Bill Ruane Quotes
101 Bill Ruane Quotes (William J Ruane; Sequoia Fund, Ruane Cunniff & Goldfarb, Richard T Cunniff, Robert D Goldfarb, Ruane, Cunniff & Co.)
1 2 3
[In March 1972.] Every investment fashion, when carried to excess, has led to a painful correction.
Bill Ruane
[In October 1974.] One characteristic of dramatically bad markets is that they often follow dramatically good markets and tend to correct the excesses which existed previously.
Bill Ruane
[In August 1984.] Our biggest mistake is selling too early, but we will continue to do that.
Bill Ruane
[In October 1999 on the ‘new economy’ or internet stocks.] Ben Graham said to be careful of the good idea because it is apt to be terribly overdone.
Bill Ruane
[In December 1999.] We try to own common stocks of high quality companies with good earnings growth prospects… We try to buy these companies at prices we believe underestimate their real value.
Bill Ruane
[In December 1999.] Our investment approach is not in sync with current conditions, but we will not abandon proven standards just to be with the crowd.
Bill Ruane
[In December 1999.] We have never had any success in forecasting either Sequoia's or the stock market's short term performance. However, our sense of valuation has proven to be a good barometer over longer periods of time.
Bill Ruane
[In June 2000.] The recipe for delivering superior long-term performance requires equal parts of picking the right stocks and avoiding the wrong ones.
Bill Ruane
[In September 2000.] Value and growth are not two distinct categories of investments. Growth is merely one aspect of the value equation.
Bill Ruane
[In January 2001.] Nobody knows what the market will do.
Bill Ruane
[In January 2001 on margin loans.] You don't act rationally when you're investing borrowed money.
Bill Ruane
[In February 2004.] Over long periods of time, strong business performance translates into strong investment performance.
Bill Ruane
[In May 2005.] That’s one of the problems that we have today in the investment field. People think they have to be doing something when the prudent thing might be to not do anything.
Bill Ruane
[In May 2005.] You just never know when the opportunities will develop.
Bill Ruane
[In May 2005.] One of the things we try very hard to do is to buy a stock only when the company is right, the price is right, and we have real conviction about it.
Bill Ruane
[In 2005 on offering two rules of investment, borrowed from his old friend Warren Buffett.] Rule No. 1: Don't lose money. Rule No. 2: Don't forget Rule No. 1.
Bill Ruane
Thoughtful investing means three things: a small portfolio (20 stocks at most), low turnover and ‘eating your own cooking,’ meaning that the managers invest substantial personal money not just in the management company but in the funds themselves.
Bill Ruane
[Benjamin Graham] Wrote what we call the Bible, and Warren’s thinking updated it. Warren [Buffett] wrote the New Testament.
Bill Ruane
[On interviewing Paul Lountzis and talking about Paul’s newborn son Tyler who was born with a congenital heart defect.] Whatever Tyler’s heart surgery costs I/the firm will pay for everything. [Later the firm did pay for everything for the surgery with Bill Ruane true to his word. The surgery was a success at the infants age of 10 months and now is over 20 years of age.]
Bill Ruane
In this business you have the innovators, the imitators, and the swarming incompetents.
Bill Ruane
[In 1961 on being asked whether for a securities analyst to be good they must be based in New York.] I don’t think so. The best analyst I know lives in Omaha. [Warren Buffett.]
Bill Ruane
[In July 1971 on shunning the Nifty Fifty growth stocks.] It would have been easy to buy a broad representative list of high grade common stocks and have achieved a similar performance to that of the general market. However, we do not feel that you as shareholders selected us to be indiscriminate in our stock selections…
Bill Ruane
[In March 1972.] We would like to comment on the present tendency of managers of very large investment funds to buy ‘premier’ growth companies almost regardless of price. There is merit, undeniably, in sticking with good companies, but we believe there is real danger in totally ignoring the price factor. The market currently is awarding extremely high price/earnings ratios to both prime and secondary growth stocks despite the clear historical evidence that every investment fashion, when carried to excess, has led to a painful correction.
