Warren Buffett Investment Strategy - The Simplified Version
I've read a ton of Buffett related books, interviews, annual reports, original partnership letters, etc. Here's his strategy boiled down to the basics:
1. Do you understand the business? Stick to your "Circle of Competence". If you don't know what your "edge" is, you don't have an "edge".
2. Does it have "durable competitive advantage" or in other words "a moat"? Companies in this camp have a great brand, a franchise, high returns on equity and returns on invested capital, and pricing power. Buffett likes to ask if someone spent $1 billion on trying to build a competitor, would it make a "dent" on the business? If no, it has a good "moat".
3. Do we like the people that run it? Honest and able management. Life is too short to deal with bad people.
4. Does it sell for a price that is attractive? He bought See's Candies for 6Xs earnings. He bought Korean stocks a few years ago at 2Xs earnings. He bought Connoco Phillips at 6Xs earnings. He bought PetroChina at 5Xs earnings and a 10% dividend yield.
The above is his primary core strategy these days. In the past he did more micro-cap "cigar butt", arbitrage, and activist type things.