Quartz Article on Warren Buffett’s 95th Birthday

I am quoted extensively in this article:https://qz.com/warren-buffett-turns-95-lessons-for-investors

“The specific skills that made Warren Buffett a great investor included having a long-time horizon, intelligence, patience, temperament, curiosity, persistence, hard work, along with knowledge of accounting and financial analysis,” said David I. Kass, a finance professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. “Buffett has said that what differentiates successful investors from others is having the temperament not to panic and sell when stocks are declining rapidly, nor get euphoric and buy when they are rising sharply.”

“Buffett has demonstrated the emotional control necessary to succeed,” Kass noted. “For example, during the financial crisis of 2008, he effectively became the lender of last resort to Goldman Sachs and General Electric, and later in 2011, Bank of America.”

Buffett also brings hard work to the investment table, typically spending over 12 hours each day reading financial reports of companies of potential interest to him. “In his younger days, he visited many small obscure companies to interview their CEOs over a wide geographic area,” Kass said.

“Future Geico CEO Lorimar Davidson spent three hours with Buffett that day to explain the business of automobile insurance, which was a form of insurance that every motorist was required to buy,” Kass said.