William Patalon III

Investors can flip on the television and have their pick of at least three 24-hour business and financial cable news channels – more if they care to watch international feeds. They've got different pundits and different ideological slants, but pretty much the same flashy chyrons, "Breaking News Alerts," endless "game changers," and breathless "paradigm shifts."

Trouble is, building wealth, making actual money, on any of those "paradigm shifts," or "alerts" is more or less a question of luck, provided the pundit doing the talking knows their stuff – no guarantees there.

What you don't get is the investment fundamentals that have been making investors rich for as long as there have been stocks to buy.

I mean the stuff we talk about in Private Briefing all the time – "the basics" like buying the right companies, picking the price you want to pay, making sure you don't lose money, and how to cope with volatility. Like I said, "the basics."

Getting all that right is much easier than it first seems.

It's a constant theme I cover day in, day out in my Private Briefing research service, but today, I'm distilling it all down for everyone into one three-and-a-half-minute "Lightning Round."