Volatility is a symptom that people have no idea of the underlying value.

If stocks are attractive and you don't buy, you don't just look like an idiot, you are an idiot.

Although value is a weak force in any single year, it becomes a monster over several years. Like gravity, it slowly wears down the opposition.

Ridiculous as our market volatility might seem to an intelligent Martian, it is our reality and everyone loves to trot out the 'quote' attributed to Keynes (but never documented): 'The market can stay irrational longer than the investor can stay solvent.' For us agents, he might better have said 'The market can stay irrational longer than the client can stay patient.'

I like to be right. I try not to miss the big ideas, forget the little ones, and try to get them right. End of job description.

By background I'm both a Quaker and a Yorkshireman, which I like to call double jeopardy.

Volatility is a symptom that people have no idea of the underlying value-that they have stopped playing the asset game. They're not buying because it's a company with certain attributes. They're buying because the price is rising. People are playing games not related to any concept at all of what the long-term value of the enterprise is. And they know it.