Don Cassidy Quotations

Whenever you buy any kind of sector, you have to have the stomach for higher volatility.

This probably isn't the time to go heavily into leveraged funds.

Like anything else, the time to buy them is when they look the scariest. When they've been going down, when rates have been rising, and you're afraid and there's the threat of recession. ... And if it's been fun for a while, you better think about getting out.

Number one, long term, they will be a no-load buyer and a more cost-conscious investor and not lean so heavily on the advice of financial professionals. And two, it will force them to do a little self-educating, which is always a good thing. At the very least, if they are going to rely on someone else, they can ask intelligent questions.

People will feel they did not make a lot of money (this year), and yet they may well see some significant capital gains taxes due on their funds holdings.

When investors worldwide looked for a new game that hadn't been played in a while, they latched onto Japan in a big way.

I think it tells you a lot about the confidence you can have investing overseas. And maybe a little about the kind of quarter we had here at home.

You can be too insular in your thinking. It could backfire big time.

We said it would be a stock-picker's year, and it was. Investors were particularly fickle and short-term driven.

We thought there'd be a shift to growth this year because value had been leading for five or six years, but we also thought there would be a shift to large caps, which clearly hasn't happened. Meanwhile, value-oriented sectors such as financial services, banks and brokers haven't been strong, another factor helping to drive growth over value.

Too many investors tend to be backward looking. You can't just say they declared the quarterly dividend for the last 10 years, I guess they're going to keep paying it. Think about what the business conditions are.

This year the month's psychological climate also benefited from a solid rally in stocks that had begun in mid-October.

There are lots of different kinds of investing nicely matched against the structure of a closed end fund, that are not matched through other things. But this is not something you necessarily buy and hold forever. You've got to watch interest rates ... and be somewhat involved. But do you need to be an expert? No.

We and just about everybody else thought that large-cap funds would start to take over in the first quarter, but it didn't happen.

We see him as one more young man, like thousands, like millions who rather come live in the United States.

Do what you have to do to figure it out. You're never going to be perfect at this, but nobody is going to care about your money as much as you. The good news is, once you start winning the battle, it gets to be fun. It's like watching your favorite team win.

Five or six months of good markets give people increasing comfort and courage.

They always say pay yourself first, whether in mutual funds or in the bank, because if you pay yourself last, guess what? At the end of the month there's nothing left. Find some kind of investment you can live with so you can allow yourself to do it. Whether you believe Social Security will be there for you or not, it's still not going to be enough. And more is a much easier problem to have.

The smaller, the better was the watchword in the first quarter. It's a sign that investors are less risk-averse than they have been in a long time.

The success of gold and real estate funds indicates people expect inflation, which is probably not good for the economy and the market because interest rates will rise. And the fact that three-quarters of recent new money has been flowing into world funds, rather than domestic funds, is not a vote of confidence for the U.S. stock market.

People understand real estate because they either own it or live in it. You ride by those apartment building or those office buildings with a plaque from your REIT and say, 'I own those.' It's kind of like owning McDonald's.

This bull market is now entering its fourth year, and it is getting tired. The old leaders of this market -- energy and housing -- seem to be running out of gas.

There wasn't really anywhere to go this quarter. And there's still a lot of caution out there.

It's a tough area to get information on. Even if you call your broker, it's not likely the thing they're best informed on.

It's the same problem in the insurance business. It's driven by a sales culture where you get compensated for volume, so you don't get a compensation scheme based on performance excellence.

It shouldn't be a surprise. A company that consistently raises its distribution is a company that's doing fairly well.

It's my opinion he will get a green card. I'd be very shocked if he didn't.

It's very important to realize that while current gratification and comfort are a lot of fun, nobody is going to take care of you in your older stages of life except you. You've got to be your own angel.

If you're saying, 'I think this year China, or Japan, is the winning place,' well, you have to agonize over that decision more if you're choosing among mutual funds.

In 2005, investors began to pay attention to gradual improvement in the Japanese economy aided by some long overdue government-driven reforms.

If the market is going to go up next year, it's going to take some rotation of leadership. You can't have the same thing lead forever, people get tired of doing it and whatever it is, it gets overpriced. We see a rotation into tech names, just because it's been a laggard. The other things we see developing is that large will probably outrun small, and we think growth will begin to beat value.

You don't have to be 75 to use a rolling wire basket.

The greatest asset people in the 18 to 34 generation have is time.

The long-term virtue of this idea, what you'll begin to create, is a terrific lifetime habit that will give a person a great deal of lasting benefit. That weighs a lot more than the short-term thrill of tearing off the wrapping paper.