Learn every day, but especially from the experiences of others. It's cheaper!

The relationship between executive CEO pay, stock performance is tenuous and not easily unscrambled, just one of myriad factors that affect the price of a stock.

We need a federal government commission to study the way our financial services system is working - I believe it is working badly - and we also need more educated investors. There are good long term low-priced mutual funds - my favorite is a total stock market index fund - and bad short term highly priced mutual funds. If investors would get themselves educated, and invest in the former - taking their money out of the latter - we would see some automatic improvements in the system, and see them fairly quickly.

Reversion to the mean is the iron rule of the financial markets.

Fund investors are confident that they can easily select superior fund managers. They are wrong.

I believe that the mutual fund industry's biggest shortcoming is too much focus on the momentary price of a stock - an illusion - and too little focus on the intrinsic value of the corporation - the ultimate reality. I'm comforted by the fact that Warren Buffett feels the same way.

Ask yourself: Am I an investor, or am I a speculator? An investor is a person who owns business and holds it forever and enjoys the returns that U.S. businesses, and to some extent global businesses, have earned since the beginning of time. Speculation is betting on price. Speculation has no place in the portfolio or the kit of the typical investor.