Attempting to achieve a superior long-term record by stringing together a run of topdecile years is unlikely to succeed. Rather, striving to do a little better than average every year, and through discipline to have highly superior relative results in bad times, is: (1) less likely to produce extreme volatility; (2) less likely to produce [...]

I've never considered it a legitimate goal to say you're going to invest at the bottom. There is no price other than zero that can't be exceeded on the downside, so you can't really know where the bottom is, other than in retrospect. That means you have to invest at other times. If you wait [...]

The mood swings of the securities markets resemble the movement of a pendulum. Although the midpoint of its arc best describes the location of the pendulum “on average,” it actually spends very little of its time there. Instead, it is almost always swinging toward or away from the extremes of the arc. In fact, it [...]

I feel strongly that attempting to achieve a superior long-term record by stringing together a run of top-decile years is unlikely to succeed. Rather, striving to do a little better than average every year, and through discipline to have highly superior relative results in bad times, is: (1) less likely to produce extreme volatility; (2) [...]

What you should do is take a dim view of what's been appreciating and be interested in what hasn't been good to you. You certainly want to understand why any asset class has been going down, but you should celebrate the fact that it has been getting cheaper. To say price going down is a [...]

Long-term-oriented value investors have greater scope to produce superior risk-adjusted returns when the seas are rocky. The valid response when there's chop is to focus on the end destination what value investors call intrinsic value and not worry about whether the next wave is going to push the boat up or down. If you don't [...]

If I had to identify a single key to consistently successful investing, I'd say it's “cheapness.” Buying at low prices relative to intrinsic value (rigorously and conservatively derived) holds the key to earning dependably high returns, limiting risk and minimizing losses. It's not the only thing that matters obviously but it's something for which there [...]