Who doesnt want to be rich and live a life of luxury? There are only a number of men who have reached the top of the financial success ladder.

We all know of Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who was ranked as number one in Forbes Magazines richest people in the world as of 2007. But do you know who ranks number two, right next to Mr. Gates?

Its Warren Buffett, and if you havent heard of him before or are curious to know how he became the most well known investor in modern times, read on to learn more about his life, his company, and his brilliant investment knowledge, which made him such a successful business man.

If you want to think like Warren Buffett and find yourself climbing the steps on that success ladder, then read on.

For starters, Warren Buffett is known as an investor, philanthropist, and businessman. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska in August of 1930. At a young age, he was already trained by his father, Howard Buffett, then a stock broker, about how important it is to be a good investor.

Even before he reached the age of 20, Warren had already been seeing himself as an entrepreneur, purchasing stocks and selling them when the prices get higher. Soon, his investment portfolio grew, and he was making a lot of money purchasing and selling stocks. Sources explain that Warren Buffett is still very practical and frugal, despite his wealth and success, and his principles of investing are among the most valued in the industry.

In 1962, Warren Buffett began purchasing stocks from Berkshire Hathaway, which used to be a textile manufacturing company in Bedford, Massachusetts. Smart as Buffett was, he was able to buy a huge percentage of the stocks of the company, until such time he took control and became CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Today, Berkshire Hathaway is a conglomerate, managing various corporate accounts with a main focus on insurance. The net income of this corporation as of 2006 is over $11 billion.

One of the most basic tenets of wisdom followed by Warren Buffett is that, if you want to end up with high dividend stocks, all you have to do is wait. Waiting means that you monitor such stocks, observe if they are become priced at a lower value than their actual value, and buy them. Pretty soon, the prices of these stocks will equal or even surpass their actual value, so you end up with a lot of high dividend stocks, which you bought for a low price.

It takes a lot of research before you can finally come up with a sound investment portfolio. Again, one of the key elements is timing. Sometimes, when you think it is the best time to sell you stocks because of their high price, you might get disappointed because those prices might sky rocket in the near future.

Though it sounds very simple, keep in mind that Warren Buffett spent so many years of hard work to achieve his current status today. If you want to learn more about him and his investment principles, you can check out the book entitled Buffettology, written by his daughter-in-law, Mary Buffett.

January 25th, 2008 by vwmadm