The essence of effective portfolio construction is the use of a large number of poorly correlated assets.

It's human nature to find patterns where there are none and to find skill where luck is a more likely explanation (particularly if you're the lucky manager).

Wall Street is littered with the bones of those who knew just what to do, but could not bring themselves to do it.

The definition of investment is the deferring ofpresent consumption for future consumption. So, you dohave to be willing to defer. And there are a couple of tricks that you can use to save money. One of them is simply to pay yourself first.

Bluntly put, there's no chance that your doctor, dentist, or attorney is a high-school dropout. Your stockbroker, however, just might be.

You have to understand what market history looks like. What market history tells you is that the very, very best investments are made when things look the worst.

A decade ago, I really did believe that the average investor could do it himself. I was wrong. I've come to the sad conclusion that only a tiny minority, at most one percent, are capable of pulling it off. Heck, if Helen Young Hayes, Robert Sanborn, Julian Robertson, and the nation's largest pension funds can't get it right, what chance does John Q. Investor have?