Bill Ruane
[In July 1972.] It would seem obvious that the buyers of Polaroid, Eastman Kodak and Cheesebrough at current prices expect not only above average growth, but growth with a great degree of certainty. This may well occur, but our approach to managing money is based upon achieving investment results with companies whose prices seem to offer a much more modest appraisal of what may or may not happen in the future.
Bill Ruane
[In January 1973.] In many ways the approach major institutions followed in 1972 of buying growth stocks at 30, 40, 50 and even 100 times earnings (Polaroid) reminds us of the foreign practice of hoarding gold. The relationship between intrinsic value and price is not as important as the sense that the investment will endure after all else is worthless…
Bill Ruane
[In January 1973 on Sequoia returning only 5.5% in 1972 versus the S&P 500 returning 19%.] Certain stockholders of Sequoia Fund were fortunate to have Mr. Buffett run their money in the past. In this regard 1972 made us feel like Mickey Rooney filling in for Wilt Chamberlain.
Bill Ruane
[In April 1973.] In many respects the stock market today resembles a cemetery mined by the enemy; many who simply came to pay their respects wound up as permanent residents. The average investor who ventured into stocks in the last four or five years with anything less than a competent guide has been seriously hurt.
Bill Ruane
[In July 1973 on Sequoia stocks falling 21% over the fiscal year to May despite the companies’ having strong earnings growth.] If one has any faith in the viability of the American economic system, and we do, the current price of admission is one of the biggest bargains since we entered the investment business twenty five years ago.
Bill Ruane
[In January 1974.] Today many stocks in our portfolios sell at four and five times earnings and in one or two instances even three times earnings. We believe stocks today are selling at the most attractive absolute basis since the last forties and early fifties…
Bill Ruane
[In January 1974.] We think the stock market is almost discounting the end of the capitalistic system, but we have more faith in the durability of our society.
Bill Ruane
[In January 1974 on the stock market decline.] We have been in this business close to 25 years and this decline is one of the most devastating we've ever seen.
Bill Ruane
[In October 1974.] One characteristic of dramatically bad markets is that they often follow dramatically good markets and tend to correct the excesses which existed previously. There is much evidence that this market has come a long way toward correcting such previous excesses. One need only point to the American Exchange where stocks which on average sold at 45 times earnings in 1968 now are valued at a norm closer to 3 times earnings… We believe our holdings represent striking values which, barring a world-wide collapse, will ultimately be borne out in price appreciation.
Bill Ruane
[In March 1975 on the fund rising 30.1% in the three months through to February 1975, whilst the S&P 500 rose 18.7%.] In the face of some of the worst business news in decades the market has staged a remarkable rally… Such changes prove once again the futility of attempting to forecast general market action based on near term economic trends… Today the market may be reflecting a more realistic appraisal of the situation which is that we are neither facing disaster nor are we out of the woods.
Bill Ruane
[In March 1976 after Sequoia rising 60.5% in 1975 versus the S&P 500 rising 37.2%.] The experience of the securities market and that of the Sequoia Fund in the last few years has pointed up the necessity of having only that portion of one's capital invested in common stocks which one can expect not to need for other purposes for a considerable period of time…
Bill Ruane
[In January 1977 on gaining 72.5% for 1976 versus S&P 500 returning 23.9%.] We are not as smart as the current results might indicate nor were we as dumb as we felt back in 1973 and 1974 when the stock market sent the prices of our companies to levels which appeared to us to predict the end of our society as we know it.
Bill Ruane
[In October 1981.] Anytime our stock gets to 12 times earnings, we start getting rid of it.
Bill Ruane
[In October 1981.] If there’s a fad going on, we’re probably not in it except, I suppose, when the market becomes faddish with things we bought a few years earlier.
Bill Ruane
[In August 1984.] It’s very, very difficult to compound money at more than 15% per year when you’re dealing with large aggregates of capital. Anybody with expectations above that will be disappointed.
Bill Ruane
[In November 1984.] We’d love to always be fully invested in stocks dramatically undervalued in relation to their relative business value. If we had four good ideas now we’d be fully invested.
Bill Ruane
[In November 1984.] We just felt that any company that’s got a brand like Heinz to be selling at such a modest P/E doesn’t make any sense to us.
Bill Ruane
1 2 3
Return from Bill Ruane Quotes to Quoteswise.com