Irving Kahn

I’m a passionate reader. That’s why being an investor is the perfect job for me
To be a successful investor learning is essential
Net-net stocks were easy to find in the early days. All I had to do was to look over annual reports and study balance sheets. I tried to find companies that had dependable assets such as cash, land, and real properties. Then I made sure they didn’t have too much debt and had decent prospects. If these stocks traded at below their net working capital, then I would be interested in buying them.
You must have the discipline and temperament to resist your impulses. Human beings have precisely the wrong instincts when it comes to the markets. If you recognize this, you can resist the urge to buy into a rally and sell into a decline. It’s also helpful to remember the power of compounding. You don’t need to stretch for returns to grow your capital over the course of your life
No one knows when the tide will turn. Those who are leveraged, trade short-term and have bought at a high prices will be exposed to permanent loss of capital. I prefer to be slow and steady. I study companies and think about what they might return over, say, four or five years. If a stock goes down, I have time to weather the storm, maybe buy more at the lower price. If my arguments for the investment haven’t changed, then I should like the stock even more when it goes down
We basically look for value where others have missed it. Our ideas have to be different from the prevailing views of the market. When investors flee, we look for reasonable purchases that will be fruitful over many years
Our goal has always been to seek reasonable returns over a very long period of time. I don’t know why anyone would look at a short time horizon. In my life, I invested over decades. Looking for short-term gains doesn’t aid this process
I’ve seen a lot of recoveries. I saw crash, recovery, World War II. A lot of economic decline and recovery. What’s different about this time is the huge amount of quote-unquote information. So many people watch financial TV—at bars, in the barber shop. This superfluity of information, all this static in the air
I don’t watch [the stock market every day], because I’m not a trader
The public is spellbound by daily price moves. Less noticed are long-term economic changes that ultimately set future prices
If the art of investing were actually easy, or quickly achieved, no one would be in the lower or middle classes
I stick to the 20 odd stocks that I hold
You don’t have to be fully invested all the time. Have patience, keep your standards
You gain much more by slow investing and concentrating on what you know, than on fast investing, which is nothing more than gambling
The Depression taught me what frugality means and the importance of not losing money (never lose money)
This may surprise you, but there were a large number of valuable buys during the Depression
Prices are continuously molded by fears, hopes, and unreliable estimates, capital is always at risk unless you buy better than average values
Security prices are as volatile as ocean waves – they range from calm to stormy
[Always] know much more about the stock I’m buying than the man who’s selling does
Real investors should never feel bearish because the time to buy value is when markets go down
You didn’t have to be very smart to find value. All you needed was the right investment model
Don’t depend on recent or current figures to forecast future prices; remember that many others knew them before you did
Investors must remember that their first job is to preserve their capital. After they’ve dealt with that, they can approach the second job, seeking a return on that capital
I feel that people should learn to be optimistic because life goes on, and sometimes favorable surprises come out of the blue
I’m at the stage in life where I get a lot of pleasure out of finding a cheap stock
It is very important to have a widespread curiosity about life

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