Balance Sheets Quotes:

Never invest in a company without understanding its finances. The biggest losses in stocks come from companies with poor balance sheets.

- Peter Lynch

source: Peter Lynch (2012). “Beating the Street”, p.306, Simon and Schuster

topic: Loss, Understanding, Balance, Balance Sheets

The two most important things in any company do not appear in its balance sheet: its reputation and its people.

- Henry Ford

topic: Two, People, Balance, Balance Sheets

It sounds extraordinary, but it's a fact that balance sheets can make fascinating reading.

- Mary Archer

topic: Reading, Balance, Facts, Accounting, Balance Sheets

All a company report and balance sheet can tell you is the past and the present. They cannot tell future.

- Nicolas Darvas

topic: Future, Past, Balance, Speculators, Balance Sheets

There are men who can write poetry, and there are men who can read balance sheets. The men who can read balance sheets cannot write.

- Henry R. Luce

topic: Writing, Men, Balance, Balance Sheets

Accounting does not make corporate earnings or balance sheets more volatile. Accounting just increases the transparency of volatility in earnings.

- Diane Garnick

topic: Balance, Doe, Earning, Volatility, Accounting

The fact is that one of the earliest lessons I learned in business was that balance sheets and income statements are fiction, cash flow is reality.

- Chris Chocola

source: John Edgar Wideman, Bonnie TuSmith (1998). “Conversations with John Edgar Wideman”, p.54, Univ. Press of Mississippi

topic: Reality, Balance, Income, Balance Sheets

It's easier to teach a poet how to read a balance sheet than it is to teach an accountant how to write.

- Henry R. Luce

topic: Writing, Editing, Balance, Balance Sheets

A good reputation for yourself and your company is an invaluable asset not reflected in the balance sheets.

- Li Ka-shing

topic: Balance, Reputation, Assets, Invaluable, Balance Sheets

Balance Sheets are meaningless. Our accounting systems are still based on the assumption that 80% of costs are manual labor.

- Peter Drucker

topic: Balance, Cost, Assumption, Manual Labor, Balance Sheets

Investment banking has, in recent years, resembled a casino, and the massive scale of gambling losses has dragged down traditional business and retail lending activities as banks try to rebuild their balance sheets. This was one aspect of modern financial liberalisation that had dire consequences.

- Vince Cable

source: "The Storm ... how to survive it (and how to prevent its return)" by Vince Cable, www.theguardian.com. March 24, 2009.

topic: Loss, Years, Gambling, Lending, Investment Banking

In financing growing companies, we always looked for human value that didn't appear on the balance sheet.

- Michael Milken

topic: Business, Balance, Growing, Human Values, Balance Sheets

We always look at the margin of safety in the balance sheet and then worry about the business.

- Peter Cundill

topic: Worry, Safety, Balance, Balance Sheets

A work of art expresses itself as a balance sheet pitting the spoken against the unspoken.

- Russell Sherman

topic: Art, Balance, Sheets, Balance Sheets

Evidently stockholders have forgotten more than to look at balance sheets. They have forgotten also that they are owners of a business and not merely owners of a quotation on the stock ticker. It is time, and high time, that the millions of American shareholders turned their eyes from the daily market reports long enough to give some attention to the enterprises themselves of which they are the proprietors, and which exist for their benefit and at their pleasure.

- Benjamin Graham

topic: Eye, Long, Giving, Balance Sheets

For most businesses, America is the most important asset on their balance sheet.

- Hillary Clinton

source: Source: time.com

topic: America, Balance, Important, Balance Sheets

You can have a healthy fossil-fuel balance sheet, or a relatively healthy planet

- Bill McKibben

topic: Healthy, Balance, Fuel, Balance Sheets

No one would look just at a firm's revenues to assess how well it was doing. Far more relevant is the balance sheet, which shows assets and liability. That is also true for a country.

- Joseph Stiglitz

topic: Country, Balance, Looks, Liability, Balance Sheets

In most cases the favorable price performance will be accompanied by a well-defined improvement in the average earnings, in the dividend, and in the balance-sheet position. Thus in the long run the market test and the ordinary business test of a successful equity commitment tend to be largely identical.

- Benjamin Graham

source: Benjamin Graham (1959). “The Intelligent Investor: A Book of Practical Counsel”

topic: Running, Commitment, Successful, Dividends, Balance Sheets

A company is an organic, living, breathing thing, not just an income sheet and balance sheet. You have to lead it with that in mind.

- Carly Fiorina

topic: Breathing, Mind, Balance, Balance Sheets

...I couldn't but surmise that the devil, looking at the cruel wars that Christianity has occasioned, the persecutions, the tortures Christian has inflicted on Christian, the unkindness, the hypocracy, the intolerance, must consider the balance sheet with complacency. And when he remembers that it has laid upon mankind the bitter burden of the sense of sin that has darkened the beauty of the starry night and cast a baleful shadow on the passing plesures of a world to be enjoyed, he must chuckle as he murmurs: give the devil his due.

