“We think that these new standards for strong balance sheets will be very helpful during the next downturn,” Bobrinskoy said. “The strong balance sheets of our investments give us a competitive advantage, and it’s the No.1 lesson that we learned from the 2008 financial crash.”

Assign A Devil’s Advocate

The management team recognized that having a devil’s advocate on staff would bring balance to investing in companies long term. “We get along well as a team, so we assign the devil's advocate’s job because it enables that person to yell and argue,” Fidler said.  “The devil’s advocate role ensures that arguments are fresh.”

The responsibility of playing devil's advocate is shared among various team members from industry group to industry group, but Bobrinskoy says he is the most vocal. “The equity market is an old-fashioned Republican that hopes to have its way and return America to a more free trade environment, which would be good for our numbers,” he said.

Avoid Mixing Politics With Investment Decisions

Rogers' mother, Jewel Lafontant, was a Republican who worked for the Republican administration of President George H.W. Bush as the deputy solicitor general after being the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Chicago law school. Rogers himself is a Democrat who doesn’t allow politics to influence his decisions about investing who has been close to President Obama.

“There were people during 2009, 2010 and 2011 that didn't invest in the markets out of cautiousness and conservatism because they didn't believe in President Obama,” said Rogers, whose father John Rogers Sr. was a Tuskegee airman and Chicago circuit court judge. “As a result, they missed out on this extraordinary bull market and its happening again. Certain people are unhappy with some of the things President Trump says and does, and they've allowed it to influence their investment decisions. We don’t do that.”

Drop Losing Stocks Fast

Redemptions make for a better investor during a great recession, according to Rogers.

“Redemptions force you to take cash away from your weakest holdings and forces you to determine what are your weakest and most expensive holdings,” he said. “That allows you then to have your confident holdings become a larger and larger percentage of the portfolio.”