I wait until an investment idea is so good, it hits me over the head like an anvil.

Value investing strategies have worked for years and everyone's known about them. They continue to work because it's hard for people to do, for two main reasons. First, the companies that show up on the screens can be scary and not doing so well, so people find them difficult to buy. Second, there can be one-, two- or three-year periods when a strategy like this doesn't work. Most people aren't capable of sticking it out through that.

So one way to create an attractive risk/reward situation is to limit downside risk severely by investing in situations that have a large margin of safety. The upside, while still difficult to quantify, will usually take care of itself. In other words, look down, not up, when making your initial investment decision. If you don’t lose money, most of the remaining alternatives are good ones.

We are busy surviving, herding, fixating on what just happened, and being overconfident!

I still believe that for good business analysts a concentrated portfolio is a good strategy combined with a long term horizon. Once again, the secret to success in following the formula strategy is patience, a quality in short supply for both professionals and individual investors alike. I think investors should have a large portion of their assets in equities over time.

Choosing individual stocks without any idea of what you're looking for is like running through a dynamite factory with a burning match. You may live, but you're still an idiot.

If you spend your energies looking for and analysing situations not closely followed by other informed investors, your chance of finding bargains greatly increases.