If you can identify six wonderful businesses, that is all the diversification you need, and you’re going to make a lot of money, and I will guarantee you that going into a seventh one rather than putting more money in your first one is a terrible mistake.
$1 million
If I was running $1 million today, or $10 million for that matter, I’d be fully invested. Anyone who says that size does not hurt investment performance is selling. The highest rates of return I’ve ever achieved were in the 1950s. I killed the Dow. You ought to see the numbers. But I was investing peanuts then. It’s a huge structural advantage not to have a lot of money. I think I could make you 50% a year on $1 million. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.
Prices
Prices don’t tell me anything about a business
Arcane methods
Most of the professional investors focus on what the stock is likely to do in the next year to avail all kinds of arcane methods of approaching that.
Elephants
If you want to shoot rare, fast-moving elephants, you should always carry a loaded gun.
Tweeting
It personally gives me an edge when other people are not paying attention to reading and thinking, and are instead on their phones. It means that I gain knowledge from reading a few 10-K’s while others are tweeting what they had for breakfast.
Borrowing
You really don’t need leverage in this world much. If you’re smart, you’re going to make a lot of money without borrowing.
Economic medicine
Economic medicine that was previously meted out by the cupful has recently been dispensed by the barrel. These once unthinkable dosages will almost certainly bring on unwelcome after-effects. Their precise nature is anyone’s guess, though one likely consequence is an onslaught of inflation.
Be lovable
The only way to get love is to be lovable. It’s very irritating if you have a lot of money. You’d like to think you could write a check : “I’ll buy a million dollars’ worth of love.’ But it doesn’t work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get.
Blockheads
Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.