"We've really made the money out of high quality businesses. In some cases, we bought the whole business. And in some cases, we just bought a big block of stock. But when you analyze what happened, the big money's been made in the high quality businesses. And most of the other people who've made a lot of money have done so in high quality businesses.

Over the long term, it's hard for a stock to earn a much better return than the business which underlies it earns. If the business earns 6% on capital over 40 years and you hold it for that 40 years, you're not going to make much different than a 6% return—even if you originally buy it at a huge discount. Conversely, if a business earns 18% on capital over 20 or 30 years, even if you pay an expensive looking price, you'll end up with a fine result." ------- Charlie Munger

A very compelling read put together by RBC's Tim Corney yesterday morning that included the above quote. We are not preaching that you exclude current valuation from your thought process when determining whether to invest in a company or not. Rather, it is my position that while valuation should be taken into account, it is less useful over a broader investment time horizon (especially when considering pillars of value). Look at companies like Costco, McDonalds, CN Rail for example.....these are not companies that we rent, they are companies that we invest in.