- W. Somerset Maugham

source: W. Somerset Maugham (2008). “The Razor's Edge”, p.226, Random House

topic: Christian, War, Night, Starry Night, Balance Sheets

Though they control scores of industrial, commercial, mining and tourist corporations, not one bears the name Rothschild. Being private partnerships, the family houses never need to, and never do, publish a single public balance sheet, or any other report of their financial condition.

- Frederic Morton

source: Frederic Morton (2014). “The Rothschilds: A Family Portrait”, p.18, Diversion Books

topic: Names, House, Balance, Private Parts, Rothschild

A bankruptcy judge can fix your balance sheet, but he cannot fix your company.

- Gordon Bethune

topic: Judging, Balance, Sheets, Balance Sheets

Unfortunately our stock is somehow not well understood by the markets. The market compares us with generic companies. We need to look at Biocon as a bellwether stock. A stock that is differentiated, a stock that is focused on R&D, and a very-very strong balance sheet with huge value drivers at the end of it.

- Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

source: "Market needs to look at Biocon as a bellwether stock: Kiran Mazumdar Shaw". ET Now Interview, economictimes.indiatimes.com. April 26, 2013.

topic: Strong, Balance, Needs, Balance Sheets

Some day, on the corporate balance sheet, there will be an entry which reads, "Information"; for in most cases, the information is more valuable than the hardware which processes it.

- Grace Hopper

topic: Balance, Information, Process, Hardware, Balance Sheets

Business is many things, the least of which is the balance sheet. It is a fluid, ever changing, living thing, sometimes building to great peaks, sometimes falling to crumbled lumps.

- Harold Geneen

topic: Business, Fall, Balance, Balance Sheets

Market values are fixed only in part by balance sheets and income statements; much more by the hopes and fears of humanity; by greed, ambition, acts of God, invention, financial stress and strain, weather, discovery, fashion and numberless other causes impossible to be listed without omission.

- Gerald M. Loeb

source: Gerald M. Loeb (2007). “Battle for Investment Survival”, p.2, John Wiley & Sons

topic: Fashion, Business, Stress, Balance Sheets

When I started Netscape I was brand new out of college and all the aspects of building a business, like balance sheets and hiring people, were new to me.

- Marc Andreessen

topic: College, People, Balance, Balance Sheets, Building A Business

Nobody knows everything that's hidden in the balance sheets of banks. In fact, they are completely impenetrable.

- Jerome Kerviel

source: Source: www.spiegel.de

topic: Balance, Facts, Sheets, Balance Sheets

The 'black armband' view of our history reflects a belief that most Australian history since 1788 has been little more than a disgraceful story of imperialism, exploitation, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. I take a very different view. I believe that the balance sheet of our history is one of heroic achievement and that we have achieved much more as a nation of which we can be proud of than which we should be ashamed.

- John Howard

source: Sir Robert Menzies Lecture, 1996.

topic: Believe, Views, Racism, Different Views, Balance Sheets

If you look at the balance sheet, the US is heavily in debt. If you look at the income account - the amount of interest the US pays abroad - it is almost exactly equal to the amount of interest that it receives from abroad. American assets held abroad are earning a higher rate of return than foreign assets held here.

- Milton Friedman

source: Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

topic: Balance, Income, Looks, Balance Sheets

We rarely use much debt and, when we do, we attempt to structure it on a long-term fixed rate basis. We will reject interesting opportunities rather than over-leverage our balance sheet. This conservatism has penalized our results but it is the only behavior that leaves us comfortable, considering our fiduciary obligations to policyholders, depositors, lenders and the many equity holders who have committed unusually large portions of their net worth to our care.

- Warren Buffett

topic: Opportunity, Interesting, Long, Real Estate Investing, Balance Sheets

The prestige of the Nobel Prize is due to many causes, but in particular to its twofold idealistic and international character: idealistic in that it has been designed for works of lofty inspiration; international in that it is awarded after the production of different countries has been minutely studied and the intellectual balance sheet of the whole world has been drawn up. Free from all other considerations and ignoring any but intellectual values, the judges have deliberately taken their place in what the philosophers have called a community of the mind.

- Henri Bergson

source: Henri Bergson's acceptance speech (in the form of a letter) for the Nobel Prize in literature at the Nobel Banquet at Grand Hotel in Stockholm, www.nobelprize.org. December 10, 1928.

topic: Country, Taken, Inspiration, Different Countries, Nobel Prize

Bourgeois society is infected by monomania: the monomania of accounting. For it, the only thing that has value is what can be counted in francs and centimes. It never hesitates to sacrifice human life to figures which look well on paper, such as national budgets or industrial balance sheets.

