The extravagance of any corporate office is directly proportional to management's reluctance to reward the shareholders.

A stock market decline is as routine as a January blizzard in Colorado. If you're prepared, it can't hurt you. A decline is a great opportunity to pick up the bargains left behind by investors who are fleeing the storm in panic.

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.

All you need for a lifetime of successful investing is a few big winners, and the pluses from those will overwhelm the minuses from the stocks that don't work out.

The stock market really isn't a gamble, as long as you pick good companies that you think will do well, and not just because of the stock price.

That's not to say there's no such thing as an overvalued market, but there's no point worrying about it.

In stocks as in romance, ease of divorce is not a sound basis for commitment.