I came across a wonderful quote yesterday. I was reading a piece I'd found on the Tocqueville Asset Management website (www. tocqueville.com) written by their Chairman, Francois Sicart.

"I never invest in a situation in which I cannot lose money"

He said this was his "unbreakable rule." He went on to say: "The reason why I do not invest when I cannot lose is that win-win situations simply do not exist in the investment world. Regardless of the markets' periodic infatuation with portfolio insurance, risk hedging and other intellectual constructions, plain common sense tells us that if the buyer of an investment is guaranteed not to lose, the seller must be guaranteed not to win. Since the seller is often quite sophisticated, the odds should make investors cautious: maybe there's something in this dream offer that they don't understand."

This piece was written in January, 1999.