The trick of successful investors is to sell when they want to, not when they have to.

At Baupost, we constantly ask: 'What should we work on today?' We keep calling and talking. We keep gathering information. You never have perfect information. So you work, work and work. Sometimes we thumb through ValuLine. How you fill your inbox is very important.

The government can indefinitely control both short-term and long-term interest rates.

The government can reasonably rely on debt ratings when it forms programs to lend money to buyers of otherwise unattractive debt instruments.

The prevailing view has been that the market will earn a high rate of return if the holding period is long enough, but entry point is what really matters.

Always remembering that we might be wrong, we must contemplate alternatives, concoct hedges, and search vigilantly for validation of our assessments. We always sell when a security's price begins to reflect full value, because we are never sure that our thesis will be precisely correct.

Investors should always keep in mind that the most important metric is not the returns achieved but the returns weighed against the risks incurred. Ultimately, nothing should be more important to investors than the ability to sleep soundly at night.