One of my most treasured books is, Classics; An Investor’s Anthology, which was edited by Charles D. Ellis with James Vertin. It was published by The Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts, the forerunner of today’s CFA Institute. It’s a compilation of investment writings, and it’s arranged chronologically. So, for example, A Proposed Definition of Investment, by Ben Graham and David Dodd (1934), is before Warren Buffett’s Observation on Performance (1965.)

One of the writings is from Gary B. Helms, who wrote, Toward Bridging the Gap: Capital Market Theory and Money Management via Codification of the Conventional Wisdom. It’s a delightful collection of investment sayings and was originally published in The Financial Analysts Journal in 1978.

My former employer allowed me to author a blog called Obvious Insights, which featured a weekly recap and outlook piece, along with whatever else I wanted to talk about. One of my favorite pieces was one where I excerpted some of what I thought were the better nuggets from Gary’s piece. Today’s technology allowed Gary to pick up on the publication, and he sent me a kind electronic note. Well, that employer has since been acquired by a firm that is…shall we say..not an early adopter of…well–I don’t think–anything, including social media, so you won’t be able to find that blog posting on the net, although surely the NSA could come up with it.

Since I had highlighted (maybe 10% of those in the article) my favorite bits of conventional wisdom, I reproduce the original blog post below, as best I can. I hope you enjoy it.

  • No tree grows to the sky.
  • Sell your losers and let your winners run.
  • Never say never.
  • Never say die.
  • Neve confuse brilliance with a bull market.
  • More stocks double than go to zero.
  • All generalizations are false, including this one.
  • In a bull market, be bullish.
  • The bottom is always 10 per cent below your worst case expectation.
  • There are no customers’ yachts.
  • Risk is what’s left over after the bad news hits.
  • The first word in analyst is anal.
  • If you know what’s going on, you don’t have to know what’s going on to know what’s going on.
  • Beauty is only skin deep, but in many cases, that’s deep enough.
  • The budget will not be balanced in your lifetime.
  • You can’t kiss all the girls.
  • Bulls make money and bears make money, but pigs get swine flu.
  • Ten doubles will make one million dollars out of one thousand.
  • A lot of things aren’t worth knowing.
  • Cyclic stocks should be bought when their multiples are high and sold when their multiples are low.
  • Growth will bail you out—if you live long enough.
  • You will lose most 50-50 bets.
  • Every time a trade is made, somebody was wrong.
  • Two things cause a stock to move—the expected and the unexpected.
  • There are no atheists in foxholes nor conservatives when the subsidies are being passed out.
  • You drink too much coffee.
  • Shift into neutral when idling.
  • Sell down to your sleeping point.
  • The stock doesn’t know you own it.
  • You can’t spend relative performance.
  • Be long term but watch the ticks.
  • Too many cooks spoil a broth.
  • A portfolio that goes down 50 per cent and comes back 50 per cent is still down 25 per cent.
  • Never average down.
  • There are no one-decision stocks.
  • Never own it if the corporate title includes the words Universal, Global, or Intergalactic.
  • The market will fluctuate.
  • About half the people in your shop are pulling their weight.
  • Miss at least one meeting a day.
  • Bad as it is, there are some people who’d like your job.
  • Waste time only with people you like.
  • There are no defensive stocks.
  • He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a wise man.
  • To err is human, to hedge divine.
  • The trouble with statistical analysis is that the first seven kings of England named Henry had an average of 1.3 wives.
  • A statesman is a dead politician.
  • Price is a fundamental—it’s the only thing you know for sure about a stock.
  • The pen is mightier than the pencil.
  • Buy on the rumor, sell on the news.
  • Options aren’t new, since Esau sold one and had the position called away.
  • It the idea is right, eighths and quarters won’t matter.