Markets are governed by doubt rather than conviction, by fear more than forecast, by memories of last time and not foreknowledge of next time. The level of stock prices does not mean that investors know, it means they do not know. Faced with the perplexities and uncertainties of the modern world, market values will fluctuate more widely than will seem reasonable in the light of after-events.
Chairman's speech to the 1938 National Mutual Insurance company annual meeting - JM Keynes
With reference to short-sighted views of speculators -
This behavior is not the outcome of a wrong-headed propensity. It is the inevitable results of an investment market organized along the lines described. For it is not sensible to pay 25 for an investment of which you believe the prospective yield to justify a value of 30, if you believe that the market will value it at 20 three months hence.
- from The General Theory
As time goes on, I get more and more convinced that the right method in investment is to put fairly large sums into enterprises which one thinks one knows something about and in the management of which one thoroughly believes.
- Keynes as a value investor
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