Donald Yacktman Quotes

110 Donald Yacktman Quotes (Don Yacktman, Yacktman Asset Management, Stephen Yacktman)

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[In February 1993.] Too many people buy stories or trends - they don't buy businesses.
Donald Yacktman

[In June 1993.] We buy stocks that are like beach balls pushed under the water.
Donald Yacktman

[In October 1993.] We don’t think that businesses that have been consistently profitable for 25 or 30 years suddenly go from the penthouse to the outhouse.
Donald Yacktman

[In August 1995.] The more logical an investing strategy, the more likely it is to succeed.
Donald Yacktman

[In August 1995.] I look for good businesses run by people who are oriented toward shareholders and whose stock can be bought relatively cheaply.
Donald Yacktman

[In March 1998.] If you buy stocks at huge discounts to value, it doesn’t matter what the market does.
Donald Yacktman

[In January 2000.] History is replete with momentum investors who got killed on the downside.
Donald Yacktman

[In July 2002.] We are trying to buy better-than-average companies at below-average prices.
Donald Yacktman

[In 2004.] Why would you want to put money in your 50th-best investment?
Donald Yacktman

[In August 2004.] At the end of the day, the difference between being stubborn and being principled is being right.
Donald Yacktman



[In March 2011.] No.1 is protecting our client’s money. We make an investment with the intention of making money.
Donald Yacktman

[In March 2011.] Recessions are a result of inventory corrections. It is easy to correct toothpaste inventories. It is very difficult to correct housing-inventory problems…
Donald Yacktman

[In March 2011.] A value trap, to me, is a grubby business not bought cheaply enough.
Donald Yacktman

This passion for investing is like fire in the belly. Either you have it or you don’t.
Donald Yacktman

[In October 1986 at the age of 45 on value and growth style investing.] The problem was that the growth-oriented investors often forgot that there is a price beyond which they should not pay, and the value players, while they bought assets cheaply, often ended up with poor businesses and dull stocks.
Donald Yacktman

[In October 1986.] I get a nosebleed if the P/E is much higher than 10.
Donald Yacktman

[In October 1986.] The idea of living on the edge, of life in the fast lane, just doesn't appeal to me.
Donald Yacktman

[In May 1990.] I’m not buying chips in a casino.
Donald Yacktman

[In May 1990.] One: It has to be fundamentally a good business. Two: It must be run by shareholder-oriented management. Three: It has to have a relatively low purchase price.
Donald Yacktman

[In May 1990.] My horizon time is about 10 years. I refuse to call the market, inflation, interest rates, the economic situation. It’s best to concentrate on value.
Donald Yacktman



[In May 1990.] I’m prepared to wait for the market to value them at their correct price.
Donald Yacktman

[In August 1990.] If you can't find bargains in this environment, you aren't trying… I'm down to about one tenth of 1% in cash.
Donald Yacktman

[In August 1990.] I feel totally comfortable being 100% invested these days. People probably think I'm nuts.
Donald Yacktman

[In December 1991.] I’m not buying for today or tomorrow. This is a marathon.
Donald Yacktman

[In February 1993 on avoiding the siren’s song of a value trap.] Sometimes you have to be like Ulysses, strapped to the mast.
Donald Yacktman

[In October 1993 on recent price drops.] Given us a chance to invest our cash at prices I never thought we’d see. We now own a package of businesses that earns three times as much as the S&P 500 stocks do when you compare operating earnings to assets. But our stocks sell at 12 times estimated 1993 earnings versus 18 times for the S&P. That combination does well over time.
Donald Yacktman

[In October 1993 on companies like Philip Morris, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sara Lee.] Wall Street has the very myopic view that the profitability of these companies has been permanently destroyed. We don’t think that businesses that have been consistently profitable for 25 or 30 years suddenly go from the penthouse to the outhouse. We’re taking the very long view.
Donald Yacktman

[In October 1993]We’re not momentum guys.
Donald Yacktman

[In September 1994.] We're often viewed as contrarians. Value investors tend to be that way because we're buying against the consensus or the momentum.
Donald Yacktman

[In September 1994.] Stocks come down in price for one of three reasons. Either the market comes down and drags a lot of things with it; or there's a particular psychological cloud hanging over that business, like the threat of a lawsuit or adverse legislation, or the company has a problem that is short-term in nature but the market perceives it as eternal. The average large-company stock will fluctuate almost 50% from its 52-week low to high year after year.
Donald Yacktman



[In September 1994 on ‘Fruit of the Loom.’] Fruit of the Loom has a low-cost production position and a dominant marketshare, so you'd have to view that situation as more temporary than permanent. I just don't think people are going to stop wearing underwear and T-shirts.
Donald Yacktman

[In September 1994.] You can charge a premium price for a premium product. But there's a limit…
Donald Yacktman

[In October 1994.] I feel like Silky Sullivan, the horse that always came from 20 lengths back to win the race.
Donald Yacktman

[In October 1994.] We look at one stock at a time. A lot of people do the macro stuff. We don't.
Donald Yacktman

[In March 1995.] I want companies that aren’t capital-intensive, that earn high rates of return from their tangible assets and whose managers are good allocators of capital. And then, we wait for them to be battered and out of favor.
Donald Yacktman

[In August 1995 at the age of 53.] I don’t think somebody suddenly goes from being a genius to being an idiot.
Donald Yacktman

[In August 1995.] Buy big, growing, boring companies when they’re beaten down in price and sell them when prices approach peak valuations.
Donald Yacktman

[In August 1995.] There are generally two types of investors. You have growth-stock buyers and you have value buyers. I felt that growth-stock buyers tended to buy better businesses but paid too much for them. The value investors tended to buy poor-quality lousy businesses, but because they bought and sold at good prices they made money, too. My conclusion: Wasn’t there something in between? Something that would take into account owning good businesses but buying them as undervalued stocks?
Donald Yacktman

[In August 1995.] Staying with the most profitable businesses is the way to go.
Donald Yacktman

[In August 1995.] If you added up profits of the airline industry every year since Kitty Hawk, the result would be a negative number. It’s a lousy business. The same with hotels.
Donald Yacktman



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