Top 17 Quotes & Sayings by David Dreman

Experience teaches us that when "everyone" comes to the same conclusion, that conclusion is just about always wrong.

One of the big problems with growth investing is that we can't estimate earnings very well. I really want to buy growth at value prices. I always look at trailing earnings when I judge stocks.

Demanding immediate success invariably leads to playing the fads or fashions currently performing well rather than investing on a solid basis. A course of investment, once charted, should be given time to work out. Patience is a crucial but rare investment commodity.

Psychology is probably the most important factor in the market - and one that is least understood.

I buy stocks when they are battered. I am strict with my discipline. I always buy stocks with low price-earnings ratios, low price-to-book value ratios and higher-than-average yield. Academic studies have shown that a strategy of buying out-of-favor stocks with low P/E, price-to-book and price-to-cash flow ratios outperforms the market pretty consistently over long periods of time.

Bank One has got one of the best credit card divisions, ... The perception of investors is that financial services stocks are affected by interest rates and they're not.

I paraphrase Lord Rothschild: ‘The time to buy is when there's blood on the streets.'

Investors repeatedly jump ship on a good strategy just because it hasn't worked so well lately, and, almost invariably, abandon it at precisely the wrong time.

Nobody beats the market, they say. Except for those of those of us who do.

If you have good stocks and you really know them, you'll make money if you're patient over three years or more.

A good starting point [in the measurement of investment risk] is the preservation and enhancement of your purchasing power in real terms.

A realistic definition of risk recognizes the potential loss of capital through inflation and taxes, and would include at least the following two factors: The probability that the investment you chose will preserve your capital over the time you intend to invest your funds. The probability the investments you select will outperform alternative investments for this period.

Patience is a crucial but rare investment commodity.

History constantly reminds us that in an uncertain world there is no visibility of prospects. Future earnings cannot be predicted with accuracy.

We invest in undervalued companies that exhibit strong fundamentals, above-market dividend yields and historic earnings growth, which our analysis indicates will persist. Our strategy is to own strong, fundamentally sound companies and to avoid speculative stocks or potential bankruptcies.

Favored stocks underperform the market, while out-of-favor companies outperform the market, but the reappraisal often happens slowly, even glacially.

Analysts have always been overly optimistic.