Lorenzo's rules remind me of a calculus instructor who was fond of saying "Calculus is easy . . . " and then followed it up with " . . . Easy to make a mistake. . . . " His post also reminds me of how I felt after reading "The Black Swan," "The Intelligent Investor" and "How To Make Money In Stocks" -- smarter but not necessarily more able.

Notably (but not unreasonably), Lorenzo omits an important fact -- a fact that we can infer from the observable reality that he is incredibly creative and industrious as well as successful (i.e., his investing track-record). Lorenzo has integrated his hard-earned "lessons" into habits of investing. I suspect that, at this point, Lorenzo intuitively applies these lessons to every investment opportunity and can quickly dismiss the hundreds (if not thousands) of opportunities that the market presents each day. To put it simply, we would all be better investors if we could AND would dismiss the opportunities that do not match up well with Lorenzo's criteria.