JS: I ask people, "What if there was a stock market for houses and every day in the newspaper you house at 3 Chestnut Lane was listed, and yesterday you were listed at $401,000 and today it's $399,500? How would that make you feel?" They respond, "It wouldn't make any difference because I'm going to keep my house." And I say, "You need to apply the same kind of thinking to the stock market. Decide which of your stocks are in it for the long haul and don't look at them every day in the paper."
PT: You've noted that this involves an almost spiritual degree of trust.
JS: Among the super-investors that I have known, a disroportionately high percentage have been very spiritual people. The highest profits in investing are made by discovering good companies when they're undervalued, and holding their stocks for a long period of time. To do that, you have to live through market cycles. People with an abiding sense of faith seem to have that ability. Those who don't, seem to do it through some other belief--perhaps a belief in themselves.
