Terry Smith is one of the UK's most legendary investors.

Since its inception in 2010, Fundsmith has earned a CAGR of 15.6% and grown to more than £23 billion in size.

Here are eleven takeaways from the man himself.

1/ Terry Smith's three-step process is to "Invest in good companies, don't overpay and do nothing".

He seeks to acquire the highest quality and durable business across the US (67% of assets) and Europe (29% of assets).

2/ "You can't play 'greater fool theory, in which you knowingly overpay, hoping that a greater fool will buy them off you at an even egregious valuation".

This is why Smith stresses you don't overpay.

3/ Fundsmith's desired companies:

• High quality with sustainable ROCE

• Hard to replicate advantages

• No excess leverage

• High certainty of growth

• Reinvests cash flows at high returns

• Resilient to change

• Attractive valuation

4/ To ensure that Fundsmith abides by its strategy, Smith adopts a list of No's that contradict his low turnover approach.

No Trading

No Hedging

No Shorting

No Nonsense

No Up Front Fees

No Index Hugging

No Market Timing

No Debt or Derivatives

No Fees for Performance

5/ Be comfortable selling a company when the valuation gets too high, or the fundamentals change, no matter how much you like the stock.

Just recently, Smith sold out of two of his longest-term holdings, $PYPL and $INTU

Here's a look at what the Fundsmith portfolio holds today.

6/ Boring is better.

7/ Be picky and wait for the pitch. Life is too short to waste time on bad companies.

8/ Spending time to find the highest quality companies will save you time and money.

9/ Smith believes that quality companies will outperform in the long-term, despite market fluctuations.

10/ "Even if you manage to identify a truly cheap value stock and time the rotation into that stock correctly, this will not transform it into a good long-term investment".

In doing this, the investor has to continuously find new stocks, which Smith feels is a waste of time.

11/ Smith has always avoided banks, and feels that most retail investors should too. Here's why.

Smith: "The answer is that having an understanding of banks would make anyone more wary of investing in them".

Michael Burry is a well-known value investor, famous for his housing short prior to the 2008 crisis. Today he manages capital at Scion Asset Management.

Here are ten takeaways from one of the world's most peculiar money managers.

1/ His weapon of choice? Research.

His playground? Anything.

"If I can find value in it, it becomes a candidate for the portfolio."

2/ "I try to buy shares of unpopular companies when they look like road kill and sell them when they've been polished up a bit".

Burry has never feared being a contrarian and following his own gut.

3/ "Investors should own a concentrated portfolio of high-quality businesses that can deliver strong organic growth even if the economy falters".

Finding businesses that can weather any storm is underrated during boom times.

4/ "I have always believed that a single talented analyst, working very hard, can cover an amazing amount of investment landscape, and this belief remains unchallenged in my mind".

They say no man is an island, but Burry believes a single analyst can get reasonably close.

5/ Not everyone can invest like Burry, find the style that marries your personality and create your edge.

6/ Locate companies with growing intrinsic value.

7/ "I care little about the level of the general market and put few restrictions on potential investments".

If Burry can find value, that's all he cares about.

8/ And he never takes breaks in the pursuit of value.

"Regardless of what the future holds, intelligent investment in common stocks offer a solid route for a reasonable return on investment going forward".

9/ Burry liked to insulate his thoughts to avoid outside influence and biases.

10/ Know what you own, why you own it and DYOR.

In a 2010 shareholder letter, Seth Klarman described 20 lessons from the great financial crisis of 2008, which he notes “were either never learned or else were immediately forgotten by most market participants.”

Here's a memo on those lessons and our takeaways.

Striving to grab every last ounce of potential profit can leave investors in the lurch when a downturn comes.

Uncertainty and risk are not the same. Klarman notes that when uncertainty is great, like during the GFC, and it drives prices to especially low levels, they can become considerably less risky.

"Reality is always too complex to be accurately modelled - attention to risk must be a 24/7/365 obsession".

The anchor of "the last price" can be warped especially in exuberant periods of the market and should be viewed with scepticism.

This is when competition is at its lowest, and fear is at its highest.

New financial products are rarely created with dark days in mind. They are seldom stress tested for such events when the times are good.

Even if you are unleveraged, the leverage that others' employ can impact valuations. When the access to leverage dries up, economic downturns often follow.

Klarman remarks that having "clients with a long-term orientation is crucial. Nothing else is as important to the success of an investment firm."

This can also be applied to the individual investor.

Klarman also highlighted the ten "false" lessons he thinks investors mistakenly absorbed post-GFC; which we have shared below.

François Rochon is the founder and Giverny Capital and is one of the most underrated investors actively managing today.

