STREET DOGS

Temperament has the power to accelerate or demolish all efforts. It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are, how much knowledge you have, how deep your wisdom, or how powerful your discernment, if you have a temperament that inclines you to taking unnecessary risks, it is only a matter of time before you fail. Overcoming one's personality and innate physiologic responses to stress is difficult to accomplish; however, it is a task that must be fulfilled if an investor hopes to achieve long-term success in the market. – Joshua Kennon

Investors with ordinary intelligence will outperform investors with much higher IQs, so long as they possess superior investing temperaments. Temperament affects so much, yet we rarely give it thought. You need a temperament that controls the urges that get other people into trouble. There is a long list of things that get people into trouble … you need a temperament that neither derives pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd. The temperament of many is incompatible with critical behaviour. Most go with the path of least resistance. – Warren Buffett

Most investors believe their ultimate success is a result of their intellectual prowess. In reality, investment success is a direct function of temperament or more specifically, one’s ability to avoid fatal investment flaws. Most investment flaws are a result of emotion-based decisions. Limiting impulsive investment behaviour is more important than understanding the intricacies of the market or absorbing the business model of a complex company. Investing is largely a game of inaction rather than a game of reaction; in the long run it becomes a battle of attrition where the spoils go to the most patient players. The survivors are the participants who innately possessed the proper temperament or learned to control their destructive impulses. – John Emerson