"I buy when other people are selling"
About this Quote
A fortune can be built on an unpopular appetite. Getty's line is often mistaken for a folksy tip about being brave in the stock market; it's closer to a worldview about power. "I buy when other people are selling" isn't just contrarianism, it's a cold read of human psychology: panic creates discounts, and discounts flow to whoever can keep their nerve - and keep their cash.
The intent is bluntly transactional. When others sell, they're doing it under pressure: fear, margin calls, bad headlines, social proof. Getty casts himself as the rare actor unbothered by the crowd, someone who treats collective emotion as a pricing error. The subtext is less flattering: to buy in that moment you need liquidity, patience, and a tolerance for being hated while you're right. It implies a system where crises transfer assets from the anxious to the prepared. In that sense, the quote isn't motivational; it's diagnostic.
Context matters. Getty came up in boom-and-bust oil markets, where wars, embargoes, and recessions could turn reserves into dead weight or gold overnight. His era rewarded consolidation: when smaller players were forced to sell, giants could scoop up fields, leases, and infrastructure at bargain rates. The line works rhetorically because it compresses an entire strategy into a moral posture: disciplined, unsentimental, almost ascetic. It flatters the listener's fantasy of being the calm adult in a room full of stampeding adults - while quietly admitting that the calm adult also profits from the stampede.
The intent is bluntly transactional. When others sell, they're doing it under pressure: fear, margin calls, bad headlines, social proof. Getty casts himself as the rare actor unbothered by the crowd, someone who treats collective emotion as a pricing error. The subtext is less flattering: to buy in that moment you need liquidity, patience, and a tolerance for being hated while you're right. It implies a system where crises transfer assets from the anxious to the prepared. In that sense, the quote isn't motivational; it's diagnostic.
Context matters. Getty came up in boom-and-bust oil markets, where wars, embargoes, and recessions could turn reserves into dead weight or gold overnight. His era rewarded consolidation: when smaller players were forced to sell, giants could scoop up fields, leases, and infrastructure at bargain rates. The line works rhetorically because it compresses an entire strategy into a moral posture: disciplined, unsentimental, almost ascetic. It flatters the listener's fantasy of being the calm adult in a room full of stampeding adults - while quietly admitting that the calm adult also profits from the stampede.
Quote Details
| Topic | Investment |
|---|---|
| Source | J. Paul Getty , quoted: "I buy when other people are selling" (often expanded as "I buy when there's blood in the streets"); attribution listed on Wikiquote (J. Paul Getty page). |
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