Successful investors must temper the arrogance of taking a stand with a large dose of humility, accepting that despite their efforts and care, they may in fact be wrong.

Successful investors tend to be unemotional, allowing the greed and fear of others to play into their hands. By having confidence in their own analysis and judgement, they respond to market forces not with blind emotion but with calculated reason. Successful investors, for example, demonstrate caution in frothy markets and steadfast conviction in panicky ones. Indeed, the very way an investor views the market and it’s price fluctuations is a key factor in his or her ultimate investment success or failure.

In a crisis, stocks of financial companies are great investments, because the tide is bound to turn. Massive losses on bad loans and soured investments are irrelevant to value; improving trends and future prospects are what matter, regardless of whether profits will have to be used to cover loan losses and equity shortfalls for years to come.

Analysts recommendations may not produce good results. In part this is due to the pressure placed on these analysts to recommend frequently rather than wisely.

There's no such thing as a value company. Price is all that matters. At some price, an asset is a buy, at another it's a hold, and at another it's a sell.

Value investing is at its core the marriage of a contrarian streak and a calculator.

There is no amount of bad news that the markets cannot see past.