At the recent CFA Institute Equity Research and Valuation Conference in Philadelphia, Myers credited much of his success to the influences of legendary investors like Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, and Seth Klarman, as well as to genetics. As Myers explained, appreciating the wisdom found in Buffett’s shareholder letters, Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, and Klarman’s Margin of Safety is “either in your DNA or it isn’t.” In practice, Myers has applied the collective work of his investing forebears to his search for those rare standout stocks that he refers to as “six-foot-tall second graders.”
Myers drew on his experiences as a value investor and shared some of the lessons he learned along the way that have come to shape his investing philosophy. These lessons are summarized below and are well worth heeding.