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.
Blockheads
Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
Study hard and learn
One can best prepare themselves for the economic future by investing in your own education. If you study hard and learn at a young age, you will be in the best circumstances to secure your future.
The spell of academics
Most institutional investors in the early 1970s, on the other hand, regarded business value as of only minor relevance when they were deciding prices at which they would buy or sell. This now seems hard to believe. However, these institutions were then under the spell of academics at prestigious business schools who were preaching a newly-fashioned theory : the stock market was totally efficient, and therefore calculations of business value – and even thought, itself – were of no more importance in investment activities. (we are enormously indebted to these academics : what could be more advantageous in an intellectual contest – whether it be bridge, chess, or stock selection – than to have opponents who have been taught that thinking is a waste of energy?)
Newspapers
Charlie (Munger) and I love newspapers – we each read five a day.
Just sit and think
I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.
Journalists
The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves – and the better the teacher, the better the student body.
Accounting numbers
It’s simply to say that managers and investors alike must understand that accounting numbers are the beginning, not the end, of business valuation.
My financial life changed with that purchase…
I learned most of the thoughts in this investment discussion from Ben Graham’s book The Intelligent Investor, which I bought in 1949. My financial life changed with that purchase… For me, the key points were laid out in what later editions labeled Chapters 8 and 20. (The original 1949 edition numbered its chapters differently.) These points guide my investing decisions today… Of all the investments I ever made, buying Ben’s book was the best (except for my purchase of two marriage licenses).