1. If you want to know about economics, learn German and study the Austrian masters.
2. We should only worry about the economic environment if we have a clear idea of how it might affect the market. Such clairvoyance might come to us once every five years, at most.
3. Own assets, don't be a creditor. Loans are promises to pay which sometimes are blowin' in the wind.
4. Invest in what you know. The amount isn't what matters, the crucial thing is knowing your limits, even if it's your local housing market.
5. Nobody has to invest in anything. Often it's best to do nothing.
6. If you don't know what to do, invest in indexes. If you are completely bewildered, invest in a cheap global index fund and be done with it.
7. Own shares, using any of the vehicles on offer.
8. If you invest directly in stocks, you need to spend time analysing the competitive position of the company you want to invest in. The rest is market noise, to be avoided at all costs.
9. It's about studying companies, not the stock market. Buying a share should be like buying the whole company. If we are not up for buying the whole company, we're not ready to buy a single share.
10. Businesses with a long track record have more chance of surviving than new ones. Focusing on them will save us a lot of problems.
11. Make sure that the business is more or less capable of sustaining the same position over the next 10 years. If you're not sure or think new technologies or new consumer trends could affect its market position, better let it go.
12. If a company is creating value each year and improving its results, don't worry why the market hasn't cottoned on to it. It's another opportunity to keep investing at a good price.
13. The lower the price of a well-researched stock, the greater potential upside on the investment and the less risk involved. The reverse of economic theory is true: the higher the potential return, the lower the risk.
14. Acquaint yourself with the past, but be careful about extrapolating. Things change and future problems can emerge from the least expected places.
15. Speculators and volatility are dear friends: the more, the better our long-term results will be.
16. Lack of liquidity is also an ally. Other investors pay too much for liquidity.
17. Understanding what motivates others to act and how they do it, and our own rationale for what we do, is the essence of prudent and successful investment.
18. If we don't have the right personality for investing, it's better not to get involved. Alternatively, work on it. It's not easy but, with the right guidance, it's possible to improve our attitude towards investing.
19. It's important to have firm beliefs (preferably the right ones!), but we must remain open to new ideas and ways of doing things. When we stop learning, we have one foot in the grave.
20. Investing in listed shares involves the greatest information asymmetry possible between buyer and seller. In the private market the seller knows how much the asset is worth (all homeowners know how much their house is worth). With listed shares, small investors spend too little time on analysis and institutional investors are subject to the restrictions of their institution.
21. Getting it right is not only about foreseeing what a company will do; more importantly, it's about knowing how to distinguish between what the market thinks will happen and what will really happen.
22. Take the less trodden path. Buy what nobody else is buying. In the words of the Italian songwriter Fabrizio de André: be headstrong and go against the grain!
23. Enjoy the process. The journey is more interesting than the final destination.
24. Think. Don't build models.
25. Read.
26. Cheer up. It's much better to have been born in 2016 than in 1963.

Guiding Principle: Invest all the savings that you don't need for the immediate future in shares.