Be patient and selective, saying no to almost everything. Exploit the market’s bipolar mood swings. Buy stocks at a big discount to their underlying value. Stay within your circle of competence. Avoid anything too hard. Make a small number of mispriced bets with minimal downside and significant upside.

As Ben Graham wrote, “The investor’s chief problem—and even his worst enemy—is likely to be himself.”

“Individually we’re smart,” says Wojcik. “Collectively, we’re stupid.”

“The easiest way not to be overly influenced by what other people think is not to be that aware of what they think. If you don’t really notice that and don’t really care about what other people think, that will make it easier to be a great investor.”

Following Buffett’s lead, we should always keep enough cash in reserve so we’ll never be forced to sell stocks (or any other beleaguered asset) in a downturn. We should never borrow to excess because, as Eveillard warns, debt erodes our “staying power.” Like him, we should avoid the temptation to speculate on hot stocks with supposedly glorious

“The problem,” says Lountzis, is that qualitative factors such as adaptability or courage “are not measurable” in financial statements, which offer a quantitative record of the past.

“One of the beauties of the pain that people have to take in underperformance is that, if it did not exist, everyone would do what we do.”

He attributed this attitude to his unusual upbringing: “In all of my childhood I can’t remember either my mother or my father ever telling me, ‘Do this’ or ‘Don’t do that.’ They thought it would help me to become self-reliant and self-confident if I had to do everything myself. And, boy, was that a marvelous education.… It’s the greatest gift,

Any asset, however ugly, can be worth buying if the price is low enough. Indeed, Marks believes that “buying cheap” is the single most reliable route to investment riches—and that overpaying is the greatest risk. Thus, the essential question to ask about any potential investment should be “Is it cheap?”