Since launching his fund in 1993, Giverny has beaten their indexes by a wide margin.

Here are eight takeaways from their recent annual letter.

Since 1998

Since 2007

Acquire businesses that can survive inflation.

Durability businesses >

Be wary of catching falling knives in bear markets.

"In our view, several popular stocks in 2021 that fell sharply in 2022 could follow a similar course in the years to come".

To get rich in the stock market, you must first be in it.

Here's what Rochon has to say:

"Humility is necessary to recognize that the stock market and the economy cannot be predicted in the short term".

Morgan Housel is a partner at Collaborative Fund and the author of one of the 21st century's most influential books about money.

His first book, the Psychology of Money, recently surpassed 3 million copies sold worldwide.

Here are nine lessons from Housel's book.

Using money as a key to freedom over your time is something few goods can compete with.

On the road to wealth, the savings rate is more important than the income level.

If you can understand how human's emotions are tied to money, you can understand why history seems to repeat itself so often.

Be humble enough to realise when luck is on your side.

Avoid relying too heavily on things that have worked or failed in the past.

The further back into the past we look, the more likely it is that it reflects a world entirely different to the one we are in today.

Understand that everyone is playing a different game.

It requires two different mindsets to accumulate wealth and keep it.

You can be wrong half the time and still make a fortune. Learn to become comfortable being wrong.

Peter Thiel is one of the world's most prominent venture capitalists with a net worth exceeding $8 billion. He is known for his early investments in PayPal, and Facebook, and for co-founding Palantir. Here are eight lessons from the man himself.

Get in early and exploit tax shields.

In 1999, Thiel invested $2k in PayPal using a Roth IRA. In 2002, eBay acquired $PYPL and Thiel netted $28.5m. He used these funds to invest in more start-ups, including Facebook in 2004.

Today that IRA is worth more than $5b.

In his 2014 essay, ‘Competition is for Losers’, he outlined how you can identify which companies are pretending to be monopolies and which are trying to hide their monopoly status.

Understand how humans think, and you can identify companies that are set up to benefit.

Every time we create something new, the world moves from zero to one. That is where the largest returns are found.

If you want to succeed, don't be afraid of making mistakes or looking stupid.

If you are not challenging yourself, you risk stagnation.

Utilise first principles thinking.

Always think for yourself.

Stan Druckenmiller is one of the world’s greatest money managers and has traded through market cycles for more than 30 years.

In 2015, he gave what is now a timeless discussion about markets and processes at the Lost Tree Club.

Here are 7 takeaways from his speech.

• Passion for the business

• Great mentorship

• Risk management

• Never invest in the present; look 18 months out.

• The central bank moves the market, not earnings.

"If you invest in the present, you’re going to get run over!"

He also humorously remarks that Soros spent 10% the amount of time working than him, and still outperformed.

• Passion

• Ability to manage bear markets

• Humility and open-mindedness

• Integrity

Joel Greenblatt founded a hedge fund, Gotham Capital in 1985 that would return a 30% CAGR over the next decade. He made his name focussing on spinoffs, corporate restructurings, and other special situations.

These 12 insights will make you a better investor.

But first, did you know that Gotham still exists? Today it's called Gotham Funds.

Outside of managing capital, you may know Greenblatt from his two most popular books:

• You can be a stock market genius and;

• The little book that beats the market

Greenblatt has a long history of educating investors. In the mid-90s, he taught value & special situations class at Columbia University.

His goal was to give students "the course that I never had and that I wish I had".

If you'd like to get access to those lectures, then look no further 👇

Now, onto the insights.

Each year, investors eagerly await the latest shareholder letter from Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.

With a 4% return (vs -18.1% for the S&P) in 2022, $BRKA has compounded at 19.8% since 1965 vs the S&P's 9.9%.

Here are the 14 key takeaways from this year's letter.

• In 1994, the $KO position had a cost basis of $1.3b and yielded $75m annually.

• By 2022 it was valued at $25b and kicked off $704m per anum.

• Buffett calls this practice "disgusting".

• Buffett doesn’t know how the US Government’s deficit will cause problems, just that it will eventually.

• But Buffett claims he'd like to pay even more in the future.

• "Find a very smart high-grade partner – preferably slightly older than you – and then listen very carefully to what he says”.

Mohnish Pabrai is a close friend of Buffett and Munger and is one of the world's most underrated investors.

He admits to mimicking the investing styles of Buffett of Joel Greenblatt and has had tremendous success.

These 12 insights will make you a better investor.

The premise of this strategy is to locate opportunities with considerable upside and limited downside.

High reward, low risk.

You can find them below.