Stockpickr: Four Ways to Win Like Buffett

Warren Buffett, considered by many to be the greatest investor ever, is a difficult but not impossible guy to piggyback. What follows are various ways to emulate Buffett, without necessarily mimicking his portfolio.

That said, there's a lot of value in paying attention to his holdings. For instance, when he announced he was buying up to 20% of USG(USG Quote), the stock was at $50. It dipped to $45, where it was possible to pick up shares below Buffett's price. When he first announces his purchases, the stocks he is buying usually spike up. However, that glow eventually wears off and the market takes over.

Buffett's portfolio is the most viewed portfolio on Stockpickr, with close to 100,000 views. But I still believe there's value to be had in bookmarking the portfolio, which you can do by rating it with four stars, and getting notified whenever we update one of his positions. We track not only his positions from filings, but also any public statements he makes about a position.

However, there are other ways to piggyback Buffett's ideas and investments. Here are the four things you need to know to take advantage of Buffett's style without necessarily following his portfolio.

1. You need to know his stockbroker.

When Buffett was moving up in the investment world in the 1960s and early '70s, he used Tweedy Browne as his brokerage firm. For instance, Tweedy Browne helped Buffett accumulate much of his stake in micro-cap (at the time) Berkshire Hathaway(BRKA Quote).

The firm was founded by several former employees (including Buffett) of the investment firm Graham-Newman, which was renowned economist Benjamin Graham's company. They went on to form the very successful Tweedy Browne Global Value Fund. Last year the fund was up 20.1%, and its three-year annualized return is 17.5%. Chris Browne recently wrote The Little Book of Value Investing with Tim Melvin, trader extraordinaire.

You can learn a lot of these guys.