In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses-How to Value a Business, and How to Think about Market Prices. Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business who's earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now.

If you knew what was going to happen in the economy, you still wouldn't necessarily know what was going to happen in the stock market.

Look for companies with high profit margins.

Asset-heavy businesses generally earn low rates of return - rates that often barely provide enough capital to fund the inflationary needs of the existing business, with nothing left over for real growth, for distribution to owners, or for acquisition of new businesses

Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can't buy what is popular and do well.

I read annual reports of the company I'm looking at and I read the annual reports of the competitors - that is the main source of material.

Everybody's got a different circle of competence. The important thing is not how big the circle is. The important thing is staying inside the circle.