Buying Quality with Warren Buffet

• Management. Warren puts strong management on the top of his list. He likes to meet them in person and get to know them. That’s a little too much to ask of you. But, at minimum, you should read the CEO’s bio (which is typically provided on a company’s website). And google the CEO’s name. Nine times out of 10, you’ll get plenty of instant reading material. If you can, go to the company’s annual meetings and listen to the CEO and other executives speak. Or – if that’s not possible – listen to their

-in quarterly earnings report.

Just remember that there’s no such thing as too much direct and up-close exposure to the companies you’re investing in. The more you know about them, the better buy/sell decisions you will make.

• Quality products. As a general rule, the more high-end its products are, the better margins a company makes. Companies charge a premium for new technology, sleeker designs, more features, better packaging – which all go into high-end products … and customers gladly pay. The less high-end, the easier it is for China and other countries to make cheap copies and put your company out of business. ‘Nuf said.

• Understand the company. What does this have to do with quality? Not much. But it has everything to do with your ability to judge whether a company is in a class by itself or classless. You need to know at least something about the business. This is a relative requirement, because this kind of knowledge often falls somewhere between knowing nothing and knowing it all. But if you don’t have a clue about what makes a company’s

business tick, STAY away. Whether or not a company can grow its profits should not be a guessing game. Nor should it be a “follow the leader” game. Even if everybody in your bridge club is flocking to this business or a company in this business, still STAY AWAY. Who knows what they’re following or why? Bad advice is the ruination of many an investor.

Is looking into all this really necessary? Can so many people get it wrong? Warren, in fact, counts on so many people not getting it. That’s why he loves “cigar-butt” companies that are so out-of-favor nobody will touch them.

He stays away from the buzz-generators. As a “life-long technophobe” (as he confesses on the Berkshire website), he stayed away from the high-tech companies when they were the rage in the 1990s. How dare he?

“Warren Buffett should say ‘I’m sorry,’” fumed Harry Newton, publisher of Technology Investor Magazine, in early 2000. “How did he miss the silicon, wireless, DSL, cable, and biotech revolutions?”. That was the year AOL stock rose six-fold and Amazon.com had rocketed by 1,000%, while shares in Berkshire had climbed only 11%. But, as history proved, the “Buffett Way” won out in the end. The dotcom bubble exploded, leaving millions of Americans poor and in shock.

Source from http://www.scribd.com/doc/3828234/investlikebuffett