- Simone Weil

topic: Sacrifice, Balance, Looks, Balance Sheets

Times of economic crises can change what the competitive landscape looks like, because when, for example, you have boom times, capital is easy to come by, growth is easy, sometimes what you focus on is, you know, how to accelerate in the boom. During economic crises, the question is, the companies that come out of, you know, that are sailing through that with the best liquidity, both assets on the balance sheet, making money, ability to grow their businesses, get a disproportionate competitive advantage.

- Reid Hoffman

source: Source: bigthink.com

topic: Focus, Sailing, Growth, Liquidity, Economic Crisis

I passionately disagreed with Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's plan to bail out the banks by using a public fund called the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to help banks take toxic assets off their balance sheets. I argued that it would be much better to put the money where the hole was and replenish the equity of the banks themselves.

- George Soros

topic: Balance, Toxic, Relief, Balance Sheets, Tarp

While President Obama shirks his responsibility to advance solutions to our fiscal challenges, he can no longer hide from the merciless math of the balance sheet. Conservatives have made certain of that.

- Paul Ryan

topic: Responsibility, Math, Challenges, Shirk, Balance Sheets

If cuts have to be made, the question then becomes which expenditure adds the least value? This is possibly what drives companies to reduce their advertising expenditure - simply because they do not understand its full value and especially as it is usually the single biggest investment on the balance sheet.

- Paul Dyson

topic: Business, Cutting, Balance, Balance Sheets

The basic question that the 'new science' raises for our balance sheet is the issue of what scientific questions have not been asked for 500 years, which scientific risks have not been pursued. It raises the question of who has decided what scientific risks were worth taking, and what have been the consequences in terms of the power structures of the world.

- Immanuel Wallerstein

topic: Issues, Years, Risk, Balance Sheets

We are led by lawyers who do not understand either technology or balance sheets.

- Thomas Friedman

topic: Technology, Feet, Balance, Balance Sheets

We need a new British business bank with a clean balance sheet and an ability to expand lending rapidly to the manufacturers, exporters and high-growth companies that power our economy. Today I can announce we will have one.

- Vince Cable

source: "Vince Cable reveals £1bn backing for business bank to help small firms" by Nicholas Watt, www.theguardian.com. September 23, 2012.

topic: Growth, Balance, Needs, Economy Today, Balance Sheets

Then, when the Fed's fire hoses started spraying an elephant soup of liquidity injections in every direction and its balance sheet grew by $1.3 trillion in just thirteen weeks compared to $850 billion during its first ninety-four years, I became convinced that the Fed was flying by the seat of its pants, making it up as it went along. It was evident that its aim was to stop the hissy fit on Wall Street and that the thread of a Great Depression 2.0 was just a cover story for a panicked spree of money printing that exceeded any other episode in recorded human history.

- David Stockman

topic: Wall, Fire, Years, Injection, Liquidity

With weak balance sheets, banks tend to continue lending unprofitable businesses and leave them existing.

- Toshihiko Fukui

topic: Balance, Weak, Sheets, Lending, Balance Sheets

What one thing does the world need most today-apart, that is, from the all-inclusive thing we call righteousness? Aren't you inclined to agree that what this old world needs is just the art of being kind? Every time I visit a factory or any other large business concern, I find myself trying to diagnose whether the atmosphere is one of kindliness or the reverse. And somehow, if there is palpably lacking that spirit of kindness, the owners ... have fallen short of achieving 24-carat success no matter how imposing the financial balance sheet may be.

- B. C. Forbes

topic: Art, Kindness, Atmosphere, Kindliness, Balance Sheets

I say that in jest a little bit, but Donald Trump is a blue collar guy with a balance sheet. That's the way he likes to have fun.

- Donald Trump, Jr.

source: Source: www.foxnews.com

topic: Fun, Blue, Guy, Balance Sheets

Everybody is talking about synergies. You've got to take out every cost you possibly can. You have to position yourself as your services change.You have to think about in five years from now what is going to happen technologically to you. And then you do have to think about M&A or your balance sheet, and you have to think about everything in the context of, "Am I prepared to meet that challenge?".

- Ken Moelis

source: Source: nordic.businessinsider.com

topic: Thinking, Talking, Years, Synergy, Balance Sheets

What outsourcing causes - what it's caused by, rather. I understand, for instance, how to read a balance sheet. I happen to believe that having been in the private sector for twenty-five years gives me a perspective on how jobs are created - that someone who's never spent a day in the private sector, like President Obama, simply doesn't understand.

- Mitt Romney

topic: Jobs, Believe, Years, Outsourcing, Balance Sheets

In business a reputation for keeping absolutely to the letter and spirit of an agreement, even when it is unfavorable, is the most precious of assets, although it is not entered in the balance sheet.

- Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos

topic: Agreement, Balance, Letters, Balance Sheets

Most people think of the economy as producing goods and services and paying labor to buy what it produces. But a growing part of the economy in every country has been the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which comprises the rent and interest paid to the economy's balance sheet of assets by debtors and rent payers.

- Michael Hudson

source: Source: www.counterpunch.org

topic: Country, Real, Thinking, Balance Sheets, Goods And Services