Buffett succeeds because he is a contrarian. When the average Joe and Jane are selling, he is buying. When the average Joe and Jane is buying, he is selling. He is selectively buying value stocks right now. Any company that is currently trading far below its liquidation value is a great candidate for an investment. These value stocks are rare, but they are out there. Smart investors like Buffett are slowly accumulating these future winners. More info on value stocks at http://www.ValueStockTips.com

Buffet is also a very shrude man, currently he owns over 50% of the mobile home business (low income housing Which he started to eat up the industry about 4 yrs ago!) and he is making a play to push out the other 40% by making some very aggressive plays and I expect he will leave 10 %  for competition to say there is some!

Warren Buffet's Bershire Hathaway, Mitek, just bought TMI Custom Air Systems in Holly, MI. I work for TMI.

What's the quote they always attribute to Buffet?  "When other people get greedy, I get scared and when everyone is scared I get greedy?  

The quote is, "Be greedy when others are fearful".

Rapper Ludacris has his own take on this good advice, "Scared money don't make none".

They are both far richer than anyone reading this... Think on it.

Thanks Og. I think Buffett has a great understanding of macroeconomics in that he knows exactly what to buy and sell for every precise stage of the economy. Right now, according to the above blog, he remains a prominent holder in many cheap, household goods that people will buy particularly in times of recession-- "inferior goods". I am a college student studying economics and not trying to outsmart anyone with profound ideas, this is merely my interpretation. It's not that he gets greedy when other people become fearful, but more importantly, it is his knack for investing in companies with the best chance of profiting respective to any particular phase of our economy. No?

Why is there no mention of his Euro Dollar holdings?

He has been betting against the US Dollar for some time.

Please someone explain the reason for that to me.

I'll take that one, the dolar's plunge is due to the never ending war in the middle east, the mounting US deficit and the Euro zone pays more interest than the US and Japan. Take that!

Don't kid yourselves, Buffet is taking a bath with his stocks as well. He is taking hits just like everyone else.

Buffett, if I remember correctly, has moved partially or completely out of his hedge against the US dollar. The reason was, I believe, he saw the Government debasing the currency. 1) Taxes were cut while expenditures were increased. Thus,an income vs expenditure imbalance was created and expenditures were for militiary and not capital goods. 2) Foreign countries, in particular the BRIC countries, were increasing their capital spending, fostering internal demand, and meeting pent up demand for consumer goods.They were and are holding high foreign exchange balances and the global balance of payments are tilted in their favor. Thus, the dollar was under pressure to fall because we were borrowing from the world to finance our lifestyle and government. At this point, it is difficult to "see" what will happen in the near future. We have brought the world down with us and now it all depends on how the US resurrects itself when faced with its myriad problems: baby boomer retirement, low savings rate, high consumption rate, two wars, immigration problems, education problems. You pick what other items may further our decline but I have laid out the major problems. I do believe we will move forward now that our deregulate at any cost, redistribute wealth from middle class to wealthy, and let's interfer with the rest of the world admin will be out of office soon. Does that mean things will turn around quickly? No. It remains to be seen how the Obama administration will perform against the headwinds and if they will perform at all. But we no longer have a buffoon-in-chief to run the country like he did every company he ran.