While it might seem that anyone can be a value investor, the essential characteristics of this type of investor-patience, discipline, and risk aversion-may well be genetically determined.

Be sure that you are well compensated for illiquidity - especially illiquidity without control - because it can create particularly high opportunity costs.

My view is that an investor is better off knowing a lot about a few investments than knowing a little about each of a great many holdings. One's very best idea's are likely to generate higher returns for a given level of risk than one's hundredth or thousandth best idea.

People should be highly sceptical of anyone's including their own, ability to predict the future, and instead pursue strategies that can survive whatever may occur.

A tipping point is invisible, as we just saw in Greece. In most situations, everything appears fine until it's not fine, until, for example, no one shows up at a Treasury auction.

There are only a few things investors can do to counteract risk: diversify adequately, hedge when appropriate, and invest with a margin of safety. It is a precisely because we do not and cannot know all the risks of an investment that we strive to invest at a discount. The bargain element helps to provide a cushion for when things go wrong.

In contrast to the speculators preoccupation with rapid gain, value investors demonstrate their risk aversion by striving to avoid loss.