happiness.” – Galen

“If you know the edge of your own ability pretty well, you should ignore most of the notions of our experts about what I call ‘deworsification’ of portfolios.” – Charlie Munger

“A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.” – Bob Hope

“If any of my competitors were drowning, I’d stick a hose in their mouth.” – Ray Kroc

“Success is making ourselves useful in the world.” – George Dayton, Founder of Target

“Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life’s too short to think small.” – Tim Ferriss

“A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.”  – Henry David Thoreau

“There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.” – John Maynard Keynes

“The age of AI is in full throttle.” – Jensen Huang

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” – Albert Einstein

“I hate the idea of trends. I hate imitation; I have a reverence for individuality.” – Clint Eastwood

“These are the days that must happen to you.” – Walt Whitman

“When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad.” – Lao Tzu

“Never miss a good chance to shut up.” – Will Rogers

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.” – Bruce Lee

“The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.” – Hunter Thompson

“There are so many worlds, and I have not yet conquered even one.” – Alexander the Great

“Once you know where the roller coaster is going, are you in for the ride?” – Robert Fulghum

“If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn’t have a job if he was any smarter.” – John Gotti

“The debt is like a crazy aunt we keep down in the basement. All the neighbors know she’s there, but nobody wants to talk about her.” – Ross Perot

“College isn’t the place to go for ideas.” – Helen Keller

“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.” – John Maynard Keynes

“Perfection is a theory.” – Mikhail Baryshnikov

“The essence of America — that which really unites us — is not ethnicity, or nationality, or religion. It is an idea — and what an idea it is: that you can come from humble circumstances and do great things. That it doesn’t matter where you come from, but where you are going.” – Condoleezza Rice

“No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.” – P.T. Barnum

“An absolutely new idea is one of the rarest things known to man.” – Thomas More

“The first hundred thousand – that was hard to get, but afterwards, it was easy to make more.” – John Jacob Astor

“Hidden talent counts for nothing” – Nero

“Quick decipherment is very important to avoid the systematic errors which invariably arise from prolonged reflection.” – Jean Francois Champollion

“If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.” – Cormac McCarthy

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemmingway

“We can’t buy one minute of time with cash; if we could, rich people would live longer.” – O. Henry

“There are no gains, without pains.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive!” – Elbert Hubbard

“It is dangerous to make everybody go forward by the same road.” -Ignatius of Loyola

“Live life expecting the worst, hoping for the best, and living for the future” – Jerry Garcia

“True courage is being afraid, and going ahead and doing your job anyhow, that’s what courage is.” – Norman Schwarzkopf

“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Christopher Columbus

“‎The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.” – J. Robert Oppenheimer

“‎Goodness is the only investment that never fails.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Everything looks nicer when you win.” – Billy Martin

“Kill them with success and bury them with a smile.” – Usain Bolt

“When things go wrong, don’t go with them.” – Elvis Presley

“Conquering the world on horseback is easy; it is dismounting and governing that is hard.” – Genghis Khan

“Learn to deal with the valleys and the hills will take care of themselves.” – Count Basie

“It’s a funny thing, the more I practice, the luckier I get.” – Nolan Ryan

“Life is fragile. We’re not guaranteed a tomorrow so give it everything you’ve got.” – Tim Cook

“Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t you think?”  – Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

“Defeat is a state of mind; no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as a reality.” – Bruce Lee

“You can’t have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.” – Charles Kettering

“Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” — Helen Keller

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau

“You hit home runs not by chance but by preparation.” Roger Maris

“You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, …or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move…on.” – Tupac Shakur

“A wrong decision is better than indecision.” – Tony Soprano

“There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.” ― Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who disbelieve, no amount of proof is sufficient.” – Ignatius of Loyola

“At night a candle’s brighter than the sun.” – Sting

“The daily blips of the market are, in fact, noise — noise that is very difficult for most investors to tune out.” – Seth Klarman

“The more I see the less I know for sure.” – John Lennon

“The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting.” – Walt Disney

“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” – Pele

“Coming up with an idea is the least important part of creating something great.” – Larry Page

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” – Pablo Picasso

“I’ll be back.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” – Martin Luther

“I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.” – Abraham Lincoln

“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – Herman Melville

“Anyone with any degree of mental toughness ought to be able to exist without the things they like most for a few months at least.” – Georgia O’Keefe

“Asking economists for investment advice is like asking a physicist to fix a broken toilet. Not their field, though sort of related.” – Milton Friedman

