“With so many investors choosing not to think about their investing (indexing), failing to analyze the fundamentals of their holdings (momentum investors) and having an extremely short-term time horizon (almost everyone else), this is a wonderful time to be a long-term value investor. It is important to keep in mind that stocks are perpetuities with no maturity date. While we frequently invest in stocks with a catalyst for value realization in order to create a portfolio of limited duration, we nevertheless buy only when we are prepared to hold for the long term. Very few investors would choose to hold their current portfolios if they thought the stock market might be closed for trading for the next five years; since we are investing and not speculating, we would be comfortable with our portfolio under such conditions.” — Seth Klarman, Dec. 17, 1999