Favored stocks underperform the market, while out-of-favor companies outperform the market, but the reappraisal often happens slowly, even glacially.

Demanding immediate success invariably leads to playing the fads or fashions currently performing well rather than investing on a solid basis. A course of investment, once charted, should be given time to work out. Patience is a crucial but rare investment commodity.

We invest in undervalued companies that exhibit strong fundamentals, above-market dividend yields and historic earnings growth, which our analysis indicates will persist. Our strategy is to own strong, fundamentally sound companies and to avoid speculative stocks or potential bankruptcies.

Psychology is probably the most important factor in the market - and one that is least understood.

I paraphrase Lord Rothschild: ‘The time to buy is when there's blood on the streets.'

If you have good stocks and you really know them, you'll make money if you're patient over three years or more.

A good starting point [in the measurement of investment risk] is the preservation and enhancement of your purchasing power in real terms.