Business

Human beings have a real tendency to overreact on the upside and the downside. We are not rational investors. I do not believe that people make rational financial decisions! If you study financial decision-making you will find that human beings are irrational in a very predictable manner.

Value investor and niece of legendary investor John Templeton

We tend to see two scenarios that come up time and time again. The first and most common scenario is that security prices become inefficient or show large departures from intrinsic value when there are few investors paying attention to the company. The second is a crisis situation. Uncle John always had a desk-plate in his office that said 'trouble is opportunity' and that's very much how we see the markets.

Value investor and niece of legendary investor John Templeton

I'm very old-fashioned in the sense that I still feel you need a strong manufacturing sector in your economy. I was saying that in the late 1970's and early 80's and people just laughed at me. I think my day is about to turn.

For every example I could give you of regulations causing problems, I could give you two of regulations creating opportunities. I think this notion that regulation is causing problems is a real red herring.

It's clear to me that small businesses, particularly micro-enterprises, have been responsible for the majority of the gross job creation in the last five years… particularly through the recession.

There are a handful of families that own a very substantial degree of the economy including several companies on the stock exchange... The positive effect is through stabilising- it's very difficult for speculators to short stock here or to play tricks on the exchanges... there are simply not enough shares in free-float to do that.

Mathematician & Topologist, Solved the 4-Dimensional Poincaré Conjecture

Warren Buffet has only bought one business outside the USA and that's in Israel... During the due-diligence process, Hezbollah landed rockets in the car park of the main factory he was buying! The factory owners said to Buffet that they would totally understand if he wanted to postpone the due-diligence if he perceives a risk and he said, '...as far as I'm concerned any business that's up and running within an hour of having mortars land in their car park is a pretty resilient company...'

Mathematician & Topologist, Solved the 4-Dimensional Poincaré Conjecture

What's remarkable about Israel's economy is that in the last few years we have situations which, in any other country, would have been totally disruptive. In the last couple of months alone we have seen literally hundreds of missiles and mortars fired at us from one of our neighbours... The incredible thing is that none of these threats have a measurable impact on our economy!

Mathematician & Topologist, Solved the 4-Dimensional Poincaré Conjecture

An increasingly number of companies see their brand as the platform for running their business. The brand creates an identity for the product and/or company in the marketplace. It requires the company to think deeply about its mission, vision, and values. The company has to work hard at developing the image that it wants customers to have of the offering. The brand must not only convince prospective customers and draw them to the brand but also be deeply believed in by the employees and other stakeholders of the company.

Father of Modern Marketing & Prolific Management Author

It's clear to me that small businesses, particularly micro-enterprises, have been responsible for the majority of the gross job creation in the last five years... particularly through the recession....

The most common is deferring action and getting stuck in paralysis... The second most common is finance... Investing too much in unproven concepts for example. People can, and should, start their businesses as micro-enterprises to test their concepts and reduce risks.

Author of "The $100 Startup" and lifestyle design expert

I think it's about usefulness! People talk of 'following your passion' but there are plenty of things people are passionate about that nobody will pay them money for, so you can't just tell someone to just follow their passion. The missing piece? usefulness... We say the magic formula is: Passion + Usefulness = Success.

Author of "The $100 Startup" and lifestyle design expert

More money has been lost on the mismeasurement of risk than not having risk management at all. The battle is not won through being attuned to risk control. If your measurement of risk is completely wrong, it could be worse than having nothing in place.

Author of Market Wizards & Hedge Fund Expert

If you asked most people to categorise good trades and bad trades, you would find the answers to be quite simple… If it makes money it's a good trade, and if it loses money, it's a bad trade. That's not true at all… There's a very simple test to see whether something was a good or bad trade. You have to ask the question: 'If I was faced with the exact same information and circumstances again, would I still make the same trade?'. If the answer is yes, then it was not a bad trade.

Author of Market Wizards & Hedge Fund Expert

The diversity of strategies people use is truly remarkable, I saw people using completely different strategies to the degree that if I had set out to invent 15 different strategies for a fictional work…. I couldn't have made the strategies more different to the ones I saw in real life! This illustrates a point I have made in all my works insofar as there really is no 'holy grail' or single style that is most effective.

Author of Market Wizards & Hedge Fund Expert

You may have gone to the best business in the world and learned that the three most important things in real estate are location, location, location- but it's just not true! It's relationship, relationship, relationship.