The courage to press on regardless - regardless of whether we face calm seas or rough seas, and especially when the market storms howl around us - is the quintessential attribute of the successful investor.

The general systems of money management today require people to pretend to do something they can't do and like something they don't. It's a funny business because on a net basis, the whole investment management business together gives no value added to all buyers combined. That's the way it has to work. Mutual funds charge two percent per year and then brokers switch people between funds, costing another three to four percentage points. The poor guy in the general public is getting a terrible product from the professionals.

It's very difficult for any particular segment of the stock market to sustain superior performance. The watch word for our financial markets is, "reversion to the mean" i.e. what goes up must come down, and it's true more often than you can imagine.

If your fund doesn't last for the long term, how can you invest for the long term?

In the long run, investing is not about markets at all. Investing is about enjoying the returns earned by businesses.

I think it's gone much too far. Most of them are not worth the powder to blow them to hell.

Managed funds are astonishingly tax-inefficient.