The only time to buy these is on a day with no 'y' in it. - Warren Buffett

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.

We prefer: large purchases (at least $5 million of after-tax earnings), demonstrated consistent earning power (future projections are of little interest to us, nor are “turn-around” situations), businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt, management in place (we can’t supply it), simple businesses (if there’s lots of technology, we won’t understand it), an offering price (we don’t want to waste our time or that of the seller by talking, even preliminarily, about a transaction when price is unknown).

...not doing what we love in the name of greed is very poor management of our lives.