Diversification is an established tenet of conservative investment.

I am no longer an advocate of elaborate techniques of security analysis in order to find superior value opportunities.

It requires strength of character in order to think and to act in opposite fashion from the crowd and also patience to wait for opportunities that may be spaced years apart.

The correct attitude of the security analyst toward the stock market might well be that of a man toward his wife. He shouldn't pay too much attention to what the lady says, but he can't afford to ignore it entirely. That is pretty much the position that most of us find ourselves vis-à-vis the stock market.

No matter how careful you are, the one risk no investor can ever eliminate is the risk of being wrong. Only by insisting on what Graham called the "margin of safety" - never overpaying, no matter how exciting an investment seems to be - can you minimize your odds of error.

Calculate a stock's price/earnings ratio yourself, using Graham's formula of current price divided by average earnings over the past three years.

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.