... not doing what we love in the name of greed is very poor management of our lives.

What we really want to do is buy businesses that we would be happy to own forever.

The range of derivatives contracts is limited only by the imagination of man (or sometimes, so it seems, madmen). Say you want to write a contract speculating on the number of twins to be born in Nebraska in 2020. No problem-at a price, you will easily find an obliging counterparty.

Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, 'I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.' If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.

If, when making a stock investment, you're not considering holding it at least ten years, don't waste more than ten minutes considering it.

By periodically investing in an index fund, the know-nothing investors can actually outperform most investment professionals.

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is.