I talk to hundreds of companies a year and spend hour after hour in heady pow-wows with CEOs, financial analysts and my colleagues in the mutual-fund business, but I stumble onto the big winners in extracurricular situations, the same way you do.

If you can follow only one bit of data, follow the earnings - assuming the company in question has earnings. I subscribe to the crusty notion that sooner or later earnings make or break an investment in equities. What the stock price does today, tomorrow, or next week is only a distraction.

There's a company behind every stock and a reason companies - and their stocks - perform the way they do.

The natural-born investor is a myth.

I'm always fully invested. It's a great feeling to be caught with your pants up.

All the math you need in the stock market you get in the fourth grade.

Absent a lot of surprises, stocks are relatively predictable over twenty years. As to whether they're going to be higher or lower in two to three years, you might as well flip a coin to decide.