Time is on your side when you own shares of superior companies.

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

So while I was in college I did a little study on the freight industry, the air freight industry. And I looked at this company called Flying Tiger. And I actually put a thousand dollars in it and I remember I thought this air cargo was going to be a thing of the future.

Time is on your side when you own shares of superior companies.

Go for a business that any idiot can run - because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.

The list of qualities (an investor should have) include patience, self-reliance, common sense, a tolerance for pain, open-mindedness, detachment, persistence, humility, flexibility, a willingness to do independent research, an equal willingness to admit mistakes, and the ability to ignore general 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.