Frequent comparative ranking can only reinforce a short-term investment perspective. It is understandably difficult to maintain a long-term view when, faced with the penalties for poor short-term performance, the long-term view may well be from the unemployment line ... Relative-performance-oriented investors really act as speculators. Rather than making sensible judgments about the attractiveness of specific stocks and bonds, they try to guess what others are going to do and then do it first.

The near absence of bargains works as a reverse indicator for us. When we find there is little worth buying, there is probably much worth selling.

Always look for forced urgent selling.

In reality, no one knows what the market will do; trying to predict it is a waste of time, and investing based upon that prediction is a speculative undertaking.

The overwhelming majority of people are comfortable with consensus, but successful investors tend to have a contrarian bent.

If another person were to enter the building, it would once again be empty.

We don't deal in absolutes. We deal in probabilities.