“There’s no such thing as simple. Simple is hard.” – Martin Scorsese

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.” – Leo Tolstoy

“In a crisis, be aware of the danger–but recognize the opportunity.” – John F Kennedy

“If a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.” – Warren Buffett

“Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible.” – Ferdinand Magellan

“How can I go forward when I don’t know which way I’m facing?” – John Lennon

“Just because you make a good plan, doesn’t mean that’s what’s gonna happen.” – Taylor Swift

“Victory awaits him who has everything in order, luck, people call it.” – Roald Amundsen

“It is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too” – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” – John Steinbeck

“There was no established way for a man to tell his wife he was going to the moon. A man could tell his wife he was going to sea or going to war; men had been doing that for millennia. But the moon? It was a whole new conversation.” – Jeff Kluger, Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon

“The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.” – Lady Bird Johnson

“This century hasn’t got the lock on insanity.” – William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist

“Chance favours the prepared mind.” – Louis Pasteur

“There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” – Roger Staubach

“You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.” – Mary Tyler Moore

“Intelligence is an accident of evolution, and not necessarily an advantage.” – Isaac Asimov

“It took two decades and two hundred million words to convince people the bridge was feasible.” – Joseph Strauss, Chief Engineer of Golden Gate Bridge

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” – Galileo

“When we put it all together, we’ve got to be perhaps the greatest club ever.” – Bill Sharman

“Time makes more converts than reason.” – Thomas Paine

“I hear ya, Ton’, but that was before inflation” – Christopher Moltisanti

“The fault lies not with the mob, who demands nonsense, but with those who do not know how to produce anything else.” – Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1/17/61

“The man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.” – Captain Cook

“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.” – Lord Byron

“The more they actually know, the less confident they become.” – Charles Dow

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” – Winston Churchill

“No pressure, no diamonds.” – Thomas Carlyle

“You have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light” – Kobe Bryant

“Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.” – Edgar Allan Poe

“No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it.” – Dick Cheney

“The function of socialism is to raise suffering to a higher level.” – Norman Mailer

“Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.” – Will Rogers

“Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.” – Ronald Reagan

“If your work is so smart that only smart people get it, it’s not that smart.” – Chris Rock

“I don’t play small. You have to go out and play with what you have. I admit I used to want to be tall. But I made it in high school, college, and now the pros. So it doesn’t matter.” – Spud Webb

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” – Satchel Paige

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” – Abraham Lincoln

“It is myopic to base sweeping change on the narrow experience of a few years.” – Antonin Scalia

“The older I get, the better I used to be.” – John McEnroe

“Software is eating the world, but AI is going to eat software.” – Jensen Huang, May 2017

“We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.” – George Washington

“I don’t look to jump over seven-foot bars; I look around for one-foot bars that I can step over.” – Warren Buffett

“No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true” – John Steinbeck

“Truth is not determined by a majority vote.” – Pope Benedict XVI

“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Wilderness is impersonal. It does not care whether you live or die. It does not care how much you love it.” – Lee Whittlesey

“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.” – Daniel Kahneman

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” – Michelangelo

“I’ve never seen the consumer, or the Americans just generally, more fearful than this.” Warren Buffett, March 9, 2009

“A written constitution is needed to protect values against prevailing wisdom.” – Antonin Scalia

“It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

“I tend to approach bad news as a problem that can be worked through and solved, something I have control over rather than something happening to me.” – Robert Iger

“If you can’t explain it to a six-year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” – Albert Einstein

“You can disagree without being disagreeable.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” – William Jennings Bryan

“Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe

“We live in a world defined by the rapid pace of technological change.” – Jerome Powell

“Don’t be afraid of failing. Don’t be afraid of making an ass of yourself. I do it all the time—and look what I got.” – William Shatner

“Youth is like having a big plate of candy.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“If my answers frighten you, then you should cease asking scary questions.” – Jules Winnfield, Pulp Fiction

“Even if you don’t have the authorities – and frankly I didn’t have the authorities for anything – if you take charge, people will follow.” – Hank Paulson

“If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.” – Abraham Maslow

“Know what you are talking about.” – Pope John Paul II

“Don’t fight the problem, decide it.” – George C. Marshall

“I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.” – Bill Gates

“Birds scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth, but sadly we don’t speak bird.” – Kurt Cobain

“Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.” – Margaret Thatcher

“The most confident critics are generally those who know the least about the matter criticized.” – Ulysses S. Grant

“The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.” – John Madden

“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” – Tom Clancy

“All taxes discourage something. Why not discourage bad things like pollution rather than good things like working?” – Lawrence Summers

“Don’t hope. Hope is for people who aren’t prepared.” – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

“Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves.” – Peter Lynch

“The best kept secret in the investing world: Almost nothing turns out as expected.” – Harry Browne

“Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“Lots of companies don’t succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future.” – Larry Page

“Endure what is difficult to endure and to suffer what is difficult to suffer.” – Hirohito

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” – Charles Dickens

“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ.” – Warren Buffett

“How you finish, is what they will remember.” – Unknown

“Work takes on new meaning when you feel you are pointed in the right direction. Otherwise, it’s just a job, and life is too short for that.” – Tim Cook

“Success is having to worry about every damn thing in the world, except money.” – Johnny Cash

“Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.” – Dwight Eisenhower

“Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves—and by which they are willing to be judged.” – Fred Smith

“In general people put too much faith in the rich, the famous, the politicians, and not enough faith in themselves.” – Bono

“When stocks are rising for no better reason than that they have risen, the greater fool is at work.” – Seth Klarman

“The world has been very well served with low tariffs and free trade.” – Darren Woods

“The sports page records people’s accomplishments, the front page usually records nothing, but man’s failures.” – Barbara Walters

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” – Alan Kay

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” – Amelia Earhart

“Volatility is a welcome creator of opportunity.” – Seth Klarman

“The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.”  – Benjamin Disraeli

“When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks.” – Bill Walton

“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” – Edmund Hillary

“Never make excuses. Your friends don’t need them and your foes won’t believe them.” – John Wooden

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.” – Milton Friedman

“Tell me a musician who’s got rich off digital sales. Apple’s doing pretty good though, right?” – Prince

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” – Steve Jobs

“Government has no wealth, and when a politician promises to give you something for nothing, he must first confiscate that wealth from you” – John Wayne

“Common sense is seeing things as they are; and doing things as they ought to be.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe

“The greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory” ― Napoleon Bonaparte

“Saying that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.” – Edward Snowden

“A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.” – Jack Dempsey

“We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.” – Crazy Horse

“It is in knowledge that man has found his greatness and his happiness.” – James Smithson

“The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.” – Leon Trotsky

“Don’t give up at half time. Concentrate on winning the second half.” – Paul Bear Bryant

“Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.” – Thurgood Marshall

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.” – Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

“Maintain a firm grasp of the obvious at all times.” – Jeff Bezos

“No matter who you are, the grass is never greener on the other side.” – Venus Williams

“In business, people are judged on results. In Washington, people are measured by their ability to get reelected.” – Ross Perot

“Constantly seek criticism. A well thought out critique of whatever you’re doing is as valuable as gold.” – Elon Musk

“People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.” – Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.” – Jack Dorsey

“It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to.” – J.D. Salinger

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” – Adam Smith

“The brave may not live forever – But the cautious do not live at all.” – Richard Branson

“An emperor’s an entertainer, an empire a super-show.” – Nero

“There are two hundred million idiots, manipulated by a million intelligent men.” – Pablo Escobar

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Bela Karolyi

“I Didn’t Set Out to Beat the World; I Just Set Out to Do My Absolute Best.” – Al Oerter

“Scientists have proven that it’s impossible to long-jump 30 feet, but I don’t listen to that kind of talk.” – Carl Lewis

“In this building, it’s either kill or be killed. You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners.” – Louis Winthorpe III

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” – Milton Friedman

“Run faster, jump higher, reach farther, and you’ll always win!” – Jerry Garcia

“The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.” – Norman Schwarzkopf

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” – Robert Burns

“Fear is the most contagious disease you can imagine. It makes the virus look like a piker.” – Warren Buffett

“If you have someone equal in ability to me I will beat him every time because I will try harder.” – Pete Rose

“There are three things in the world that deserve no mercy; hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny.” – Frederick William Robertson

“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.” – Ian Fleming

“What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It’s just a different wolf.” – Alfred Hitchcock

“Talent is never enough. With few exceptions the best players are the hardest workers.” – Magic Johnson

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“Don’t think about the start of the race, think about the ending.” – Usain Bolt

“We’re using modern technology to revert to primitive kinds of human relations.” – Bill Clinton

“Capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.” – Leon Trotsky

“He who moulds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Common sense is very uncommon.” – Horace Greeley

“We will keep at it until we are confident the job is done.”– Jerome Powell, 8/26/22

“Forget about style; worry about results.” – Bobby Orr

“Virtual reality, all the A.I. work we do, all the robotics work we do – we’re as close to realizing science fiction as it gets.” – Jensen Huang

“What we learn from history is that people don’t learn from history.” – Warren Buffett

“Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” – Malcolm Gladwell

“Obsolescence is the very hallmark of progress.” – Henry Ford II

“Do right and risk the consequences.” – Sam Houston

“The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore.” – Ferdinand Magellan

“The line between failure and success is so fine… that we are often on the line and do not know it.” -Elbert Hubbard

“America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.” – George W. Bush

“If you can make it through the night, there’s a brighter day.” – Tupac Shakur

“All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.” – William Bradford

“I don’t carry the burden of the past or the madness of the future. I live in the present.” – Narendra Modi

“It’s good to be in something from the ground floor. I came too late for that and I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.” – Tony Soprano

“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?” – William Golding. Lord of the Flies

“Winners train, losers complain. Give me twelve players that want to win, and they will find a way to win.” – Red Auerbach

“Show me a man with a million dollars, and I’ll show you a million guys trying to take it away from him.” – Mickey Rooney

“Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“I putt like I did when I was a kid. When you’re a kid, you’re not scared of anything.” – Arnold Palmer

“We can no longer afford to be second best. I want people all over the world to look to the United States again” – John F Kennedy

“What is time? Swiss manufacture it, French hoard it, Italians squander it, Americans say it is money. Hindus say it does not exist. Know what I say? I say time is a crook.” – Truman Capote

“For civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized.” – Rod Serling

“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity—much less dissent.” – Gore Vidal

“Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers.” – Janis Joplin

“I believe in everything until it’s disproved.” – John Lennon

“At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable.”– Christopher Reeve

“Age needs the company of youth.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” – A.A. Milne

“Nothing’s worse than a guy who loses fair and square and then whines about it.” – Evel Knievel

“If machines are going to take jobs away from the worker, then he will need to find something else to do. Perhaps he’ll get back to the soil. But we must care for him during the period of change. We must keep him away from red literature, red ruses; we must see that his mind remains healthy.” – Al Capone

“Aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged ultimately leads to war.” – John F Kennedy, 10/22/1962

“If you are first you are first. If you are second, you are nothing.” – Pele

“If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.” – Thomas Watson, IBM CEO 1914 – 1956

“Wanting alone doesn’t get anything done.” – Bobby Knight

“Well it’s kind of the last great American adventure, you know what I mean? Human beings need a little danger, a little uncertainty, a little adventure in their lives and our society frowns upon that.” – Phil Lesh

“Prudent investors are now buying stocks in huge quantities and will profit handsomely when this hysteria is over.” – John J. Raskob, 10/29/1929

“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.” – Otto von Bismarck

“Reality is an undefeated champion.” – Jeff Bezos

“The liabilities are always 100 percent good. It’s the assets you have to worry about.” – Charlie Munger

“The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.” – John F. Kennedy

“Commonplaces never become tiresome. It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative.” – Norman Rockwell

“It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.” ‒ H. Norman Schwarzkopf

“No one ever accomplishes your dreams for you” – Nadia Comaneci

“The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.” – St Augustine

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” – Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“It is a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one’s safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.” – Alan Shepard

“And like most other overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making.” – Sam Walton

“Nobody owes nobody nothing.” – Rocky Balboa

“Of course it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.” – Margaret Thatcher

“If you place your head in a lion’s mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.” – Agatha Christie

“I think I’ve discovered the secret of life — you just hang around until you get used to it.” – Charles Schultz

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens” – Jimi Hendrix

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” – C.S. Lewis

“Here’s your law: If a company, can’t explain, in one sentence, what it does… it’s illegal.” – Lewis Black

“You never bet on the end of the world, that only happens once, and the odds of something that happens once in an eternity are pretty long.” – Art Cashin

“If I read as many books as most men do, I would be as dull-witted as they are.” – Thomas Hobbes

“It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes.” – Joseph Stalin

“I’ve got an old saying: at the poker table, you’ve got to pay to learn. You can talk all you want, but you’ve got to get in the game.” – Steve Cohen

“Having faith is believing in something you just know ain’t true.”– Mark Twain

“I certainly wouldn’t invest in the stock market. I never believed in it. Most people lose money because of the emotional difficulty involved.” – Bernie Madoff

“You only live once, and the way I live, once is enough.” – Frank Sinatra

“In general, things either work out or they don’t, and if they don’t, you figure out something else, a plan B.” – Dick Van Dyke

“Abnormally good or abnormally bad conditions do not last forever.” – Benjamin Graham

“If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance.” – Orville Wright

“Being very early and being wrong look exactly the same 99% of the time.” – Seth Klarman

