FX.co ★ Six tips from Warren Buffett

The Oracle of Omaha, the founder of the company Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett is the most influential and most thrifty businessman in the world who encourages students not to get into debt on credit cards. At the age of 11 he bought his first shares, and today people are lining up to take a picture with his wallet.

First tip: invest your property in index funds. Buffett recalls that investments must be safe, inexpensive and long-term. "My advice to the trustee couldn't be more simple: Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. I believe the trust's long-term results from this policy will be superior to those attained by most investors."

Stay away from bitcoin. Many people are aware of Buffett's complete distrust of technology companies. However, Buffett does not believe in the Bitcoin network, not because it is a technological investment, he believes that this is not an investment at all, since bitcoins have no real value. "It's a mirage, basically. It's a method of transmitting money. The idea that bitcoin has some huge intrinsic value is just a joke in my view."

Learn how to read financial statements. "Take all the accounting courses that you can find. Accounting is the language of business. It'll make it so much easier for years and years to come for reading financial statements, to get comfortable with it, because it is a language all of its own. Getting comfortable in a foreign language takes a little experience, a little study early on, but it pays off big later on."

Focus on saving, not getting rich quick. Buffett dropped this tip when promoting his basically unwinnable billion dollar bracket challenge. "Well, I think the biggest mistake is not learning the habits of saving properly early. Because saving is a habit. And then, trying to get rich quick. It's pretty easy to get well-to-do slowly. But it's not easy to get rich quick."

When stock prices drop, buy them, don't sell. Investors with itchy trigger fingers rarely succeed. "I like buying it as it goes down, and the more it goes down, the more I like to buy. If you told me that the market was going to go down 500 points next week, I would have bought those same businesses and stocks yesterday. I don't know how to tell what the market's going to do. I do know how to pick out reasonable businesses to own over a long period of time."

Stop pretending to be an expert. "If you don't invest in things you know, you're just gambling. You don't need to be an expert in order to achieve satisfactory investment returns. But if you aren't, you must recognize your limitations and follow a course certain to work reasonably well." That's why technology and gold mining companies never get Buffett's money.