Ratings agencies are highly conflicted, unimaginative dupes. They are blissfully unaware of adverse selection and moral hazard. Investors should never trust them.

Literally draw a detailed map-like an organization chart-of interlocking ownership and affiliates, many of which were also publicly traded. So, identifying one stock led him to a dozen other potential investments. To tirelessly pull threads is the lesson that I learned from Mike Price.

Risk is not inherent in an investment; it is always relative to the price paid. Uncertainty is not the same as risk. Indeed, when great uncertainty - such as in the fall of 2008 - drives securities prices to especially low levels, they often become less risky investments.

It is important to remember that value investing is not a perfect science. It is an, with an ongoing need for judgment, refinement, patience, and reflection. It requires endless curiosity, the relentless pursuit of additional information, the raising of questions, and the search for answers. It necessitates dealing with imperfect information - knowing you will never know everything and that that must not prevent you from acting. It requires a precarious balance between conviction, steadfastness in the face of adversity, and doubt - keeping in mind the possibility that you could be wrong.

Investing today may well be harder than it has been at any time in our three decades of existence.

Value investing requires a great deal of hard work, unusually strict discipline, and a long-term investment horizon. Few are willing and able to devote sufficient time and effort to become value investors, and only a fraction of those have the proper mind-set to succeed.

Always look for forced urgent selling.