“It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” – John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

“We’re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.” – Rod Serling

“When people are intimidated about having their own opinions, oppression is at hand.” – Jimmy Carter

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” – Isaac Asimov

“The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.” – Peter Thiel

“There is no compression algorithm for experience.” – Andy Jassy

“I took a negative and I turned it into a positive.” – Garo Yepremian

“Mothers are often fondest of the child which has caused them the greatest pain.” ― Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

“The most perceptive character in a play is the fool, because the man who wishes to seem simple cannot possibly be a simpleton.” ― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“You may delay, but time will not.” – Benjamin Franklin Saavedra, Don Quixote

“In America, the impossible is what we do best.” – Donald J. Trump

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.” – Francis Bacon

“The more people who own little businesses of their own, the safer our country will be, and the better off its cities and towns; for the people who have a stake in their country and their community are its best citizens.” – John Hancock

“One of the most helpful things that anybody can learn is to give up trying to catch the last eighth—or the first. These two are the most expensive eighths in the world.” –  Edwin Lefèvre, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” – Mozart

“Discrepancies – and hence opportunities – in securities originate most often when events move faster than quotations.” – Benjamin Graham

“The most important lesson an investor can learn is to be dispassionate when confronted by unexpected and unfavorable outcomes.” – Peter Bernstein

“As has been often noted but seldom heeded, selling during a selling panic is rarely an effective strategy.” – Bill Miller

“I think that people just have this core desire to express who they are. And I think that’s always existed.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“The reason we are so excited about the AI opportunity is we know we can drive extraordinary use cases because the cost of actually using it is going to keep coming down.” – Sundar Pichai

“Status quo, you know, is Latin for ‘the mess we’re in.’” – Ronald Reagan

“To become good at anything you have to know how to apply basic principles. To become great at it, you have to know when to violate those principles.” – Garry Kasparov

“Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it.” – René Descartes

“Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.” – Ray Kurzweil

“With regard to matters requiring thought: the less people know and understand about them, the more positively they attempt to argue concerning them.” – Galileo

“We all go through a challenge in life because without a challenge there’d be no reason to keep going toward your future.” – Mark Twain

“There are no rules here — we’re trying to accomplish something.” – Thomas Edison

“High expectations are the key to everything.” – Sam Walton

“You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.” – David Foster Wallace

“I never look at where a candidate has gone to school. Never!” – Warren Buffett

“What you’re thinking is what you’re becoming.” – Muhammad Ali

“Greatness comes from character, and character is not formed out of smart people, it’s formed out of people who suffered.” – Jensen Huang

“I really try to put myself in uncomfortable situations. Complacency is my enemy.” – Trent Reznor

“Everybody deserves a fresh start every once in a while.” – Bugsy Siegel

“We so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” – Alexander Graham Bell

“I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness.” – Winston Churchill

“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent.” – Stanley Kubrick

“Everybody in the world is a long-term investor until the market goes down.” – Peter Lynch

Twenty-five years ago, the fun of the Dot Com boom came to an end.  Roughly beginning in December 1994 with the release of the first internet browser, Netscape, the Nasdaq would go on to rally just under 600% through the closing high set on March 10, 2000. After that high, the index declined with persistent losses as it didn’t find a bottom until over two and a half years later in October 2002. By then, the index was down 77.8% from its high, and it wasn’t until 2015 that the Nasdaq eventually reclaimed those prior highs. Fast forward to today, even though the Nasdaq has once again pulled back from its most recent highs, the index is now up 250% since that Dot Com peak and is up almost 1,500% since the 2002 low.

A quarter century later, the Nasdaq is once again in the midst of a new technical revolution with the emergence of AI. Additionally, while on March 10, 2000, the Nasdaq hadn’t quite started to roll over, today it is in a significant drawdown having fallen 13% from the December 16 high.  In the chart below, we show the drawdowns in the Nasdaq in the year after the 2000 high versus the current drawdown so far since the December peak.  As shown, the pullback off of the Dot Com high was much more rapid that what has been seen lately.  For the comparable number of trading days, the Nasdaq was already closing in on a 40% decline in 2000 versus only a 13% drop currently.  Additionally, this latest drop has seen the Nasdaq actually trade sideways for about a month before things really started to fall off a cliff in the past couple of weeks.

While the move off of the recent high doesn’t exactly line up with the Dot Com era, using a different starting point shows a much greater correlation. Below we show the performance of the Nasdaq in the three and five years following the releases of Netscape and ChatGPT.  As shown, the two lines have tracked one another remarkably well including this latest pullback.