Ask investment buffs why they spend so much more time researching and picking securities than most people, and they'll probably tell you they want the best performance possible from their portfolios. They certainly don't want to track the S&P 500, and they may not even be satisfied to beat it by a percentage point or two over time. They want to CRUSH it.

It's a tall order, to be sure. Maybe two or three out of every 10 investors are fortunate enough to beat the market in any given year, let alone consistently over long periods of time.

This is why so many investors closely watch and try to emulate stock-picking greats like Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn and others. Like most of us, these giants of investing may or may not beat the market in any given year, or even for several years. But over longer stretches… watch out.

This certainly describes Prem Watsa, Chairman and CEO of Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. (Toronto: FFH).

Watsa, age 61 and originally from India, began to earn a reputation as the "Warren Buffett of Canada" back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, not long after he took the reins at Fairfax. Indeed, he sold ahead of the crash of 1987 and foresaw the collapse of Japan's stock market in 1990. He also predicted the mortgage crisis of 2008 and prepared for it by selling or hedging equities and buying credit default swaps, which enable the holder to be compensated for loan defaults. Then, in late 2008 when virtually no one wanted anything to do with the stock market, he began investing heavily in equities again.