Charles Dow Quotes

102 Charles Dow Quotes
(Charles Henry Dow, Dow Jones Index, Wall Street Journal Quotes)

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[In approximately 1896] Value is determined by the margin of safety over dividends, the size and tendency or earnings; the soundness of the balance sheet and of operating methods, and general prospects for the future. This sounds rather complicated, but is not especially difficult to work out.
Charles Dow

He must just sit on his stock, which is intrinsically below its value, until other people observe that it is selling too low and begin to buy it.
Charles Dow

Value will always work out in the course of time.
Charles Dow

The public, as a whole, buys at the wrong time and sells at the wrong time.
Charles Dow

Values are determined roughly by the earnings available for dividends.
Charles Dow

If people with either large or small capital would look upon trading in stocks as an attempt to get 12 percent per annum on their money instead of 50 percent weekly, they would come out a good deal better in the long run.
Charles Dow

Many people seem to think that if an operator is in Wall Street, he can tell what the market is going to do. Nothing is further from the fact.
Charles Dow

The operator who selects investment properties carefully and buys after the market has had general declines, and who exercises a good deal of patience both in waiting for the time to buy and for the time to sell – who, in short, treats his speculation as an investment, will be likely to make money in stocks as a rule.
Charles Dow

Wall Street is often full of people today who have been long of the market for a month, but who have made little or no money, because they have been scared out by rumors and by small relapses. The man who does not see the market escapes this.
Charles Dow

The operator should… take in a great stock of patience. He will see other stocks go up and his stock stand still. He will see and hear daily that something else is making riches for traders, but he must shut his ears to these statements, even if they are right as far as fluctuations go. He must just sit on his stock, which is intrinsically below its value, until other people observe that it is selling too low and begin to buy it.
Charles Dow



The best profits in the stock market are made by people who get long or short at extremes and stay for months or years before they take their profit.
Charles Dow

The business community has a tendency to go from one extreme to the other.
Charles Dow

To know values is to know the meaning of the market. And values, when applied to stocks, are determined in the end by the dividend yield.
Charles Dow

An investor who will study values and market conditions, and then exercise enough patience for six men will likely make money in stocks.
Charles Dow

It is always safer to assume that values determine prices in the long run. Values have nothing to do with current fluctuations. A worthless stock can go up 5 points just as easily as the best, but as a result of continuous fluctuations the good stock will gradually work up to its investment value.
Charles Dow

Dullness (in volume) following the peak of a bear market rally is a common danger sign.
Charles Dow

The maxim ‘buy cheap and sell dear’ is as old as speculation itself, but leaves unsolved the question of when a security or a commodity is cheap and when it is dear, and this is the vital point.
Charles Dow

If there were no exceptions, the keepers of bucket shops would all get rich.
Charles Dow

Daniel Drew [Died bankrupt in 1879] used to say, ‘Cut your losses short, but let your profits run.’ This was good preaching, but ‘Uncle Dan’ did not, in his later years, practice this rule, when it would have been better for him if he had.
Charles Dow

How many operators in looking over their books find a considerable number of small profits swept away by one large loss?
Charles Dow



Mr Jay Gould said his policy was to endeavor to foresee future conditions in a property and then, having made his commitments carefully, to exercise great patience in awaiting results.
Charles Dow

The present is always tending toward the future and there are always in existing conditions signals of danger or encouragement for those who read with care.
Charles Dow

When the price of a stock declines considerably, the small operator always fears that he has overlooked something of importance, and he is therefore tempted to sell instead of averaging his holdings.
Charles Dow

It is an old saying in Wall Street that the man who begins to speculate in stocks with the intention of making a fortune, usually goes broke, whereas the man who trades with a view of getting good interest on his money, sometimes gets rich.
Charles Dow

Money is made by conservative trading rather than by the effort to get large profits by taking large risks.
Charles Dow

Bull markets and bear markets run four and five years at a time.
Charles Dow

Stick to the stock bought until a fair profit or until there is good reason for deciding that the first estimate of value was wrong.
Charles Dow

Have money enough to see a decline through without becoming uneasy or over-burdened.
Charles Dow

In a bull market it is better to always work on the bull side; in a bear market, on the bear side.
Charles Dow

There are usually more rallies in a bear market than there are relapses in a bull market.
Charles Dow



Do not let success in making money… create a belief that a bolder policy will be wiser…
Charles Dow

The outside trader should not attempt to deal in more than two or three stocks at a time.
Charles Dow

Many people seem to thin that the change in prices in any one day is complete in itself and bears no relation to larger movements which may be under way. This is not so.
Charles Dow

If a stock advances ten points, it is very likely to have a relapse of four points or more.
Charles Dow

The best way of reading the market is to read from the standpoint of values.
Charles Dow

The market is not like a balloon plunging hither and thither in the wind.
Charles Dow

To know values is to comprehend the meaning of movements in the market.
Charles Dow

We believe that for the margin trader, and especially the trader who operates rather more largely than he ought on the margin that he has, stop orders are wise.
Charles Dow

The maxim ‘let your profits run, but cut your losses short’ has received the approval of most of the great stock operators. The authorship of the maxim has been credit to a dozen people, and most of them would have been willing to father it…
Charles Dow

The great fortunes in stocks have not usually been made by people who give stop [loss] orders.
Charles Dow



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