After watching a really good interview done to Warren Buffett(
), I decided to watch it again and take note of what I thought was the most important messages.
The first rule of investment is "don't lose money!"
and the second rule of investment is, "don't forget the first rule!".
That's all the rules there are. If you buy things by far below of what they are worth and you buy a group of them, basically you don't lose money.
The most important quality of an investment manager is a temperamental quality and not an intellectual quality. You need a stable personality, a temperament that doesn't derive great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd. Investment is not a business where you take polls, it's a business where you think. B. Graham once said: You are not right or wrong because a thousand people agree with you. You are right because your facts and your reasoning are right.
Think of your self as the owner of a piece of a business. If you are making a good investment in a security, it shouldn't matter to you if the market is going to be open tomorrow or in 5 years. We can ocasionally look at the price to see if it is extremely high or extremely cheap but price doesn't tell us nothing about the business. Business figures themselves tell us about the business. Value a business before looking at it's price so that you are not influenced by it't market price.
Being over stimulated can make you lose focus. Hearing lots of things can be distracting, the main focus should be on valuing a business. This staticness and focus helps the intelectual process. The Intelectual process is, defining your area of competence in valuing business and then within that area of competence finding whatever sells at a cheapest price in relation to value.
You don't have to know about everything, nothing it's forced upon you, invest only in what you understand and you feel comfortable with.
You don't have to swing at an investment if you are unsure or not ready. Focus on the valuation and be patient. Even if you don't find an investment, it's not a problem, don't let the FOMO dominate you and just invest because you follow the crowd. The market will be there always and there are always going to be companies in which to invest.