Attributes of a good investor

Good lateral thinker - thinking tangentially about the world. Prepared to question what others take for granted and spot companies that are out of favour today but may excite investors at some stage in the future.

Right temperament - extremely important and more important than IQ. Having a reasonable level of intelligence is obviously essential but being super intelligent without the right temperament is uesless. One needs to be calm and treat success and failure the same, mustn't let a good run of winners go to their head nor get too depressed when they have a run of several poor investments. One should be humble and happy to make mistakes; mistakes are in integral part of the job. It's an odds game and no one gets it right all the time. One needs to handle mistakes and learn from them. One must be open-minded, questioning and persevering. Investing is constantly challenging and this intellectual challenge of putting your wits against intelligent investors trying to do the same thing is both at times draining but also very stimulating.

Hunger for analysis and intellectually curious. An investor should always be questioning and always thinking. There is no substitute for doing your own thinking and one must allow time for this. Many investors look for short cuts when investing as an easy option. There is absolutely no substitute for doing your own thinking.

Desire to win - one needs to be motivated to succeed in this intense and competitive environment.

Patience - skillful investors need time for the probabilities to work in their favour.

Happy to go against the crowd - one needs to be an independent thinker and often willing to challenge conventional wisdom and not influenced by what the crowd is doing and not worried about what others think. Most human beings take comfort from the crowd and therefore contrarians are the exception rather than the rule.

Every investor needs to know themselves, know their strengths and weaknesses and compensate for them and find a style or method that suits their temperament and then stick to that approach. There are many ways/approaches to make money in the stock market and one needs to be able to establish what works for them. Investing is very much an individual activity and the final decisions are best made by individuals.