Patience and discipline can make you look foolishly out of touch until they make you look prudent and even prescient

While knowing how to value businesses is essential for investment success, the first and perhaps most important step in the investment process is knowing where to look for opportunities

When a Wall Street analyst or broker expresses optimism, investors must take it with a grain of salt.

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

To a value investor, investments come in three varieties: undervalued at one price, fairly valued at another price, and overvalued at still some higher price. The goal is to buy the first, avoid the second, and sell the third.

The government - the ultimate short-term-oriented player - cannot withstand much pain in the economy or the financial markets. Bailouts and rescues are likely to occur, though not with sufficient predictability for investors to comfortably take advantage. The government will take enormous risks in such interventions, especially if the expenses can be conveniently deferred to the future. Some of the price-tag is in the form of back- stops and guarantees, whose cost is almost impossible to determine.

Be indifferent if you lose your short term clients, remember they are your own worst enemy