Amid all the debate about national economics, austerity-versus-growth, whether Greece should be booted out the eurozone, whether China will have a hard landing and so on, here's a reminder: you invest in companies, not economies. And the best way to invest for the long term is not try and second-guess what the market's going to do, or which economy will grow the fastest. It's to buy shares in quality companies at decent prices. As Warren Buffett is fond of saying, "price is what you pay, value is what you get". Mr Buffet's' mentor was an academic called Benjamin Graham, who's known these days as the father of value investing. His seminal book "The Intelligent Investor" - first published in 1949 - remains a must-read work on the subject. The Intelligent Investor forms the basis of Simon Thompson's bargain shares portfolio, which has beaten the market in 11 out of the past 13 years, in some cases handsomely. Today, Simon updates on last year's selection, and provides 10 new value stock picks. In an exclusive video presentation, he also runs through the methodology behind the selection process. If you were worried by the aggregate performance of shares over the past decade, don't be - new research out this week shows that shares remain the best long-term savings product by a long way. We've our usual round-up of share, fund and bond tips - and keep an eye out for the latest blue-chip results, including BG, Diageo, Rio Tinto and Rolls-Royce.
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