Success Is Having People Love You That

The Commission Of The Investment Sins Listed Above Is Not Limited To 'the Little Guy.' Huge Institutional Investors, Viewed As A Group, Have Long Underperformed The Unsophisticated Index-fund Investor Who Simply Sits Tight For Decades. A Major Reason Has Been Fees: Many Institutions Pay Substantial Sums To Consultants Who, In Turn, Recommend High-fee Managers. And That Is A Fool's Game.

We Rarely Use Much Debt And, When We Do, We Attempt To Structure It On A Long-term Fixed Rate Basis. We Will Reject Interesting Opportunities Rather Than Over-leverage Our Balance Sheet. This Conservatism Has Penalized Our Results But It Is The Only Behavior That Leaves Us Comfortable, Considering Our Fiduciary Obligations To Policyholders, Depositors, Lenders And The Many Equity Holders Who Have Committed Unusually Large Portions Of Their Net Worth To Our Care.

There Are All Kinds Of Businesses That Charlie And I Don't Understand, But That Doesn't Cause Us To Stay Up At Night. It Just Means We Go On To The Next One, And That's What The Individual Investor Should Do.

Your Money Can Be Inflated Away But Your Knowledge And Talent Cannot.

In The End We Must Have People To Match Our Principles, Not The Reverse.