if we aren't happy owning a piece of that business with the Exchange closed, we're not happy owning it with the Exchange open. - Warren Buffett

From this irritating reality comes The First Law of Corporate Survival for ambitious CEOs who pile on leverage and run large and unfathomable derivatives books: Modest incompetence simply won’t do; it’s mindboggling screw-ups that are required.

You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.

Our advantage, rather, was attitude: we had learned from Ben Graham that the key to successful investing was the purchase of shares in good businesses when market prices were at a large discount from underlying business values.