The Little Book of Common Sense Investing

The moral of the story, then, is that successful investing is about owning businesses and reaping the huge rewards provided by the dividends and earnings growth of our nations—and, for that matter, the world’s—corporations.

Beating the market is a zero-sum game.

The beauty of the index fund lies not only in its low expenses, but in its elimination of all those tempting fund choices that promise so much and deliver so little.

Actively managed equity mutual funds as a group also provide, as common sense tells you, a gross return equal to the average return of the market.

In the long run, stock market returns are created by real investment returns earned by real businesses—the annual dividend yield on publicly held U.S. corporations, plus their subsequent rate of earnings growth.

The two greatest enemies of the equity fund investor are expenses and emotions.

Invest in low-turnover, passively managed index funds.

All investors want good results from their investments, and are entitled to them to the extent that they are actually obtainable.

the true investor ... will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operating results of his companies.

the beauty of such a cap-weighted index is that it automatically adjusts to changing stock prices and never has to buy and sell stocks for that reason.