Buffett used this allegory to illus

Buffett used this allegory to illustrate the irrationality of stock prices as compared to true intrinsic value. Graham believed that an investor’s worst enemy was not the stock market, but oneself. Superior training could not compensate for the absence of the requisite temperament for investing. Over the long term, stock prices should have a strong relationship with the economic progress of the business. But daily market quotations were heavily influenced by momentary greed or fear, and were an unreliable measure of intrinsic value. Buffett said,
As far as I am concerned, the stock market doesn’t exist. It is there only as a reference to see if anybody is offering to do anything foolish. When we invest in stocks, we invest in businesses. You simply have to behave according to what is rational rather than according to what is fashionable.
Accordingly, Buffett did not try to “time the market” (i.e., trade stocks based on expectations of changes in the market cycle)—his was a strategy of patient, long-term investing. As if in contrast to Mr. Market, Buffett expressed more contrarian goals: “We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”20 Buffett also said, “Lethargy bordering on sloth remains the cornerstone of our investment style,”21 and “The market, like the Lord, helps those who help themselves. But unlike the Lord, the market does not forgive those who know not what they do.”