Jim Rogers Quotes

Commodities tend to zig when the equity markets zag.

Acknowledge the complexity of the world and resist the impression that you easily understand it. People are too quick to accept conventional wisdom, because it sounds basically true and it tends to be reinforced by both their peers and opinion leaders, many of whome have never looked at whether the facts support the received wisdom. It's a basic fact of life that many things "everybody knows" turn out to be wrong.

You will never get anywhere if you do not do your homework.

Bottoms in the investment world don't end with four-year lows; they end with 10- or 15-year lows.

One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is something to do... I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up... I wait for a situation that is like the proverbial "shooting fish in a barrel."

If everyone thinks one way, it is likely to be wrong. If you can figure out that it is wrong, you are likely to make a lot of money.

Diversification is something that stock brokers came up with to protect themselves, so they wouldn't get sued for making bad investment choices for clients. Henry Ford never diversified, Bill Gates didn't diversify. The way to get rich is to put your eggs in one basket, but watch that basket very carefully. And make sure you have the right basket.

The biggest public fallacy is that the market is always right. The market is nearly always wrong. I can assure you of that.

Most successful investors, in fact, do nothing most of the time.

I cannot invest the way I want the world to be; I have to invest the way the world is.

One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is something to do. Most people – not that I’m better than most people – always have to be playing; they always have to be doing something. They make a big play and say, “Boy, am I smart, I just tripled my money.” Then they rush out and have to do something else with that money. They can’t just sit there and wait for something new to develop

Buy low and sell high. It's pretty simple. The problem is knowing what's low and what's high.

If you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York City, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia.

If you want to make a lot of money, resist diversification.

The last leg of a bull market always ends in hysteria; the last leg of a bear market always ends in panic.

The price of a commodity will never go to zero. When you invest in commodities futures, you're not buying a piece of paper that says you own an intangible piece of company that can go bankrupt.

Following what everyone else is doing is rarely a way to get rich.

Tough times helped many commodities traders become lean and mean through consolidation, mergers and cost cutting. All that excess supply has been sopped up.

History shows that people who save and invest grown and prosper, and the others deteriorate and collapse.

Never act upon wishful thinking. Act without checking the facts, and chances are that you will be swept away along with the mob.

Historically, there has been a bull market in commodities every 20 or 30 years.

I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up. I do nothing in the meantime.

If anybody laughs at your idea, view it as a sign of potential success!

The basic skills of math, English and writing are not enough, ... You must develop a basic system of values to form and guide the use of these skills. The true test will not be what you learned in college, but how you used what you learned.

I haven't met a rich technician

You don't train for only the 100-meter dash and you don't practice only the excerpts. When I prepared for auditions, I spent most of my time each day on scales and exercises to be my best in basic musicianship, and only a half-hour or so on the actual excerpts I'd be playing.

It's a lot of fun finding a country that nobody knows about. The only thing better is finding a country everybody's bullish on and shorting it.

If you want to be lucky, do your homework.

Paper money is made of cotton, and I'm long cotton, by the way. One reason I'm long cotton is because Dr. Bernanke is out there running the printing presses as fast as he can.

There is no such thing as a paper loss. A paper loss is a very real loss.

My basic advise is don't lose money

Unfortunately politicians are not very sound people or they wouldn't be politicians.

The City of London and Wall Street are not going to be great places to be in the next two or three decades. It's going to be the people who produce real goods in charge – the farmers and the miners.

The most sensible skill that I can give to somebody born in 2003 is a perfect command of Mandarin.

Get inside information from the president and you will probably lose half of your money. If you get it from the chairman of the board, you will lose all of it.

You can no longer buy commodities at Merrill Lynch. My guess is many analysts and even executives are too young to know how profitable a hot commodities market can be. They will soon.

Lady Luck smiles on those who continue their efforts

Do not buy the hype from Wall St. and the press that stocks always go up. There are long periods when stocks do nothing and other investments are better.

I learned very early in my investing careers: I better not invest in what I want. I better invest in what's happening in the world. Otherwise I'll be broke - dead broke.

I don't think there is a sound UK bank now, at least, if there is one I don't know about it. The City of London is finished, the financial centre of the world is moving east. All the money is in Asia. Why would it go back to the West? You don't need London.

When things go wrong on a macroeconomic level, it's almost always this way. People find someone to blame, whether it's blacks, whites, Christians, Jews, Muslims-whoever.

The Federal Reserve was not founded to bail out Bear Stearns or a few hedge funds. It was founded to keep a stable currency and maintain its value.

Beware of all politicians everywhere. They excelled at recess when they were in school but have excelled at little since.

Not one country in existence today has had the same borders and government for as long as two hundred years. The world will continue changing.

Without giving specific names, most of the significant American banks, the larger banks, are bankrupt, totally bankrupt.

If the current birth rate, which is the lowest in the major developed countries, continues, there will be no Japanese. Who will pay the enormous debt?

I think this is also a great time to invest in private equity, helping companies grow from the ground up.

I’ve got one shot going through this life. I want to make sure I do as much as I can.

Index investing outperforms active management year after year.

I was poor once, I didn't like it, I don't want to be poor again.